Roy Pearson is Officially Unemployed

The Washington Post reports

Roy L. Pearson Jr., the administrative law judge who lost his $54 million lawsuit against a Northeast Washington dry cleaner, lost his job yesterday and was ordered to vacate his office, sources said.

Pearson, 57, who had served as a judge for two years, was up for a 10-year term at the Office of Administrative Hearings, but a judicial committee last week voted against reappointing him.

I smell a new ridiculous lawsuit arising out of the fact that they are giving him until 5 p.m. to vacate his office. I bet something valuable, like a Uniball pen or maybe his red stapler goes missing and he sues the Feds for $100 million.

Hollywood Calls In Mediator to Help with Looming Writers Strike

You might not be aware of it, but the people who write the TV shows and movies that make you laugh, cry and cringe are threatening to go on strike. The Writers Guild of America has been in negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers for several months now, but the current WGA-AMPTP contract expires Wednesday, October 31. While the Guild has threatened to strike, the parties have agreed to allow a federal mediator participate in the latest round of talks.

Why should you care? Well, if you are a voracious reader or workaholic, then you probably don’t. But if you like Grey’s Anatomy or CSI, you might be looking for something to watch in a few months. And you can forget about another ludicrous season of “24.”
The last time the writers had a strike was in 1988, and Hollywood was effectively shut down for five months. Some people claim that it was the beginning of the “reality” TV phase, as Fox started airing “Cops” and “America’s Most Wanted” successfully.

Of course, this is a big worry in our household, as my wife’s business is dependent on the TV business. No writers means no new shows in production. So let’s hope this federal mediator can work some magic and get these people working together.

Meeting the Sin Laws – a blog by a local First Amendment lawyer.

Last night I met a very interesting local lawyer named Cary Wiggins. He represents Georgia’s restaurant and hospitality industry, but has developed a niche representing “adult entertainment” establishments. This can be a hot button issue down here in the buckle of the Bible Belt, despite Atlanta’s cosmopolitan veneer.

Cary maintains a very interesting blog called Meeting the Sin Laws, which focuses on “laws affecting adult entertainment, alcoholic beverages and other “vice” industries” (I also found it interesting that he, too, uses the word “musings” when describing his blog.)

He also has a petition for certiorari that has attracted some attention from the SCOTUS blog’s Petitions to Watch list:

2025 Emery Highway, dba Club Exotica v. Bibb County, Geo.
– Whether a Georgia sheriff’s acts as an “arm of the state” and is thus entitled to 11th Amendment immunity when enforcing county ordinances related to alcoholic beverages and adult entertainment.

Check it out.

Interesting Discussion on Anchoring over at Settle It Now.

The day before I posted about Professor Guthrie’s CLE presentation on The Psychology of Negotiation and Influence, Vickie Pynchon posted Insights from Social Psychology to Help You “Win” Your Next Negotiation.

When Michael Webster of the BizOp News blog commented about the efficacy of anchoring, Vickie posted a response entitled Aggressive First Offers which spawned an interesting discussion.

As it turns out, my lovely wife uses anchoring and aggressive first offers in her business all the time, so we were able to provide real-world examples of the usefulness of this tactic. Head over to Vickie’s blog to read all the comments or click Read On to read my wife’s comments on anchoring.

The Pants “Judge” is About to Lose his Job

The Washington Post is reporting that everyone’s favorite judge (OK, he’s my favorite judge because the mere mention of his name drives web traffic), Roy Pearson is set to lose his job as an ALJ. Sources tell the Post that

A city commission voted yesterday against reappointing Pearson to the bench of the Office of Administrative Hearings, which hears cases involving various D.C. boards and agencies. Pearson, who was up for a 10-year term, had tried to hold on to the job. The commission’s discussions are not public. Sources familiar with the deliberations said the panel hasn’t drafted a letter formally notifying Pearson of its decision. Until that is done, the sources said, the decision is not final. The letter could be sent early next week, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case.

Karma can be harsh.

Georgia Bar ADR Conference – The Psychology of Negotiation and Influence

As I mentioned yesterday, this past Friday I attended the Georgia Bar’s 14th Annual ADR Institute and Neutral’s Conference. The penultimate and most interesting presentation of the day was given by Vanderbilt Law professor Chris Guthrie entitled “The Psychology of Negotiation and Influence.” Professor Guthrie’s biography describes him as “a leading scholar in the areas of dispute resolution and decision-making” with research interests in “Behavioral law and economics; dispute resolution; negotiation; mediation; [and] judicial decision making.”

His presentation (which I hope to receive shortly in PowerPoint form) discussed several key concepts with which every negotiator and mediator hopefully should be familiar: Anchoring, Exchange, and Evaluation. Like me, I would venture to guess most are familiar with these concepts, even if unfamiliar with the technical terms and descriptions.

More after the jump

Georgia Bar ADR Conference – Early Case Assessment and Managing the Tension Between In-House and Outside Counsel

On Friday I attended the 14th Annual ADR Institute and Neutrals Conference at the State Bar of Georgia. Overall, I have to say I was disappointed with the event. I probably should have set my expectations lower, but the roster of participants included several prominent local ADR practitioners, so I expected some good, practical knowledge that I could apply to my practice. What I got was what should be basic common knowledge for any mediator (or as so many were so fond of saying, “Conflict Manager,”), and surprisingly detailed war stories.

Two panels (late in the day, of course) redeemed my faith and are worth discussing here. The first one – Early Case Assessment and Managing the Tension Between In-House and Outside Counsel – was a bit of a surprise to me. Not because I expected it to be a bad panel, but because I guess I didn’t understand the description of the topic. What I expected to be a discussion of how a mediator or neutral could deal with the inherent tension between inside and outside during a mediation was actually an excellent discussion about how lawyers, most importantly, in-house counsel, could employ ADR processes like early case evaluation and pre-suit mediation to help alleviate some of the inherent conflict and tension between the outside counsel who need to bill hours and in-house counsel who need to keep costs down.

It was very encouraging to hear the heads of the Litigation Departments of two billion dollar companies (Georgia-Pacific and The Home Depot) discuss using pre-suit mediation or early-case mediation to help resolve disputes. I have several friends who represent The Home Depot and they have told me numerous times that The Home Depot is fully committed to using mediation as a means of clearing their balance sheets of a significant portion of their litigation docket. I am not familiar with Georgia Pacific’s use of ADR to help settle cases, but their representative echoed the sentiments of Mr. Snyder from The Home Depot. And according to Mr. Snyder, he is preaching his methods to his cohorts in the “big box” retail sector.

It was even more encouraging to hear two prominent business litigators from two of Atlanta’s finest silk stocking firms agree with their in-house counter-parts and discuss everything from early case evaluation to mediation to alternative fee structures. Given what I heard, I would expect some very innovative systems and processes to come from the partnerships of these dynamic in-house and outside lawyers. Unfortunately for me, as a practical matter, I was unable to fight my way through the swarm of my fellow mediators to meet and greet any of the panel.

I’ll discuss the second panel, “Mind Games: The Psychology of Negotiation and Influence,” given by Vanderbilt Law Professor Chris Guthrie, tomorrow.

Man Sues Fiancee for $48,000 Engagement Ring. Friends say, “You spent WHAT???”

Reuters reports that 21 year old Dean Kuehnen of New York is suing his ex-fiance, Andria Castellano, to compel her to return a 3.2 carat engagement ring worth approximately $48,000.

Upon learning the cost of his former fiancee’s ring, several of Dean’s friends are reported to have stated, “Dude, $48,000??? For that, you could have gotten you one pimped out Mustang GT.”

Hello to the Participants in the 40 Sites in 60 Minutes Online Tour

Hello all. I hope you enjoy my site. I must, however, apologize for having puff pieces on the site lately. I try to have a mix of topical and humorous content. I’ve been very occupied with marketing this week and haven’t had the time to sit down and write anything meaningful.

Teaching Young Lawyers Business Development Skills

In one of my periodic emails from the Atlanta Bar, I came across an interesting editorial from Alf Nucifora regarding business development. Mr. Nucifora laments that

the bulk of graduating attorneys never understand the need for business development, nor appreciate the importance of developing business acumen and interpersonal skills in terms of achieving long term career success. By the time they do, it’s often too late.

As an advisor to fourth year associates, he finds that

these budding attorneys lack even the most basic knowledge of good etiquette, courteous behavior and essential business decorum: they aren’t punctual, they’re incessantly and obsessively distracted by their Blackberries, and they dress as poorly as they did in college.

His solution? Change the hiring process to mirror those of the big consultancies to “[gaze] past the immediate credential or college report card to determine how the candidate’s personality will evolve” and develop a law school curriculum to stress the importance of the business of law.