- Greeting Cards from AttorneyMan Comics Now Available Exclusively at the Billable Hour Card Store
- Feature Article: Develop Your Resiliency
- Cartoon: Stu's Views
- Humor: The Great Rubber Chicken Revolt
- How to Stand Out From the Holiday Crowd
- Oddservations: Supah!
- The Advance Sheet Special Offers Are Back, and They're Better Than Ever
- Cartoon: Juris Comic
- Book of the Month: The Destruction of Young Lawyers: Beyond One L
- Daily Legal Toon
- Humor: Tax Consequences of Acquiring a Trophy Spouse
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Greeting Cards from AttorneyMan Comics Now Available Exclusively at the Billable Hour Card Store
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In our continuing quest to offer the freshest, most unique products for lawyers and legal professionals, The Billable Hour Company has joined forces with AttorneyMan Comics to offer greeting cards featuring the popular AttorneyMan character. The cards are available exclusively through the Billable Hour Card Store.
AttorneyMan recently made his debut in an action-packed and amusingly written comic book designed to teach lawyers the ins and outs of successful marketing. The comic book’s storyline revolves around Tim Silver, an attorney at the fictional law firm Cha Chingi Changa LLP, who, after nine years and 23,000 billable hours, finally makes partner. However, he soon realizes that the firm's other partners no longer give him work, that he has no clients of his own, and that he lacks the marketing skills to develop business. Enter Dr. Development, who gives Tim a magic elixir that transforms him into AttorneyMan, an überlawyer who masters the art of sales and develops a roster of "supersatisfied" clients. AttorneyMan was created by Boston-area consultant (and former lawyer) Karen Katz and illustrator Raul Gonzalez.
"AttorneyMan's mission is to inspire action and teamwork. Nothing says this better than collaborating with a company dedicated to helping lawyers achieve work/life balance through humor," says Katz.
Initially, the Billable Hour Card Store will feature holiday-related AttorneyMan cards alongside the store’s existing legal humor cards by cartoonist Stu Rees. The AttorneyMan collection will expand to include other holidays and important events in a lawyer’s life, as well as topics such as lawyer marketing.
©Karen Katz and Raul Gonzalez. All rights reserved.
(Trust us, the actual card is much sharper: this is a low-res version designed for web and e-mail display.)
Want to check out the comic book that started the AttorneyMan phenomenon—which has been covered by such publications as the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal Law Blog? Searching for truth, career satisfaction and the best in client relationships? Visit www.attorneyman.org now!
Develop Your Resiliency
by Cheryl Stephens
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What is Resiliency?
Resiliency is your innate power to heal, regenerate, and grow. It is expressed in the strengths of emotion, intellect, and spirit. It is what keeps you going in a toxic work environment (did I say law firm?).
Resiliency also involves the ability to learn the lessons from life’s painful passages. This wisdom helps you both cope with and grow through your encounters with adversity. Looking at troubles as having a duality—expressed as risk and opportunity—is a resilient attitude.
Resiliency is built through a web of personal characteristics:
- Insight
- Independence
- Relationship skills
- Initiative
- Creativity
- Humor
- Morality
Coping with change
The more you are willing to be yourself, in all the complexity of life, and the more you are willing to understand and accept the realities in yourself and others, the better you will cope. To the degree to which each of us is willing to be genuine, we find ourselves changing with ease and helping others to accept change.
Strengthen your inner resources
Resiliency is built by reconceptualizing your life history and reframing your present to recognize what is fine, strong, and of value in yourself. It is retelling your story from the perspective of a healthy adult. It is about facing difficulties by asking "How can I use my strengths to overcome this problem?"
Each person’s greatest room for growth is in the areas of their greatest strengths. "What is right with you is more powerful than anything that is wrong with you."
Only you can control your inner resources:
- Self-worth—to accept yourself as you are
"It is only when I can be myself, when I can accept myself that it is possible for me to understand others and accept others."~Carl Rogers
- Self-confidence—your reputation with yourself
"These are my reliable strengths . . . ."
- Positive self-concept—objective and verified
"I am competent, resilient, durable, creative, and enjoy life."
Authentic self-esteem
Look at this from the perspective of a mentoring relationship. To attract the mentor you need, you must yourself display certain desirable characteristics:
- Positive attitude
- Commitment to work
- Drive for success or enthusiasm for life
- Congeniality
- Receptivity to feedback
Exhibiting your resiliency
For a resilient life-style:
- Practice relaxation techniques
- Manage your stress to reduce your strain
- Adopt healthy nutrition and be active physically
- Adopt moderation in your work and expectations
- Be patient with, tolerate and accept yourself
- Build friendships and community
- Develop your spiritual life
Cheryl Stephens, Mentor/Muse, is a retired lawyer who can't seem to stop teaching, writing, and bouncing around to speaking engagements. She can be reached at email@cherylstephens.com.
©Stu Rees. All rights reserved.
Like this cartoon? Send it to friends, clients or colleagues on greeting cards. To order, visit The Billable Hour Card Store.
The Great Rubber Chicken Revolt
by Sean Carter
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Four years ago, I began my career as a legal humorist by speaking to local Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions Clubs on what is termed the "rubber chicken circuit." It's called that because, in lieu of a fee, speakers are compensated with a free meal that almost always consists of a piece of chicken more overdone than the Rocky series of movies.
Back in those early days, I would attempt to choke down my rubber chicken lunch, give a funny speech, and then sell enough books to pay for gas money home. More often than not, I was unsuccessful on all three counts.
Of course, things are different now. As a leading legal humorist, I no longer have to depend on book sales (or a siphoning hose) to provide my travel to events. I am now able to command a reasonable (and whenever possible, unreasonable) fee for my services.
Yet, with all of my "success," one thing still remains the same -- the rubber chicken. In fact, the dining fare at legal events is even worse than that served at your typical Lions Club, Rotary Club or homeless shelter. In addition to inedible chicken, I am also served what is supposed to be a salad and dinner rolls hard enough to cut diamonds. In fact, the fare is so standard that I'm beginning to suspect that an inedible meal is a requirement in every legal organization's bylaws. Somewhere in the quorum section, it must read:
"Quorum. A quorum may only be maintained by first serving the members a meal consisting of dry salad, an even drier hunk of chicken, and dinner rolls. If dinner rolls are unavailable, any brick or rock can be used as a substitute. Upon the first chipped tooth or broken jaw, the presiding officer shall commence the meeting."
Even worse, I seem to be the only one who isn't thrilled with the meal. Everyone else at the table seems perfectly content to graze upon a salad which consists of every green plant on the planet but lettuce. They seem even more pleased as they attempt to break open their dinner rolls with the heels of their shoes. And they appear almost ecstatic as they attack their chicken entree, which is actually the one way possible to cut through three inches of cremated chicken with a butter knife.
Meanwhile, I'm forced to make excuses as to why I'm not enjoying such a wonderful meal. "Oh yes, it looks lovely. I wish I could join you, but I just had my stomach removed last week." That is, until last week, when I finally reached my breaking point.
I was seated at the head table right next to the president of the organization, who turned to me and said, "I noticed that you haven't touched your food. Don't you like chicken marsala?" Without thinking, I replied, "Sure. I just like having a full set of teeth more." Before the last syllable left my lips, I knew I had made a huge faux pas (i.e., I hadn't collected the balance of my fee before dinner).
Fortunately, I've become so accustomed to putting my foot in my mouth at these functions that I've begun dipping my shoes in chocolate sauce before leaving the house. Therefore, I was quickly able to defuse the tension by saying, "You didn't take me seriously, did you? Remember, I'm a Humorist at Law not a Serioust at Law. Hehe."
And while that did the trick to soften the anger of my dinner companion, it only increased my anger. As I see it, they simply don't pay me enough to eat these meals. Think about it. On Fear Factor, I'd get paid $50,000 to eat a disgusting meal and I wouldn't even have to give a 45-minute speech afterwards.
However, I wasn't just upset for me, I was upset for the attendees at this so-called "banquet." While I wasn't being paid enough to gnaw on rubber chicken, everyone else had paid a few hundred dollars for the privilege. This seems backwards even by lawyer standards.
I must confess that I had trouble sleeping that night. It probably had something to do with the fact that I foolishly attempted to "sample" the dessert served that evening. It also had something to do with the fact that I simply can't understand why we lawyers put up with these rubber chicken dinners. Was I absent the day in law school when my classmates had their taste buds removed? Or is it the case that, after spending years eating tuna fish sandwiches for lunch at their desks, most lawyers are happy with any meal that doesn't come in a plastic wrapper?
In either event, it's time for the members of this learned (and malnourished) profession to take a stand. More than two centuries ago, brave Americans stormed aboard a ship and dumped crates of tea into the Boston Harbor to protest their dissatisfaction with imperial oppression. Today, it's time for lawyers to protest our dissatisfaction with gastrointestinal oppression.
Therefore, the next time you attend a legal function and are served an entree tougher than Mr. T (and just as likely to stand up on your plate and start spouting gibberish), take a stand by dumping your plate into the lap of the organizer. I'd do it for you, but I'll be too busy trying out for Fear Factor.
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.
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How To Stand Out From the Holiday Crowd
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In a recent survey by the Remsen Group (a marketing consultant firm that works exclusively with lawyers), 81% of respondents said their firms send holiday cards to clients. How can you stand out from the crowd this holiday season?
Another silver snowflake won't cut it; neither will a wreath, snowman, ornament or Currier & Ives scene. To really make an impression this holiday season, hit 'em in the funny bone with a card from the Billable Hour Card Store!
We have the largest selection of legal humor cards on the web. Plus, our customization options are unparalleled: not only can you write your own personalized message and upload a signature or logo, you can even upload a color photo to be printed on the inside left panel of your cards.
And who says you have to send the same card to your colleagues that you send to your clients? Have a lot of friends in NAELA? They'll get a kick out of our Six Trusts card. If your best friends are ATLA members, they'll love Madame Voir Dire. We have special cards for many different practice areas, and with our flexible ordering system—which allows you to order the exact number of cards you need, and doesn't tie you to multiples of 25 or round numbers—you can get just the right card for everyone on your list.
Oddservations: Supah!
by Bob Pladek
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"Nigel! Wonderful to see you, super, super, super. Am I a teeny bit late?"
"A bit. An hour."
"Oh super!"
—Monty Python
"All I . . . really want to do . . . . Is be a superlawyer . . . like you." (Harmonica wails)
—Bob "Dylan" Pladek
The Committee on Attorney Advertising has it all wrong. I leave it to your individual conscience whether you are shocked or anaesthetized by this revelation.
The committee is wrong in concluding it is an ethical violation for lawyers to vote on who is "super" among their peers. It is wrong in saying advertisements describing attorneys as "Super Lawyers" or similar comparative titles violate the prohibition against advertisements inherently comparative in nature or likely to create an unjustified expectation about results. It’s wrong in stating that advertisements—even those not repeating the moniker "Super Lawyer"—"appearing in Super Lawyer magazine"* are prohibited. It’s wrong in determining that to the extent biographical sketches or other "articles" in the Super Lawyers insert are paid for by the subject attorneys or written in whole or in part by the attorneys, such "articles" must bear the word "advertisement" in large print at the top.
That’s a lot of wrong packed into a 1,300-word opinion.
But if you’re thinking the committee is all wrong because of Bates or the First Amendment or some arcane, obscure, Napoleonic-code legal precept, well, you’re wrong too.
The committee’s wrongness stems from its apparent misunderstanding of the use of the word "super." Gonna do a little William Safire on ya: The etymology of "super" is the familiar "above, over, on top of, beyond, besides, in addition to." This clearly refers to inanimate objects, and therefore not most lawyers, at least before they become judges. Moreover, it is a well-established fact that the average height of a lawyer is slightly less than the national average. There just is no "over" or "above" about it.
I don’t completely discount the use of the offensive word in some kind of context with "lawyer." If we take a quick gander at how it’s used elsewhere, there are possibilities.
Supererogation: The doing of more than duty requires. Oh, I think not.
Superannuated: Obsolete, out of date. I think we need to call this one a "maybe."
Supernal: Heavenly, divine. Ha ha. No, really. Ha ha ha.
Supernatural: Above nature, belonging to a higher realm. Higher tax bracket, maybe. Nothing below a Superior Court judge, for sure.
Superfluous: Unnecessary. Honesty is not always the best policy.
Superficial: Not deep or thorough. I had a roommate who thought golf was deep. He became a doctor. So it’s not just us.
Supercilious: Haughty, arrogant. No comment. And I mean it. What? What are you lookin’ at?!
Superstitious: Excessive fear of the gods. i.e., judges.
Superstar: Johnny Cochran, bless his soul, has passed on.
Superego: Too easy. Too, too easy.
Supermodel: Perhaps the most correct use of the word, legal community notwithstanding.
I suspect the committee’s opinion will go the way of other well-meaning but fiscally irresponsible edicts. Might as well, since the target group has a reputation for finding loopholes. For example:
- Are older "super" designations grandfathered in? Could you run an ad saying "Once a Super Lawyer"? Or "Was a Super Lawyer and, Supreme Court willing, is hopeful will be one again"?
- Will some clever asterisk substitution pass muster? "S***rF***ingLa***r, 2006."
- Can law firms get together and pay for each other’s ads, so they can, at a minimum, indicate "This is a paid advertisement. But we didn’t pay for it."
- And finally, would the committee have any problem with comparisons less superlative but providing greater insight:
- Carlos J. Petersona: "Pretty darn good at some of the things he does. Others, less so."
- James "Jaytee" Tingyourbelli: "Has had remarkable success, especially considering ‘you-know-what.’"
- Eddy McGovan ("Mac" to his friends and bartender "Joe:): "He can break down a ridiculous regulatory directive in less than 30 seconds. When he’s sober."
- Billy "BoBo" Bubalinski: :Always shows up at second-day morning seminars. Late, but by God he gets there."
Stay tuned. Subscribing to New Jersey Lawyer is the best way to do that. Thanks. I think you’re all super.
*Tell me you folks over age 50 didn’t read this verbatim excerpt from the opinion and immediately think, "Superman is based on the original character appearing in ‘Superman’ magazine."
Bob Pladek is Special Sections Editor for New Jersey Lawyer. This article is reprinted with their permission, which wasn’t overly begrudgingly given. Bob’s views, thankfully, are entirely his own. You can reach him at Robert.pladek@njlnews.com.
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The Advance Sheet Special Offers Are Back, and They're Better Than Ever
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In October, we gave a free copy of Sean Carter's book, If It Does Not Fit, Must You Acquit? Your Humorous Guide to the Law, (a $14.95 value) to all customers who purchased a Billable Hour timepeice between October 10 and 21. What will the November Advance Sheet special offer be? Only the Shadow knows . . . . (Actually, we know, but we're not going to tell you now: you'll just have to read the Advance Sheet to find out!).
The Advance Sheet is not posted on The Billable Hour Company's website; it's sent only to our customers and Timesheet subscribers. So if you're reading this on the web, subscribe to The Timesheet by submitting the form in the upper right-hand corner of this page. And remember, watch your e-mail for the next issue of The Advance Sheet: you never know when you'll catch our next special offer!
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Book of the Month: The Destruction of Young Lawyers: Beyond One L
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The thesis of our Book of the Month, Douglas Litowitz's The Destruction of Young Lawyers: Beyond One L, is that "lawyers are pathologically unhappy." Litowitz marshalls both anecdotal and statistical evidence to support this thesis, and devotes a chapter each to what he identifies as the six causes of lawyer unhappiness: law school; the bar exam; the transformation of law into a business that pretends to be a profession; the pressure upon lawyers to practice in a law firm instead of as solo practitioners who can set their own limits on acceptable behavior; technology; and mental dysfunction. In the final chapter, Litowitz suggests that, for those who do not leave the profession entirely, "the best solution is to adopt a critical but hopeful posture toward the profession."
Will you be intrigued by Litowitz's deep-seated anger and disaffection with the law? Saddened (as we were)? Surprised (or not surprised at all)? Read The Destruction of Young Lawyers and let us know what you think.
Check out more books; studies and reports; newspaper and magazine articles; blog entries; and podcasts discussing the billable hour and related subjects such as client service, value billing and work/life balance on our Billable Hour Resources Page.
Humor: Tax Consequences of Acquiring a Trophy Spouse
by James Rose
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Marla Maypole was the "trophy wife" of real estate Developer Ronald Sump. (She was "Miss Trial of 2000.") But unlike wine, cheese or beef she did not get better with age and Sump divorced her. However, he agreed to pay her alimony, which because of clever tax planning under IRS § 1041, was not taxable. (See, G. C. Lepow, Tax Policy for Lovers and Cynics: How Divorce Settlement Became the Last Tax Shelter, 62 Notre Dame L. Rev. 32 at 58 (1986)). The IRS was annoyed.
No one expected the IRS to take notice years later when four people who were famous for being famous on such tabloid TV shows as Hard Edition and Inside Copy got married. All four had been married before. The two men, Don Yuan and Chad Jigeleau were famous for dating rich women, although they themselves had no means of support—visible or invisible.
The two youngish women, Charlotte Anne Czachkow and Marla Maypole, had been what the tabloids call "trophy wives" of older and quite rich men. Their only means of support was payments from their first husbands. Charlotte Ann had married Chad Jigeleau, and Don Yuan had married Maypole. But after a longish party (the beginning and ending date of which no one could quite recall) they got quickie divorces and married each other's spouses.
The men joked that the women were "two of a kind" and "very much alike." When the tabloid New York Voyeur alleged that the remarriage was a stunt to gain publicity, free meals and free lodging from businesses that sought publicity, the parties did not deny it.
Chad thought he got the better of the deal, as his new wife, Ms. Maypole, received a million dollars a year in alimony, whereas his former wife got only a half that amount.
But the IRS had been lurking, and it determined that the marriage was a taxable event. It argued that Chad had acquired a capital asset that produced a large yearly income which resulted in a recognized capital gain of a half million dollars in the process.
Normally a wife is not a taxable asset, and as a result a marriage is not usually a taxable event. But IRS noted that the tax code does allow depreciation of professional athletes' contracts with sports franchises. Thus wives held for investment can be treated as assets in the same way, it argued. Since Chad's "business" was marrying well, he had acquired a valuable asset analogous to an athlete's contract.
But Chad countered that, if the IRS was correct about his wife being an asset, he had made a unique arrangement under an obscure and poorly understood statute. As aging professional fortune hunters themselves, the only asset Chad and Don Yuan had was their wives, who kept them in the public eye and noteworthy. As they were all in the "business" of being famous, and their wives were "assets" used in that business, they argued that property of a like kind had been exchanged under IRS Code § 1031. That section provides that assets of a like kind held in a business may be exchanged without a recognition of gain or loss on the exchange of property.
Another strange provision of I.R.S. Code. §1031 came into play as well. Subdivision (e) provides "for purposes of this section livestock of different sexes are not property of a like kind." Why this was added to the section is anyone's guess. Indeed, the public policy behind the section itself is probably anyone's guess. Senator Hitchcock, in the course of the 1921 debates on §1031, said: "This is like all these other amendments; it might just as well be written in Greek, as far as I'm concerned." (61 Cong. Rec. 6564 (Oct. 21 1921) quoted in M. Kornhauser, We Don't Need Another Hero, 60 U. So. Cal. L. Rev. 397 at 441.)
President Harding remarked of it, "I can't make a damn thing out of this tax problem. I listen to one side and they seem right, and then—God!—I talk to the other side, and they seem just as right."
The wording of the statue clearly required the conclusion that an exchange of livestock of the same sex could be an exchange of assets of a like kind, (not "kine"), since the inclusion of one is deemed the exclusion of all others by rules of statutory interpretation; "Expressio unius est exclusio alterius"—the specific mention of one thing implies the exclusion of other things.
We do not usually consider that humans are livestock. But in this case we are dealing with the interpretation of something as arcane as a federal tax statute, and words used in those monstrosities could be defined in unusual ways (For example, the definition of "sell" under the New York Penal Law includes giving away (People v Milom, 75 App. Div. 2d 68, 71); and an illegal parking lot may be an educational institution, In the Matter of Syracuse University, 59 Misc.2d 684, 300 N.Y.S.2d 129 (Sup. Ct. Onondaga County, 1969)), because they are employed as "terms of art."
"Livestock" is not defined anywhere in the Internal Revenue Code. However, 7 U.S.C. §6502(11) defines the term as "any cattle, sheep, goats, swine, poultry . . . or other non plant life." Humans are clearly alive and are not plants, so they fall within the definition of livestock. A trophy wife held for the purpose of an investment could thus be exchanged without any tax consequence to the parties.
The exchange of a Czachkow for a Maypole for publicity purposes does not result in a taxable event.
Conclusion
With careful tax planning, perhaps only death is certain.
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.
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