Legal Practice – Page 73 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Empathy Anyone?

Post author:Andrea K. Schneider
Post published:February 25, 2010
Post category:Legal Practice

As readers of this blog know, I lost my grandmother last fall. It was sad, but not tragic. After all, she was 99 and lived a long, productive, happy life. Last week, I (and my siblings) received a very formal letter from a lawyer with an enclosure — under Pennsylvania law, where my grandmother lived, beneficiaries of her estate are required to receive notice of her death. So, the lawyer duly enclosed the official Pennsylvania state language letting me know of my rights (to contest probate, etc.). The cover letter was equally formulaic:

Ladies & Gentlemen:

You will find enclosed with regard to the trust . . . the notice required under Pennsylvania Uniform Trust Act of your grandmother’s death on November 3rd, 2009.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Here’s the thing — this lawyer was at my wedding, invited to my son’s Bar Mitzvah, and has known me since I was 10. I get the same cover letter as someone he has never met — really? And, even if we didn’t know each other, the letter should be better.

A View of ADR as Part of the Process Instead of an Alternative to the Process

Post author:Anthony K. Murdock
Post published:February 18, 2010
Post category:Legal Education Legal Practice Mediation

In law school I had the impression that Alternative Dispute Resolution was a practice area separate from litigation. Seemingly, there was a Chinese wall between the trial advocacy classes and ADR classes. After all, my ADR classes never discussed the techniques for cross-examinations, and my trial advocacy classes never discussed mediation or arbitration strategies.

The ABA Young Lawyer Division’s latest newsletter perpetuates that myth in an article entitled “Top Ten Mistakes Litigators Make in Arbitration.” Certainly, the article gives good advice in telling us what to avoid — serving excessive document requests, using delay tactics, not cooperating, not being prepared, introducing redundant testimony, and filing untimely submissions. However, that advice is equally applicable to litigation as it is to arbitration.

In my experience, the differences between litigation and arbitration are cosmetic.

Imagine this…

Post author:Ashanti Cook
Post published:February 14, 2010
Post category:Computer Law Intellectual Property Law Legal Practice Legal Research Popular Culture & Law

You wake up in the morning and look out your window at the snow. You go to your inventory and pick out a nice outfit and shoes. Then go into appearance and, after wearing your clothes and shoes, you quickly take off all your hair; you need to look sophisticated today. You attach a new ‘do. On second thought…

A quick skin change and some low key accessories later, you teleport out. A few seconds pass, and you find yourself among a group of people in shorts & skirts under the bright sun of Tropical Eden. You realize that the organizers of the contest you came to enter preferred tropical dress, so you popo open your inventory and change outfits, shorten your hair and put on different shoes.

Now that you are ready, you walk to the line that has formed. As you do, you notice the chat around you. “No furries allowed in the contest.” A well dressed wolf curses and disappears and a few tails come off. “Please no biting during the contest.” A lady behind you whispers to a friend, “That is what garlic is for.”