Monthly Archives: March 2017

THESSALON-

I have a stash of writing books; not books about writing, although I have those, too, but books to write in. Blank books call to me, stick to my fingers, sneak into my shopping bags when I'm not looking. David and I have agreed that I'm not allowed any more writing books until I use up what I have. So I was surprised to get one this year for Christmas from David.

It's a beautiful book. It might have been made just for me bound in brown leather, with a gryphon tooled on the front and two metal clasps to hold the book closed. Oh, yes, and the pages are handmade paper. It's gorgeous, and I'm looking forward to using it.

Of course, you don't write in a book like that with a ballpoint pen or a Sharpie, or even one of those really fine rollerball pens. You need a fountain pen to write in a book like that.

I'm no stranger to fountain pens. When I was in public school, back when the school buses were pulled by woolly mammoths, every desk had a hole in the top right corner to accommodate a bottle of ink. Of course we learned to write with pencils. Even when we switched to pens, the standard was not a fountain pen, but a ballpoint. Those ballpoints were something different, too not disposable Bics, but elegant things with three-part barrels. Often the top and bottom were different colours, but there was always a little white-metal band in the centre. When the ink ran out, you unscrewed the two parts of the barrel to replace the slender plastic tube of ink. Inevitably, the metal band fell on the floor and rolled under something, and the little spring around the tube of ink sprang out and boinged off across the room. I believe that changing the refill in my ballpoint pen as a ten-year-old gave me my current conviction that any little motor I take apart will throw pieces irretrievably around the room.

But I digress. I remember owning a fountain pen with a reservoir and a little lever. When you ran out of ink, you stuck the nib in the bottle of ink and flipped the lever out and back. The lever squeezed the rubber reservoir in the barrel of the pen flat, and then released it to suck up ink. A bit Rube Goldberg, maybe, but it worked.

The pen was an old one my mother gave me. Nowadays it would be retro and valuable, but then it was just that old pen that she didn't need because she had another, and good enough for a child to use at school. It was made of pearly white plastic, and the nib, lever and pocket clip were gold-coloured. Heck, it was the early 1960s and this was an old pen they might have been gold-plated. Probably worth a lot on eBay these days. I also remember buying bottles of blue-black ink at Woolworth's.

I don't currently own a fountain pen; the inevitable conclusion is that I need to acquire one. We started by looking at the selection available locally. The prices ranged from about $40 to $100, and made me miss my long-gone pearly-white hand-me-down. The cheapest fountain pen available was about 40,000 times costlier than the ubiquitous ten-for-a-buck stick pens I usually use.

So David, as is his wont, began looking on line at fountain pens. What he found was paeans of praise for the delights of writing with a fountain pen. No more pressing down on the page to make the ball lay down a pasty line, but a light and delightful exercise of floating the nib over the paper on a layer of liquid ink. Writing, apparently, becomes so enjoyable with a fountain pen that you do more of it. It also, the sell went on, makes you a better writer. Then he got to the prices.

I could shell out $100 for a Cross fountain pen in my local stationery emporium, or I could go the luxury route and buy a pen for $500, $1,200 or if I'm really committed to good writing - $15,000. Yes, a one, a five and three zeros. That is almost what I take home from a year of wage-slavery. When I heard that, what I said was well, not fit for publication in a family newspaper. If I spent that kind of money on a fountain pen, it damn well better make me a better writer. In fact, it had better make me Shakespeare.

Suddenly the $100-pen doesn't look quite as expensive. Besides, if I mortgaged the dog and bought the pen for fifteen grand and became a better writer, I'd probably have to buy a better journal. And I'm not allowed any more writing books, at least until I use up what I have.

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Fountain pen prices 'write' out there - Sault Star

Harvard Law School. Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images

Harvard Law School students demands last year that the school abandon its slave-owner connected coat of armshas produced results. Harvard University publicly acknowledged its deep ties to colonial-era slavery Friday, the latest in a string of universities that have sought to confront their connections to slavery recently, often only after students demanded it. (Bloomberg)

Uber Technologies Inc. in-house attorneys could face ethics questions over the companys so-called Greyball program that uses software to side-step law-enforcement and public officials in cities with unfriendlyregulators, lawyerssaid. (The Recorder)

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLPs epic screw-up at the Oscars could carry a high cost ifjurors arrive at an unrelated malpractice trial next week suspecting the global accounting firm is error-prone. (Bloomberg via BLB)

Tim House, whos slated to become Allen & Overys U.S. seniorpartner in May, said he expects a big part of his job to be lateral hiring, as heexpands the firmspresence and brand in New York and Washington, D.C. (BLB)

The worlds biggest firm by revenue, Latham Watkins, has snagged former co-managing partner of Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati John Jack Sheridan as a corporate partner forthe firms emerging companies practice. Sheridan has advisedon some of Silicon Valleys biggestdeals, including YouTubes $1.65 billion acquisition by Google Inc. in 2006, and represented companies and underwriters in over100 IPOs. (The Recorder)

Law Firm Business

Elite national law firms are beating out local firms inthe contest to represent Texas companies participatingin the largest mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, with the biggest winner Chicago-based Kirkland & Ellis, according to new data from research firm Mergermarket. (Houston Chronicle)

Covington & Burling agreed to settle claims that it breachedits contractual obligations to formerclient 3M Co, resolving an unusually publicconflict-of-interest dispute. (Am Law Daily)

DLA Piper hasinformed fee-earningattorneys thattheir salary reviews, initially plannedfor May, will be delayedtwo months to allow thefirm to benchmark its next wage increase against pay hikes atthecompetition. (The Lawyer)

U.K. firm Eversheds, which entered the U.S. market last year through a merger with Sutherland Asbill, now plans to expand in Singapore by making an equity investmentin a local firm. (BLB)

Miami-based Akerman, one of Floridas biggestlaw firms, had its sixth-straight year of gross revenue growth in 2016, posting a 3.6 percent increase, to $349 million. Profits per equity partner dropped by 2.2 percent, as the firm added 33 lawyers to boost its national headcount to 595. (Daily Business Review)

Eight law firms, which account for about $5.7 billion in total market share and employ nearly 7,000 attorneys worldwide, recently got new leadership. American Lawyer recently asked those new leadersabout theiroutlooks for their firms, and for the legal industry. (American Lawyer)

From making partner at 34 and advising Drexel Burnham Lambert while at Cahill, to the immense job of running a Big Law firm, DLA Piper Global Co-Chairman Roger Meltzer takes alook at highlights of hisnearly 40-year career, in his own words.(BLB)

Legal Market

The FTCdropped itsinvestigation into Target Corp. over pillows that retailer labeled as Made in USA but were, actually, madein China.(National Law Journal)

The Royal Bank of Scotland more than tripled its provisionfor future legal spendingstemming fromregulatory and legal actions, to 952 million pounds (about $1.16 billion). (The Lawyer)

A Missouri jury gave Johnson & Johnson a big courtwin Friday, finding thatits baby powder did not cause a Tennessee womans ovarian cancer. The ruling comes after the companylost verdicts of $55 million, $70 million and $72 million last year in Missouri.(National Law Journal)

Corporate legal procurement professionals managed to cuttheir companies legal spending by as much as 23 percent in 2016, and an average of 11 percent, according to a recent survey report from Bloomberg Law and the Buying Legal Council. The 41-page report finds procurement professionals have increasing influence on legal spending, and that they prioritizereducing the number oflaw firms theircompanies deal with. (Buying Legal Council)

President Trumps First 100 Days

President Donald Trumps sonsare pushing to expand the Trump brand, with a plan to opena new, more affordable chain of hotels in cities along the campaign trail. Critics say the ventures pose a potential conflict of interest forPresident Trump, because he stands to profit from them, but the Trumps see nothing illegal.(Vanity Fair)

FBI Director James B. Comey reportedly requestedthe Justice Department this weekend to releasea statement that rejects Trumps unsubstantiated allegations on Twitterthat President Barack Obama ordered Trumps phones to be wiretapped before the election. (Washington Post)

Trumps nomineefor the top deputy to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, veteran prosecutor Rod Rosenstein, still faces confirmation. Now that Sessions hasrecused himselffrom investigations of Russian meddling in the presidential election, the stakes in Senatequestioning of Rosenstein aresuddenly much higher. (Bloomberg)

Happening in SCOTUS and Other Courts

Past decisions of Trumps Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch suggest he is open tolimiting participation of environmental groups in lawsuits involving public lands.(Associated Press)

A Californiajudge Friday gave a greenlight to a JAMSclients lawsuit alleging that the dispute arbitration company puffed upthecredentials of one of itsadjudicators to bring in morebusiness. (The Recorder)

The First Amendment hasnt yet been dragged into the recent debate about whether bureaucrats leaking information about the Trump administration are heroes or public enemies. But it should be, because competing constitutional views about bureaucrats engagement with public affairs have been around for a long time. (Bloomberg View)

An aerobics class founded over 30 years agoby now-retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor has lost its access to the courthouses private basketball and gym area, as OConnor is no longer involvedin the class, the court said. (National Law Journal)

The D.C. Circuit appeals courtFriday upheld alaw barring protests at the U.S. Supreme Court in the latest in a series of decisionsshelteringthe high court from protesters on its grounds or in the courthouse. (National Law Journal)

The Pawnee Nation, anative American tribe, filed a lawsuit in its own tribal court system alleging thatseveral oilcompanies triggeredan earthquake that damaged tribal buildings. (New York Times)

Laterals and Moves

Mintz Levin, has hired a new partner for its national litigation practice in New York, gettingChristopher Sullivan, a former co-chair of the litigation group and executive committee member at Herrick, Feinstein. Sullivan spent 33 years at Herrick and leaves as the firm is said to be inin merger talks with Crowell & Moring. (Am Law Daily)

Technology

A new service called LawyerLine, by Lawyer.com, aims to automate phone answering structure for law firms, but by using scripts rather than actual automation. (Legaltech News)

Robots are wealth creators and taxing them is a bad idea, argues former U.S. Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, disagreeing with recent comments by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. (Financial Times)

Tel Aviv-founded LawGeex said it has closed a $7 million Series A funding round to enhanceits AI-poweredplatform for business contract review.(LawGeex)

Russian hackers are targeting U.S. progressive groups in a new wave of attacks, scouring the organizations emails for embarrassing details and attempting to extract hush money, according to two people familiar with probes being conducted by the FBI and private security firms. (Bloomberg)

Miscellaneous

U.S. airport pat-downs are about to get more invasive, the Transportation Security Administration said. (Bloomberg)

Compiled by Rick Mitchell and edited by Casey Sullivan.

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Wake Up Call: Harvard Confronts Slavery Ties After Law Students Protest - Bloomberg Big Law Business