March 2006 | e-Newsletter

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In This Issue

The Billable Hour™ Company Welcomes Sean Carter to The Timesheet Time is on My Side Our April Fool's Day Drawing Feature Article: Desktop Vacation Benefits Humor: A Joke for a Joke Humor: The Answers to Life's Persistent Questions

The Billable Hour™ Company Welcomes Sean Carter to The Timesheet

Last month’s introductory issue of The Timesheet received an overwhelmingly positive response, with many lawyers, law students and legal professionals subscribing by e-mail or RSS. Not content to rest on our laurels, we are thrilled to announce that each new issue of The Timesheet will include not one, but two, humor columns. Joining James M. Rose on the humor beat is Sean Carter, a syndicated columnist whose work has been featured in publications including The National Law Journal and the ABA Journal e-Report. He is also a much sought-after speaker who presents a variety of programs for law firms and bar associations, including A Lawpsided View of the Profession and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Disciplinary Hearing. We will be giving away copies of Sean’s book, If It Does Not Fit, Must You Acquit? Your Humorous Guide to the Law, to three lucky winners of our April Fool’s Drawing. Please join us in welcoming Sean to The Timesheet with a hearty guffaw.

Time is on My Side

The passage of time is undoubtedly a fundamental element, and one of the universal themes, of music. The late composer John Cage famously observed that music is sound and silence. Time, then, is the canvas on which those sounds and silences are painted. The "tempo" (time) of a piece of music indicates the pace of the work. Rhythm is a division of time into beats. Drummers understand that one of their important roles is that of a timekeeper. In Indian classical music, different compositions are associated with a particular times of day. Popular songs that mention time seem to have a certain poignancy all their own. Could there be a ballad more evocative of a time of day than Thelonious Monk’s ‘Round Midnight?

I recently found a cool website devoted in part to cataloging song lyrics that mention specific times: www.humanclock.com. The work of Daniel Craig Giffen, this clock is a virtual slide show of photographs within which the time of day is displayed. He has also compiled the Time Songs Database, a study of lyrical times in chronological order. Bravo!

Mark Solomon

Our April Fool's Day Drawing

April 1st, said Mark Twain, is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three-hundred sixty-four. The origins of April Fool’s Day are obscure. However, one plausible explanation for our observance of this “holiday” was the result of a paradigm shift in how the world measured time.

In the sixteenth century, the New Year coincided with the vernal equinox, and was celebrated from March 25 to April 1. After Pope Gregory XIII introduced the new Gregorian calendar in 1582, the French king Charles IX decreed that the new year would commence on January first. Some people who either hadn't heard about, or simply didn't believe that the date had changed, continued to observe New Year's Day according to the old calendar. They were called “April fools,” and their hipper counterparts played tricks on them.

While its social, political and historic impact is likely to pale in comparison to that of the Gregorian calendar, the Billable Hour™ timepiece is no less a new way to look at an old concept.

The Billable Hour™ Company invites you to celebrate April Fool’s Day with us with a special offer: when you purchase any Billable Hour™ timepiece from now until midnight on April 1, you will automatically be entered into a drawing to receive a copy of Sean Carter’s book, If It Does Not Fit, Must You Acquit? Your Humorous Guide to the Law. Three winners will be chosen at random.

Feature Article: Desktop Vacation Benefits by Cheryl Stephens

At Your Desk: Playground, Vacation, or Sanctuary
Long, stressful days demand brief interludes of calm or play. To pace yourself, to control your stress level, to keep your genius at work, you need to carve out mini-breaks in your work day. We are not talking here about taking a ten-minute coffee break or a brisk walk on the deck. We are talking about those ten-second to one-minute oases of relief from the interminable focus and concentration that your work requires of you.

Wellness experts suggest that you find ways to initiate these interludes by bringing items to your desktop or office environs that serve to break your concentration and restore your perspective and balance.

You've seen wind-up toys on another lawyer's desk. Or vacation post cards tacked to a computer. Anything non-toxic that makes you stop and smile or even laugh will improve your health and well-being. These are the building blocks for a formal mini-break.

Desktop Vacation
A mini-vacation is a small area of your desktop containing mementos of one of your favorite vacation spots—whether you've ever been there or not. There are some people who don't take the vacations they should: I gave a friend a "fisherman's mini-vacation" kit with miniature souvenirs of a fishing trip and little plastic fish. At least I know he will take the time to think about it—to imagine himself on a vacation of his dreams.

Desktop Playground
A g-rated adult playground for the desktop might include a few crayons, a colorful notepad, a wind-up toy, a puzzle, bubble-making gunk, some marbles or a ball and jacks and so on. Stick it all in a conservative leather or wooden box and nobody has to know it is there for your time-out pleasures. As a client gift, I made a desktop playground from the legal book boxes at Law Courts Center (legal volumes hollowed out in their center to provide storage). Now a lawyer in Vancouver, with volume of the British Columbia statutes at his desk, is hiding his playground in plain sight.

Spirituality at Work
Pat McHenry Sullivan of Visionary Resources is a pastoral counselor in the San Francisco Bay Area involved in the spirituality at work movement. Pat has two new books: Work with Meaning, Work with Joy: Bring Your Spirit to Any Job and Finding Spirit at Work, a compilation of Pat's 26 Vision and Values columns that were published in the San Francisco Chronicle between 1999 and 2001. Visit her site at www.visionary-resources.com.

Desktop Retreat
Pat's version of a desktop break is the Two-Minute Retreat, in which you use your imagination to explore new frontiers or to daydream your way to the top. This is just one of the ideas she shares in a workshop called "Spirit Breaks and Stressbusters."

A lawyer in Washington shared with me the environment she developed for her mini-retreats. She has a water fountain, a cd player, and aromatherapy candles on the bureau behind her desk. Whenever she has achieved a victory in court, she permits herself a mini-break at her desk with all the accouterments of the best spas.

Desktop Sanctuary
A Desktop Sanctuary is a site or collection of items that provides a positive experience for you—whether it provides a spa moment, an occasion for meditation, an occasion for spiritual reflection, or a sense of your self for grounding and recharging your batteries.

Pat Sullivan has observed a similar phenomenon over the 30 years she has worked in law firms. She calls these Workplace Altars. These are collections of personal memorabilia and photos that people keep at their desks. Years ago these would be tucked away in a desk drawer but, for whatever reasons, they now boldly occupy desktops or bulletin boards.

If you want to formalize your own collection, consider the two types of Workplace Altars Pat describes: Personal Archaelogy and Everyday Visionquesting

• Personal Archaelogy: Recover your imagination and a strong sense of purpose, and reconnect with your intuition by collecting natural treasures or personal symbols that you may have lost touch with.


• Everyday Visionquesting: Receive inspiration and direction in the midst of your daily life and work with symbolic representations of your personal journey in life. Turn stress and chaos in your work life into insight and energy with a focus on your own vision of the future.

So with a few of my ideas and these of Pat's, set about creating your own Desktop Escape now!

Cheryl Stephens works with lawyers in Canada and the United States to develop their law practices and enhance their professional and interpersonal skills. She also provides public training in leadership and communication skills, including creativity, innovation and humor. Cheryl, who has been called Canada's only professional muse, currently maintains blogs on life in the law firm; women's challenges in law practice; social and business trends; and plain language. Links to all of Cheryl's blogs can be found at www.CherylStephens.com/blogs.html.

Humor: A Joke for a Joke by Sean Carter

Whenever I tell someone that I make my living telling jokes to lawyers, I usually get two requests. The first request is to please seek psychiatric care. The second request is to tell them a lawyer joke. I’m not sure which request is more offensive.

For one, I don’t know why people feel that I must prove my comedic ability to them. They certainly never acted this way when I was a practicing lawyer. I can’t remember someone discovering that I was a lawyer and saying, "Really? You’re a lawyer? What’s the Rule in Shelley’s Case?"

However, even more offensive than being asked to audition for a complete stranger is being asked to tell a lame lawyer joke. Is this really a feat of comedic genius? After all, anyone with a computer and a fourth-grade reading ability can recite a bunch of lawyer jokes.

There’s so much more to being a legal humorist than telling jokes. The job requires specific skills, like the ability to tell a captivating story, the ability to point out the ironic aspects of legal practice, and the ability to convince your creditors that you will make a “double payment” next month. It’s an art, people!

Ironically, the people who most often ask me to tell them lawyer jokes are laypeople. This makes the situation even more maddening. Why should I debase my profession for the amusement of someone who is not a part of it? I wouldn’t do that in any other context. For example, as an African-American, I would never agree to do a bunch of black jokes at an event in, say, North Dakota, unless, of course, they agreed to pay my full fee. And even then, I’d feel bad about it.

Seriously, I view lawyer jokes much like ethnic jokes. They can be funny, but only when told by a member of that group. This is why Chris Rock can get away with telling black jokes, Jackie Mason can get away with telling Jewish jokes and Tiger Woods can get away with telling all ethnic jokes. I suspect that this is also the reason that I’m able to run around the country making fun of lawyers. In doing so, I’m also making fun of myself (and my unrealistic goal of ever achieving financial solvency).

Laypeople need to understand this truth and lawyers need to be the ones to share this knowledge with them. That’s why whenever someone starts to tell me a lawyer joke, I interrupt them with, "What kind of law do you practice?" When the person indicates that he or she isn’t a lawyer, I’m tempted to come back at them with a few "client jokes" (or a 2x4).

The problem is that there are very few established client jokes. While sites featuring lawyer jokes are as abundant as porn sites (just not nearly as vital to the economy), there are very few client joke websites.

After giving this matter a great deal of thought (at least two minutes’ worth), I think I’ve come up with a solution. As an inner-city youth, whenever I wanted to insult someone (and for some reason, I often did), I’d say something like, "Yo mama so fat she eats Wheat Thicks," or "Yo mama so stupid that she tried to put M&M's in alphabetical order," or "Yo mama so old her birth certificate is in Roman numerals."

Now, as a member of a "learned profession," I realize that you can’t run around yelling, "Yo Mama," every time you hear a lawyer joke. This is particularly true if the joke teller is a client. For instance, if you’re out to dinner with a client, it might not be the best idea to point out that his mother is so short that you can see her feet on her driver’s license photo (even if you suspect this is true). In that context, if he feels compelled to share the latest lawyer joke with you, it probably makes sense to let your next legal bill provide the "punch" the client so clearly deserves.

Therefore, instead of saying disparaging things about the client’s mother, I suggest you make a general reference to how stupid/lazy/greedy your clients are. You can use the same general format as the "Yo Mama so . . ." joke. Simply replace the "Yo Mama" part with a generic reference to your clients. This will allow the client to take himself out of the direct line of fire and assume that you are talking about some other stupid/lazy/greedy client, and not him.

Here are a few examples.

"My client is so cheap that he tried to convince me that I wouldn’t need a retainer if I brushed and flossed daily."

"My clients are so old, their average age is deceased."

"My client is so stupid that he thinks negligence is something you can buy at Victoria’s Secret."

Now, I realize that you may find telling client jokes to be an undignified response to hearing a lawyer joke. However, sometimes you must fight fire with fire. And as the old saying goes, "If you can’t beat ‘em (and you’d really like to), join ‘em."

Sean Carter, Humorist at Law, is a syndicated columnist and popular speaker who presents Comedic Legal Education programs for law firms, in-house legal departments and bar associations across the country. Sean is also the author of If It Does Not Fit, Must You Acquit? Your Humorous Guide to the Law.

Humor: The Answers to Life's Persistent Questions1 by James M. Rose2

Lawyers are in the business of providing answers to clients’ problems. In law school and on bar exams, you get credit for recognizing the problem and enunciating the applicable doctrine (e.g., the Rule in Shelley's Case), whether or not you come to the same conclusion as the examiners concerning the doctrine’s application. Real life doesn't work that way. Clients don't care if you know the Rule in Shelley's Case&8212;they want answers. Correct answers.

After many years of practice, I now have more answers than I have questions. I know, for example, that an infinite number of monkeys sitting at an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite amount of time would produce not only the entire Federal Tax Code³ but also a more intelligible version.⁴ I know the sound that one hand clapping makes⁵ and that it tastes just like chicken.⁶ I know that Eros wrote the book of Love, but a large, multinational drug consortium currently holds the copyright.⁷

So here are the answers to life's persistent questions. (Like all important academic conundrums⁸ they come with quibbling footnotes.)

1. The egg came first.⁹
2. The glass is half empty.¹⁰
3. A mature wood chuck could chuck 3/4 of a cord of wood per hour depending on the size of the woodchuck and whether it was hard or soft wood.¹¹
4. Of course it makes a sound—it's a tree!¹²
5. No, auld acquaintance shouldn't.¹³
6. The peck of pickled peppers is for sale on Ebay.¹⁴
7. The soldiers have all gone to Iraq or Afghanistan.¹⁵
8. It's Memorex.

¹This article is offered on a need-to-know basis only. If you do not need to know the answers to life's persistent questions, read no further.

²White Plains, New York. Mr. Rose was an Editor Demeritis of the Westchester Bar Journal.

³The probability as calculated by Dr. Math at http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/55871.html is 5 x 10⁸¹⁸ for the amount of keystrokes it would take.

⁴This calculation does not take into consideration what influence an infinite number of simian lobbyists with an infinite number of bananas would have on the revised edition.

⁵Like I'm going to tell you! Hint: It's not half a clap.

⁶The actual question as posed by Zen master Hakuin (1686-1769) in a koan was "In clapping both hands, a sound is heard. What is the sound of one hand?"

⁷The Monotones asked this question in 1958, but never got past fifth place on the top ten hits list.

⁸I do not know if the plural should be "conundra" instead.

⁹Some people insist that this is just an instance of asking the wrong question—like who the first person was to speak French and whether anyone understood him. French, like the chicken, is the result of a long series of small, incremental changes and did not leap into being. (See http://devhood.com/messages)

Some geneticists insist that the chicken is just the egg’s way of reproducing another egg.

¹⁰Technically it is half full if you're filling it, and half empty if you're emptying it. Some people insist it is simply the wrong size glass (e.g., http://MIT.edu/people/drb).

¹¹Reasonable persons may disagree about this one. The woodchuck (marmota monax) a/k/a ground hog a/k/a whistlepig is a serious agricultural pest. No one asks how much ground a ground hog could hog if a ground hog could hog ground—an inquiry that is beyond the scope of this article.

The answer to this question depends on the size of the woodchuck, but one answer is the average is 328 butt cords and a median of 612 butt cords (except on Groundhog's Day). (See http://getodd.com/stuf/stupid/woodchuck.html.

Of course the question depends on what period of time the chucking is being done. (See ttp://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2000-05/958482443.Zo.r.html).

¹²If you left a tape recorder in the forest when the tree fell, it would record a sound, wouldn't it? If a judge writes an opinion and you are not there when it's written, isn't it still valid? It isn't all about you, you know!

If you need more information about the legal consequences of trees falling you can go to (I wouldn't dare make this up—look for yourself) http://www.treefall-lawyers.com/ (the firm of Carley & Rabon in Charlotte, North Carolina).

¹³A Scottish folk song transcribed by Robbie Burns asked this question. Auld lang syne means old, long ago. There is some dispute concerning the actual words of other verses, although they have been painfully reassembled by musicologists using scotch tape.

¹⁴This question (Mother Goose asked) is sometimes stated as "Where's the peck of pickled peppers," or, in the alternative, "How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?" This depends on the size of the peppers (bell peppers are much bigger than chili peppers) and the size of the peck. An American peck is 537.605 cubic inches but an Imperial (British) peck is 554.84 cubic inches. (See http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/58478.html). The term "peck" is derived from the ancient French "pek" the size of which is unknown. (Not that I'm nit-pecking!)

¹⁵The soldiers had gone to Vietnam when Judy Collins sang "Where Have all the Flowers Gone?" during the Chicago Seven trial. Judge Hoffman ruled that the song had no place in a United States District Court. (See http://law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Chicago7/Collins.html).

James M. Rose is an attorney and legal humorist in White Plains, New York. The Supreme Court Jester is a collection of Mr. Rose's articles in book form.