Friends:

 

I am sick and tired of the world and TMZ/Entertainment Tonight/Extra, etc and the gossip rags taking gleeful joy in a celebrity’s train-wreck of a life, only to act surprised and shattered when they die prematurely.  Whitney Houston?  Ryan Dunn (of “Jackass” fame)?  Lindsay Lohan (ok, not dead yet, but coming?)

When Ryan Dunn died last June from a car accident caused by his driving at excessive speeds while intoxicated, his friends, family, and fans, showered the Jackass world with an outpouring of support and sadness.  His co-stars and best friends were distraught, inconsolable, and desolate.  It was heart wrenching watching these guys who basically pulverize their bodies for laughs break down and sob like little kids.

But while it is never funny for someone to die, let alone at a young age, his death was virtually foretold.  In fact, his friends had frequently commented that since he loved driving so fast he was one day going to kill himself.  But did his friends and family do anything about it?  Did they try to warn him off, express to him how devastated they would be if he died, perhaps suggest that he drive maybe a little slower?  And wasn’t it a few years earlier, in the exact same spot, that Ryan Dunn had had a similar type accident?

Twenty years ago, if you have told me that Whitney Houston was going to die at age 48 of causes likely associated with alcohol and drug abuse, it wouldn’t have surprised me in the least.  If it was obvious to me, then it had to be obvious to everyone else, right?  Yet over the past 20 years, instead of her fans and the media appealing to her to get help, to right her life and get back on track, we watched with amusement as her life spiraled out of control, just another celebrity who partied too hard, lived the life of sex, drugs and rock and roll, and went by the way of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. 

Seriously, don’t we all take a little bit of joy in the trials and travails of Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears?  We see them as privileged starlets, trying to live the Hollywood lifestyle only to come crashing down in flames in front of our eyes, and we flock to it.  TMZ and other websites and “news outlets” of that ilk have created a society in which the self-destruction of celebrities is must watch TV.  Because they are celebrities, with their lives always on stage, it is ok for us to revel in their hardships.  Because they have money.  Because they have fame.  Because we put them on a pedestal and think that they are better than we are.

You know the adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity?  That’s what this is!  Our thirst for gossip about celebrities has created an environment in which they don’t need to remedy their ills, they don’t need to change or get better.  Without their bad publicity, some of them would have none and then where would they be?  Celebrities are a different breed from other people.  By the time they become rich and famous they have been told so many times how great they are, how special they are, how exceptional they are, that many of them need that constant reaffirmation of how special they are.  So the idea of not being in the public eye, of not being followed by cameras, is tantamount to being anonymous.

We as a society, by gawking at their ordeals, reinforce the negative behavior.  If they are on the cover of all of the magazines and are the lead stories on the talk shows because of their run ins with the law, or trips back to rehab, or embarrassing behavior due to substance abuse, and the alternative is a straight life with no publicity, the choice is an easy one.

I don’t mean to be cynical and I know that substance abuse is a disease that many find incredibly difficult to overcome, but wouldn’t their efforts be more likely to succeed if we support them in that, instead of glamorizing their problems?

Here is a perfect example:  anyone know what’s going on with Paris Hilton?  She seems to be flying under the paparazzi radar, what with her not getting arrested for driving under the influence, not having publicly embarrassing episodes, and not going to jail.  Thus, no publicity.

We have created the beast and then we act shocked and saddened when our idols succumb to the very disease we have glamorized.  We call their falls from grace tragedies.  We also have responsibility. 

So I am sorry.  I feel no sadness for Whitney Houston or Ryan Dunn or Michael Jackson or Lindsay Lohan.  I feel only outrage for the rest of the world that holds vigils and gives tributes.  Don’t wait until they are dead to espouse the ills of their abuses.  Don’t reinforce the bad behavior by gawking about it and making it front page news.  How do you stop a bully?  Ignore it and act like it doesn’t bother you.  How do you stop outrageous behavior?  Stop glamorizing it.  Take a stance that this type of behavior will land the celebrity in the worst place imaginable.  No, not a coffin… worse.  Obscurity.

Friends:

 

In case you were not aware, it is Charles Dickens’ 200^th birthday this week and as you no doubt know, I am celebrating.  Of course, I like so many other teenagers saw Dickens as a punishment, some cruel way that the educational system was sticking it to us, forcing us to read this boring, slogging, difficult English writing that was in no way enjoyable or educational.  You know that my tune has changed… and here is why.

Sure, Dickens wrote long books, books with many characters, books about times to which we in the 21^st century cannot relate.  But he also wrote about adolescence, which is wasted on the young.  Unfortunately, so is Dickens.  He MUST be read by adults, as a remider of their past…

There was a time when we didn’t know any better, when things were so much simpler.  We had an innocence and a purity which we have never been able to recapture.  It is a shame that youth is wasted on the young.

When we are young, we don’t know about crime or disease or war.  We don’t know about things that go bump in the night or terrorism.  Pirates only exist in Neverland.  We have an outlook on life and the world which is nice and tidy.  The princess always wakes up, the bad guys always look cartoonishly scary and obvious, and mommy and daddy always tuck you in when you go to sleep.  

But real life, the life of the grown up, is nothing like that.  It may be a question of what came first, the chicken or the egg, but at some point we leave childhood and the blissful naivete that lives there and enter the world of reality television, terror in the skies and tragedy.  Bambi’s mother died, but far off-screen– in real life we don’t have the luxury of averting our eyes or hiding under the sheets, believing that when we look back, all will be well again.

Of course, we all know that some children don’t have the luxury of living in oblivion, they can’t simply bury their head in their mother’s shoulders until the evil sorcerer leaves the screen.  They are forced to accept reality at an early age and have to decide how such reality will shape their future.  Will they struggle against reality and maintain their virtuousness as long as possible, or will they prematurely jump into adulthood despite their persistent immaturity?  For every story of a young girl who finds her way to success despite the turmoil and misfortune of a poor childhood, there are 10 more that result in crime or death or persistent pain. 

Think about the more notable novels of Dickens.  Did you think of “Oliver Twist” and “Great Expectations?”  Maybe “David Copperfield?”  Notice anything similar about those books, the most popular of Dickens’?  They all depict the life experiences of the young.  Child characters who view the world from a three-foot vantage point, staring up at the human race with mouths agape.  Even the illustrations which accompanied the serialized novels when first published depict the “heroes” as tiny creatures in a sea of giants.

And yet, despite the tragedies and challenges they face, the evil and treachery that they experience, they find a way to maintain their innocence, to maintain a view of life as having been un-foretold.  They start out in the bleakest of circumstances, but through virtue and decency, they overcome their plight.  Sure they don’t do it alone; of course they have help along the way.  But it is their character that attracts such wonderful people, benefactors, who help out.  Neither Oliver nor Pip nor Davy ever seems to say a cross word or act out in frustration; it isn’t their nature.  They are kids who don’t know better; Oliver doesn’t realize that Fagin is villainous and David doesn’t see that Steerforth is a bully.

Our kids have that same ability.  You can call it gullibility or susceptibility, but I call it paradise.  Wouldn’t it be nice to return to a time when the world was small, when all we knew was right outside our window?  Where being good and living right meant safety and eventual happiness?  Who wants to really live the life of the tragedian, where everything is gloomy and the sky is always cloudy and dark?

We can be that way again.  It takes work, but if we teach our kids that they don’t have to change, that bullies get their due in the end (always!) and that the good guys always win, wouldn’t that create a society of happiness?  Wouldn’t it make life more fulfilling?  Reading the stories of these young heroes is a sobering but heartwarming experience.  There is a certain amount of joy that one takes from living the growing up process all over again and seeing it through the eyes of the pure.  However that pleasure is tempered by the 11 o’clock news.

It is incredibly easy to understand why Dickens wrote so many wonderful stories about children…  It is the ultimate escape from reality– more fantastic than fantasy.  It returned him and his readers to simplicity, to innocence, to pleasure.  A pleasure which, sadly and “real” enough, we can never recapture.

Friends:

 

How well do you know your spouse or significant other?  Have they been married before?  Are they still married and you don’t even know it?  Does the State of California allow this type of deception?

No, this isn’t the beginning of a treatment for a screenplay I am selling around town.  This is real and when I tell this story to friends and family, they simply don’t believe me when I tell them the truth:  your wife could be married to someone else and not only might you never know, even if you wanted to find out, you likely wouldn’t be able to.

It’s called a “confidential marriage” and is exactly what it sounds like.  It is a marriage that the state will keep confidential, so that a search of public records would not result in its discovery.  What possible good can come of this, you might ask?

Well, it appears that the idea of a confidential marriage came from a good place of protection; to protect children born from long-term, though unmarried, couples from the stigma of being “out-of-wedlock” children.  It also was designed to address the issue of common law marriage, which is non-existent in California.  According to the California Family Code, when an unmarried woman and man, not minors, have been living together as husband and wife, they can have their marriage solemnized and a marriage performed, with the marriage license recorded though kept confidential by the county recorder.  Thus, if the world at large already believes that you are married, you can have the service performed and no one needs to know when the marriage actually took place… because the marriage license is only obtainable by either of the parties to the marriage or pursuant to a court order.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, for one thing, if you wanted to do some background on your soon-to-be husband, you would never know if he was already married.  And we all know that bigamy is against the law.  So if your husband was already married, guess what?  Your marriage is against the law!

It sounds like it would never happen right?  Couldn’t be possible… and you would, unfortunately be wrong.

Consider these facts:

A man marries a woman by a confidential marriage, then a mere two months later, marries another woman in a public marriage, what we would think of as more traditional.  Even though husband lives with wife number two, his marriage to wife number one is never dissolved, nullified, or legally terminated and so, when husband dies, both women lay claim to his assets.  And who wins?

Interestingly enough, the answer is, in most circumstances, both of them.  You see, wife number two cannot prove that the confidential marriage was dissolved or annulled or legally terminated in any way, so her marriage is determined to be a bigamous marriage and thus illegal and invalid. 

However, don’t feel too bad for wife number two—the law does provide for her to be deemed a “putative spouse” meaning that if she can show that she had a good faith belief in the validity of her marriage, she won’t go away empty handed.

Look, it’s one thing for spouses to have affairs and engage in other extra-curricular activities while married; but what if those were not with a girlfriend or boyfriend, but another husband or wife?  You would never know about it and, more astonishingly, you would never be able to find out about it for yourself because the vast majority of case law on the subject addresses situations in which the discovery of the second marriage occurs after the death of the bigamous spouse.  Yep, when the spouse dies, that’s when the “other” spouse comes of the woodwork and lays claim to assets.

And the state of California allows this to happen.  The confidential marriage is just as legal and valid and provides the same rights to the spouses as a fully public marriage. 

Would you believe I have two cases going on right now involving confidential marriages??  Crap, maybe it is more popular than I thought.  Perhaps I need to depose my wife…

In the practice of law, you find all kinds of weird laws—I call them “hiccups” as in when the law was being written someone hiccupped and forgot what they really intended…

It certainly is amazing, don’t you think?

Dress codes in school is a hot button topic these days.  No, not for the students, for the teachers!

A few schools around the country are cracking down on how their teachers are dressing for class.  The days of jeans, flip-flops, gym clothes (for the non-gym teachers I expect) and sneakers on teachers may be ending, and if you ask me, it can’t come any too soon.

There are some people in this world who are worthy, just by virtue of their profession and their level of authority, of our respect and appreciation.  They are law enforcement personnel including emergency service providers, judges, military servicemen and women and teachers.  But that respect is not infinite; it needs to be maintained and continuously earned on a daily basis.  A police officer automatically commands our reverence, but that same police officer arrested for abusing his wife has lost that respect.  Teachers are the same.

I have always held the belief that if you want people to treat you with dignity and respect and, more importantly, take you seriously, you must dress the part.  We are a shallow and superficial society and first impressions may be all that we get, so it has to be a good one.  Want people to listen to you, give you a job, or just treat you politely, your appearance controls a great deal of that. 

Teachers are no exception.  If they want to be taken seriously, if they want to continue to maintain that respect, if they want to be a good role model for their students, they must dress the part.  What message are they sending to the students if they come to class in flip-flops and gym shorts?  If they don’t take their job seriously enough to get dressed up for it, then why should the students take school seriously?

Did you know that there is a dress code for lawyers appearing in court in Los Angeles County?  Los Angeles Superior Court Local Rule 3.43 states the following:  “Persons in the courtroom may not dress in an inappropriate manner so as to be distracting of usual sensibilities.  Attorneys and court personnel should be dressed with current customs as to their business or work attire.” 

Why is this the case?  Because judges and the judicial system demand respect and the easiest method of showing such respect is to dress appropriately.  Teachers who do not dress appropriately for class are not showing respect for themselves; they are not demonstrating to their students that they are entitled to and command respect by virtue of their profession.

Think of it this way—you are in charge of hiring the new employee for a position which will require public appearances and promotional events for your company.  Two applicants apply.  One appears for the interview in a suit and tie while the other appears in jeans and sneakers.  Without having looked at either one’s resume, which one do you think took the interview seriously?  With no other criteria on which to base your decision, which one of the two would you hire to represent your company?  If you wouldn’t hire the applicant in jeans and sneakers to represent your company, would you be comfortable having him or her educate your children? 

I accept the fact that my argument does not take into consideration the qualities of the teacher.  For every burned out teacher with no incentive to work hard but who wears a suit to class there is a teacher who busts his or her hump every day to be an educator but who wears jeans and sneakers and wouldn’t we as parents want the excited and dedicated teacher educating our children?  Hands down, no question, of course.  But is it that difficult to expect that teacher to dress it up a little bit?

In Milwaukee, a retired high school teacher of 33 years wrote a scathing letter to the editor, criticizing a teacher’s dress code as style over substance with too much emphasis being placed on what someone wears as opposed to the skills that one has.  Her major argument, however, was flimsy at best.  She queried where the teachers were supposed to get the money for the new clothes.  She snidely suggested Goodwill.  Really? 

You may think that I am wrong and I very well may be.  I would much prefer the teacher who is energized and sloppily dressed to the one that is spiffy but enervated.  But this is not a situation where changing the dress code will change the product.  Requiring teachers to dress appropriately for class will not be tantamount to cutting Samson’s hair.  They will not suffer a power outage and thus be unable to teach anymore. 

Remember I spoke of those commanding our respect simply by virtue of being in positions of authority?  Who are the first people in authority that our children interact with?  The teachers…

I go to court many times a month and it never ceases to amaze me how inappropriately attired some of the non-lawyer attendees are.  Shorts, baseball caps, flip-flops, baggy jeans, t-shirts, unkempt hair, unshaven faces.  I see it every time and this is when they are appearing in front of a judge who will be making a life-altering decision about them!  Where is the respect?

Teachers are our children’s first exposure to authority.  Do they want their students to respect them?  Then they need to dress like the respect that they command.

Even Mr. Belding wore a suit every day!

I apologize for this week’s email.  I am in trial preparation mode and the only thing on my mind are confidential marriages and interpleader actions.  So, unfortunately, no new content this week.  Instead, I wanted to re-post what I think is probably my favorite of all my past posts, and there have been 124 of them or so.  You probably have your favrite (hopefully?) so here is mine.  Have some fun with it.

If you are unfamiliar, law school exams are frequently comprised of lengthy fact-patterns from which the student is to identify the potential legal issues contained therein.  For example, a fact pattern concerning a character who enters into a contract and doesn’t perform, the student is expected to identify the potential claim for breach of contract, defenses that may exist, elements of the cause of action in order to state a claim, things of that nature.

Whereas everywhere a scientist looks she may find molecular activity, everywhere an attorney looks, he may find a cause of action.  We are trained to take our client’s stories and experiences and identify the traps, look for the pitfalls, and (if the client comes early enough in the process) ensure against potential disaster.

So when I watch television, for example, I spot the issues; sometimes without even knowing that the legal part of my brain is at work.  Thus, imagine my surprise when I identified many potential issues while watching that most wholesome of programs, a muppet movie.  The Muppets Take Manhattan, to be exact.

In all fairness, I am more critical and suspicious of children’s programming because of the lessons that are being learned by our children.  As the father of a 5 year old and 6 month old, I am very careful about what information is disseminated to them.  So when I watched the muppet movie, I was shocked and appalled by what I saw.  And it is because of that, that The Muppets Take Manhattan has been banned from my house.

What was the egregious error being taught to our children?  Well, it was one of improper employment practices. 

If you are unfamiliar with the movie, there is a scene at the end of the movie when the muppets are backstage getting ready to open their show on Broadway.  As they are heading to the stage, Kermit is asked if all of the dogs and pigs and chickens and whatevers can watch the show from backstage.  All of the friends that the characters had met up with during the movie have shown up and want to watch the show.  Instead of letting the dogs and pigs and chickens and whatevers watch the show from backstage, he tells them they are to be in the show.

First things first– I am not going to criticize the movie as being unrealistic but there is no way that any of the dogs and giraffes and birds and possums could possibly know any of the songs, the staging, the dance moves, or the lines from the script.  Kermit, you are opening on Broadway!  Do you really want to send animals that have no acting experience at all onto the stage to effectively carry the main opening number?  Umm, hello– how could any of the costumes fit?

No, the part that was ultra-distressing to me was the flippant method by which Kermit just gave all of these animals jobs.  I bet the show’s insurance broker, if you will pardon the vernacular, “shit a brick.” 

So let’s issue spot, shall we?  My issue spotting is, actually, not only from the standpoint of the lawyer, but also from the perspective of a business owner.

A) The human resources director did not have time to interview all of the new employees to determine if they were qualified for the job.  Did any of them have any experience on a stage?  Summer stock, maybe some commercials, or a pilot?

B) Did the employees complete the necessary new hire packet?  I assume they filled out a W-4 and an I-9, right?  How much withholding did Bear #3 request?  And if you will recall, the animals were introduced in various places of the country.  Is it possible that one or two or more of the new hires were born in a different country?  It is probably pretty easy for a frog to leap from lillipad to lillipad, crossing Lake Michigan from Canada.  I bet the border control agents aren’t covering that method of immigration.

C) Were the new employees given the employee handbook?  Did they understand that they were being hired for 8 shows a week, one show a day Tuesday-Friday and two on Saturday and Sunday each, with Monday off? 

D) Umm, anyone care at all about the unions?  The theater looked to be fairly large, so doesn’t that require that only Actors Equity members be hired?  Did they make sure to comply with the union’s rules regarding hiring and compensation and benefits and contributions and all of the other guidelines regarding employment?

E) Did Kermit check with the producer ahead of time to make sure that there was room in the budget to pay everyone?  He might be in breach of his contract with the producers, unauthorized hirings and firings without producer’s approval.

The list could go on and on. 

But let’s fast forward the story.  Fast forward to the day after opening night.  Everyone is hung-over from a long night of partying and celebrating.  Kermit and Miss Piggy and the gang were at Sardi’s all night, living it up.  Rowlf the Dog commandeered the piano while Fozzie Bear grabbed the mic and regaled the crowd with jokes.

As the cast rolls over to the theater for the next evening’s performance, they are met with a picket line.  The union is protesting the hiring of non-union workers.  The crowd for the show, unwilling to cross the picket line, demands a refund of their money for the tickets.  Chicken #2, who had called her agent that morning to brag about her new gig, informs Kermit that she will hold out because she wants to renegotiate her contract.  It seems that she wants her own dressing room and doesn’t want to have to share the stage with the bears for fear that she may be the bears’ next dinner.  She also has requested that her dressing room be stocked with M&M’s, but only the green ones.  The pig has filed a lawsuit for unfair hiring practices because he feels that he should have had a chance to audition for the role of Dog #5 but was discriminated against because he is a pig.

With all of the strife now looming for the show, the producer has decided to pull the plug.  It seems that since Kermit did not obtain employment practices liability insurance, there is concern that many of the new employees will bring wage and hour claims as well as unfair hiring practices.  The producer does not want the liability and has decided to close the show down. 

 What started out with so much promise… Kermit thought he was doing a solid for his friends by giving them jobs and having them in the show, but at the end of the day, it was like trying to catch a fly caught in fly-paper.  Kermit got stuck and he can’t get away.

Sorry my friends, the curse of being an attorney.  But you can well understand why I The Muppets Take Manhattan is out of the house.  Brooklyn and Kensi want to watch a movie, it will be on which teaches important lessons, like Scarface.

 

It is customary on Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, that parents bestow upon their sons the customary blessing that they grow up to be like Ephraim and Manasseh, despite the fact that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses are the more noteworthy and memorable players in the history of the Jewish people.  And the rabbis have some interesting explanations for this, why such an important blessing on the holy day of Shabbat should be reflective of two of the lesser known members of the story of the Jews. 

First, a primer on Ephraim and Manasseh.  As we know, Joseph (he of the Technicolor dream coat) was one of the 12 sons of Jacob, sold to traders heading to Egypt.  After spending some time in prison in Egypt, Joseph eventually made a name for himself as the official dream interpreter for Pharaoh and, upon learning of his success, Jacob and the rest of his brothers moved to Egypt.  By that time, Joseph had already had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.  The tradition at that time was to bestow certain blessings on the male children of the family and Joseph brought Ephraim and Manasseh to be blessed by their grandfather, whose blessing was that Israel would bless their sons that G-d would make them as if they were Ephraim and Manasseh. 

So what was so special about Ephraim and Manasseh that generation after generation has bestowed this particular blessing related to them?  The rabbis, as you can well expect, have different explanations.

One of them is that Ephraim and Manasseh were born in Egypt in a highly secularized society.  The belief in one god was not commonly held, and it was very easy to lose beliefs and ascribe to the Egyptian theory of worship.  But Ephraim and Manasseh, despite living in such conditions, maintained their beliefs as passed down from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to Joseph.  Thus the hope and desire that in the face of adversity or challenge, the sons of the Jewish people would not lose their faith, but would be as Ephraim and Manasseh.

But I like this interpretation better. 

The Bible is fraught with narratives of brothers who simply don’t get along.  Consider the relationship between Cain and Abel.  Or how about Isaac and Ishmael, or Jacob and Esau or even Joseph and his other brothers.

(Remember a while back we discussed how simple estate planning could have saved thousands of years of war?  http://robcohen13.com/2011/09/26/dov-youre-always-fighting-and-youre-always-in-a-place-where-you-might-get-killed/)

But Ephraim and Manasseh?  The rabbis tell us that these two brothers did not fight; there was no strife between them.  So to be as Ephraim and Manasseh is to maintain a relationship with your brother which is free from discord.

It’s funny actually.  I had never heard the story of Ephraim and Manasseh before or the derivation of the Shabbat blessing until this past Friday night.  In using the example of the warring brothers throughout Jewish history, our rabbi asked of the congregation if they knew the two brothers in Jewish history who did not fight.  Being the typical smart-aleck that I am, I murmured that it was the Cohens, namely my brother and I.  While amusing (perhaps only to myself), it certainly was disheartening, when I thought more about it, that strife amongst families is not unusual.  Just because people share the same blood and even the same upbringing, harmony is not guaranteed.

Can you see where I am going with this?  I have told you before, being an attorney can sometimes be a curse.  It is something about the training in law school, but attorneys think differently.  They issue spot, they are always assessing risk, and they are always taking simple and straight-forward concepts and making them difficult.  Which is why the discussion of the blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh struck a chord with me.  For if all of our sons and, let’s not be sexist, daughters were to be as Ephraim and Manasseh, then I would be out of a job.  Family strife, while discouraging and unfortunate, pays my bills…

But I would certainly trade it all away for harmony.  To me there is nothing more heart-breaking than a family in turmoil resulting from interpersonal relationships. 

 

I am constantly amazed and impressed by the accomplishments of professional athletes; the people on the field who, under seemingly limitless pressure, are able to perform.  The home run in Game 7 of the World Series, the touchdown pass with no time remaining on the clock, the Perfect 10 in the Olympics.  These people are mortal, they live and breathe just like any of us, but somehow they manage to perform when the spotlight is on them.

As an attorney, it is unlikely that I will ever find myself in a situation quite like any of those.  Sure, I will argue numerous cases, cross-examine hundreds of witnesses, and negotiate hundred-page agreements, but performing on the largest of stages likely will not happen for me.  But a guy can fantasize about that, right? 

For example, what would it have been like to represent high school science teacher John Scopes in the Scopes Monkey Trial, defend Leopold and Loeb, prosecute the Nazi War criminals at Nuremburg, or take the place of Atticus Finch and defend Tom Robinson for rape?  The tension palpable, the pressure like the weight of the world, the media scrutiny oppressive, the stakes life-altering. 

Which got me to thinking:  are there any cases that I would have wanted to take on?  If the client had walked into my office and asked me to represent them, would I have accepted the challenge?  We all would like to think that we could defend the honest man/woman, but personally, that isn’t me.  I wouldn’t take on that matter.  In fantasyland, sure, I would do it, but Dred Scott is not walking into my office and asking me to represent him in his case against his master.  So the criminal matters, the particularly nasty stuff, the Constitutional challenges… I likely wouldn’t take them on.  I didn’t say never, just likely that I wouldn’t.

Yet based on my current practice and recent experiences with particular cases, there is a case I would take, if the young lady were to walk into my office.  The case hasn’t been brought yet, but if it walked into my office, I would snatch it up and I believe it would receive quite a bit of media attention.

The young lady in question has a remarkable story, one of love and loss and despair.  When her mother died, it left just her and her father.  She was the apple of Daddy’s eye and the two of them were inseparable; until Daddy remarried a shrew of a woman who had two daughters of her own.  The new blended family was anything but idyllic, and it only got worse when Daddy died, leaving my new client an orphan.

You see, Daddy owned a nice property and had plenty of money, but his estate plan left a lot to be desired.  He left everything in trust for his daughter; however he made his second wife the trustee of the trust with full discretion over its affairs, thinking that his second wife would treat his own daughter the same as she treated her own.  Instead, though, she ran rampant with the trust’s assets, using the family home (more of a castle really) as if it was her own, doting on her two daughters with lavish gifts, clothes, and music lessons (even though they had no musical abilities at all), all the while making my client’s life a living hell.  Not only did she not receive the benefits of the trust, she was forced to earn her keep around the house.  Instead of growing up with the benefits of financial security afforded by the trust, she became a glorified housekeeper, responsible for the house’s maintenance and attending to the needs of the stepmother and her two daughters.  Cooking, cleaning, and scrubbing the floors were part of her everyday life.  Wearing fancy clothes and attending extravagant parties were not part of her existence.  Oh, what her life would have been had the stepmother complied with her duties as trustee!  But no one was there to look over her shoulder and ensure that she was not breaching any of her fiduciary duties.

Until I come along, that is.  This case would be perfect for me.  It has everything; an estate plan that isn’t being performed, a trustee who is running rampant and shirking her responsibilities, two step-sisters who are receiving assets of the trust improperly…

Imagine the possibilities!  A petition requesting that the court order the stepmother to provide an accounting of the trust’s activities; that she be removed as trustee and someone else appointed; that she be personally surcharged for her constant breaches of the fiduciary duty she owed to my client; that the step-sisters be ordered to return all of the assets they improperly received from the trust; and maybe even request that the court terminate the trust and distribute all of the assets to my client immediately.  We might even have to bring a civil action to remove the stepmother and her daughters from the home.

Ahh, if only she had walked into my door.  While hindsight is 20/20, perhaps the client did better by not walking into my office.  Her fairy godmother sure did a better, and more expedient, job of rescuing her from her troubles… who can compete with that whole glass-slipper thing anyways?

But not everyone has a fairy godmother.  And these types of matters are happening constantly.  They just aren’t receiving the same media attention…

Friends:

With this post, a goal of mine is fulfilled. You know I do a tremendous amount of reading, but I have never, in all my years of reading, put together an end of the year list. You see them everywhere; everyone has their Top 10 List of the year and now I get to join the ranks… yes, this is my soon-to-be annual list of the Top 10 Books in 2011.

First, the statistics. When I finish the book I am currently reading, that will make 50 books finished in 2011, which does not take into consideration the two books I did not finish. In all fairness, they were not 50 books by 50 different authors. They were:

Six books by Dennis Lehane; Five books by Lee Child; Three books by Tom Clancy; Two books by Michael Connelly

With that being said, here goes, from 10 to 1:

10) And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. This book was the basis for the board game (and movie) “Clue.” 10 strangers, summoned to an island by an unknown host, are killed one by one. Which one of them is the murderer and who will be next? Written in 1939, it still holds up today. The suspense, the “creepiness” factor, the twist at the end. It holds its own against any of the current mysteries and thrillers.

9) Nuremberg by Joseph Persico. A non-fiction treatise on the Nuremburg War Crimes trial, this thought-provoking and suspenseful book showed not only the attempts made by the Allies to create fairness, but it also humanized the monsters who created such atrocities. An important book to ensure that such genocide does not happen again. I blogged about the book and my thoughts from the lawyer’s perspective in August and you can find it here:

http://robcohen13.com/2011/08/08/justice-justice-shall-you-pursue-that-you-may-live-and-inherit-the-land-which-the-lord-your-god-gives-you-deut-1618-20/

8) The Sherlockian by Graham Moore. Earlier in the year my interest in Sherlock Holmes was renewed and I found this first-book by Graham Moore to be a pleasant addition to the Holmesian library. A Sherlock Holmes scholar comes upon a murder seemingly perpetrated by another Holmes devotee. A good twist at the end and a wonderful use of the jumping between present and past kept the book moving and thoroughly enjoyable.

7) Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin. Not just a murder mystery but also a commentary on race relations and the pain that can be caused by childhood antics. Two kids who were best friends take divergent paths to adulthood, only to meet yet again on opposite sides of a crime. While not a lengthy book, a haunting book, one in which both characters are sympathetic, but is one of them a murderer? I’m not telling, but I guarantee it will shock you.

6) The School of Night by Louis Bayard. I am a sucker for historical fiction especially those which weave famous historical figures with crimes and intrigue and Louis Bayard has never failed. This novel ably weaved a mystery taking place in the present day with a storyline from the past. Louis Bayard receives special recognition because this is his fourth novel and each one has been spectacular. Check out “The Pale Blue Eye” for a mystery involving Edgar Allan Poe…

5) Tripwire by Lee Child. A suggestion from a colleague led me to the books of Lee Child and his literary hero Jack Reacher (soon to be played by Tom Cruise). I read the first 5 books in the Reacher series this year and by far the best of the five was this one, Book 3. A missing Vietnam veteran, a villain with unknown motives, and Jack Reacher right in the middle. What made this one so good is how bad the villain was. How do you make a story really good? Make your villain really bad… This one succeeded on all levels.

4) In The Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. Another non-fiction, this one about the United States Ambassador to Germany in 1933 just as Hitler is coming to power. I didn’t expect to like this book as much as I did. 1933 Germany just didn’t seem to be the hotbed of excitement as, say, 1939-1945. But this book had it all. Mystery, intrigue, suspense, and best of all, it was all true. Amazing how even in 1933, the US was aware of Hitler and his capabilities, but it took nearly a decade to do anything about it. Look for the movie starring Tom Hanks to debut in the next couple of years.

3) Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane. In 2011 I read the entire series of books by Dennis Lehane featuring private investigators Kenzie and Gennaro. This book, while not the best of the series, was second best and also second in the series. The best book in the series was book number 4 called “Gone Baby Gone” but since I had already seen the movie, the suspense of whodunit was absent so this one gets the prized spot as Number 3 of the year. What makes this book so good? The darkness. You can feel the darkness closing around you as the pages flip by. It was one of those books where you don’t want to put it down because you can’t wait to see what happens next, but the eeriness of it begs for sleep as an escape from the suspense. Truly spine-tingling and fantastic.

2) The Drop by Michael Connelly. Michael Connelly, my favorite author. Harry Bosch, my favorite literary character. ‘Nuff said. This one still resonates with me, weeks after I finished it. If you haven’t read a Harry Bosch novel before, don’t start with this one. Go back to the beginning and read them all in order. It will make this book that much more powerful. Very few characters are as introspective and affected as Harry Bosch. Here is the blog I wrote about it just a few weeks ago:

http://robcohen13.com/2011/12/05/looking-good-billy-ray-feeling-good-louis/

And, drum roll please…

1) Dead or Alive by Tom Clancy. First, understand that this book was not written solely by Tom Clancy. He had a co-writer and it is obvious that the co-writer had significant control. This clearly is not on the same level as some of Clancy’s previous modern-day classics like “The Hunt For Red October” or “Without Remorse.” But it gets the number one position on my list for two reasons. First, no one knows how to layer a story the way Clancy does. Like peeling an onion, there are multiple story-lines, numerous characters, good good guys and bad bad guys, and Jack Ryan and team there to save the day. Second, and perhaps foremost, it was a welcome return to the characters who populated some of the best reading experiences of my life. Everything I know about the Cold War, the Middle East, and American politics I learned from Tom Clancy. This felt like old home, the warmth and comfort of my literary heroes and friends, and a welcome change back to the way a modern action and adventure can still be complex and intricate.

So there you have it, my Top 10 of 2011. If you want to see all of the books I read, they are up on my LinkedIn profile, check it out.

Now on to 2012 and more fun with reading!

Have a great New Year to all of you!!

Rob

Last year at this time I wrote about the budget cuts that were coming from newly-elected governor Jerry Brown when he was to take office in January, 2011.  It seems just as appropriate now as it was then.  Litigation continues to be epidemic and the courts overcrowded, it seems that there may be no end in sight to the problems in our justice system.  But how do we fix the problems?  Is it through budget cuts? 

At the time I wrote this blog, I had just had a court appearance at which the judge admitted that the budget cuts would further slow down the process, the court appearances would take longer because more cases would be assigned to the morning’s calendar and any matters that could be approved prior to the hearing would simply have to be called as regular with no non-appearances.  The judge also expressed concern that the budget cuts might unfairly hinder the justice system, a system which was just as important as law enforcement and deserved the same treatment.  It makes sense– How can a society police itself effectively when the method by which offenders are punished is subject to cuts, leading to inefficiency?

I know that there isn’t enough money to go around.  It is a vicious cycle; you think that with the population at current levels there should be plenty of tax money flowing through the government.  But with more people comes the need for more services.  So there simply isn’t enough money out there and in that respect I truly do understand the balance that must be made in order to put together a budget. 

But in focusing on law enforcement first, the justice system second, leaves education a far behind third, which is unacceptable.  I have always been a proponent of the justice system as a means to address crime and civil dispute.  I still am (it is my livelihood by the way), but I think that education should receive foremost attention.

The stats are out there (although I am not going to look for them).  The vast majority of crime is committed by those people who did not succeed in their educational endeavors.  It would seemingly follow, then, that if society focused more on education crime would decrease. 

I understand this is a simplistic analysis and that other factors play a role in the shaping of the criminal element.  However there simply are less and less opportunities for the uneducated.  It used to be that a high school diploma could get you a good job; then it was a college degree; now, it seems that a higher degree is required to secure that career opportunity.  Those amongst us who do not take advantage of educational opportunities will search for other ways to make ends meet.  For some, it will be consumer service positions, hard labor, or other minimum wage jobs.  For others, the quick buck is preferable to hard work.  Rob a store, mug someone on the street, car-jack a Benz.  The benefits far outweigh the risks and I anticipate that more and more people will take those risks unless things change.

It is not going to be an overnight change.  We cannot solve society’s problems in one fell swoop.  It will be a gradual change; one which may take a generation or more to accomplish.  But it has to start now.  The cuts to education have to end.  No more furlough days; no more teacher layoffs; no more school closures.  The population is growing every day and that means that jobs will be more scarce as the current generation proceeds to adulthood and joins the workforce, unless the incoming workforce is well-educated.  There is so much work to do. 

So what is my solution?  HA! That is where I am lucky.  This is my post and I don’t have to come up with the solution.  However, it has to start in two places:  at home and in the government.  Education needs to be a priority and it starts with the parents.  School is not a babysitting service.  It is an interactive experience with three participants:  student, teacher, and parents.  And it has to be viewed that way.  As parents we are our children’s first and greatest role models.  If we demonstrate to our kids that education is important, it will be important to them and they will strive to learn and avoid temptations from the criminal element. 

Secondly, if the government continues to cut services to education, makes the classroom sizes bigger and lays off teachers, what message does that send to the students?  It says to them that the government doesn’t think that education is important.  The government is to be trusted and revered and kids learn that very early when they hear of the heroic acts of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  But how heroic will our leaders look to students when education continues to suffer?

Sounds simple enough, right?

Well, a year has gone by, and nothing has changed.  Education is still far behind the justice system, which is far behind law enforcement.  It IS a vicious cycle… Darn it…

A few weeks ago I got to live out a dream and go to Spring Training as a player.  It was Los Angeles Dodgers Adult Baseball Camp and a chance to spend a week at the Dodgers’ longtime spring training home in Vero Beach, Florida, eating, sleeping, living and breathing Dodgers baseball with retired pros and Dodger heroes as the coaches and instructors.  As a lifelong Dodgers fan, a chance to rub elbows with the stars I grew up with and the legends of the past was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

But what made it even more memorable and extraordinary was the special guest who made a surprise appearance at camp for a few hours. 

You may not be a Dodgers fan; you may not be a baseball fan.  Yet I would expect that more than 90% of you out there have heard of this man, perhaps the greatest Dodgers player of all time.  His name is Sandy Koufax.  A chance to meet Sandy Koufax and shake his hand or get an autograph is something fans dream about.  In many people’s eyes, there is no greater autograph to get or person to meet than Sandy Koufax. 

I want to share with you a story I heard from another camper named Stan.  Stan, had brought with him to camp a picture of Sandy Koufax with a young boy taken sometime in the early 1960s.  It was a color picture, faded a little by time, yellowing at the edges.  When I first saw the picture, I remarked that it looked like it was taken at a Bar Mitzvah.  Well, the little boy in the picture was Stan and it had been taken at the Bar Mitzvah of a friend of his.  Stan kept the picture framed in his office and had taken it out of its frame and brought it with him just in case Sandy Koufax made an appearance at camp.

As you may or may not know, Koufax was always very private and kept out of the limelight as much as possible and, since his retirement, has maintained this level of anonymity.  He doesn’t make many public appearances, is very quiet with respect to interviews, and leads an incredibly low-key and ordinary life.  Certainly not the sort of life you would expect from perhaps the greatest Dodger of all time.  But this is how he has chosen to live and that is simply the way things are.

So you can imagine the excitement and exhilaration when the rumor broke out through the clubhouse that Sandy Koufax was in the building.  Grown men, well into their 50s, 60s and 70s, giggling and laughing like teenagers—THE Sandy Koufax had made an appearance.  Stan already had his picture out ready to go…

Until the rumor spread like wildfire that Koufax would not sign any autographs…

Can you imagine the despair in the clubhouse?  You have to understand that there were about 100 campers in attendance and each one of them bleeds Dodger Blue.  These are not fair-weather fans or occasional followers of the team.  These are people who live for the Dodgers… and they had just been told that their number one hero, the greatest of them all, had said no, that he would not sign any autographs, that he had only come to the camp to visit with one of the coaches who was a close friend of his.  Can you imagine getting your hopes up so high, only to have them dashed in an instant? 

Obviously, you can understand, I was pretty upset.  How could someone that important to all of us simply shun us and act as if we didn’t matter?  Of course, I can see it from his side.  He wants to be private, he doesn’t want to be hounded by giddy and childish fanatics, having to answer the same questions over and over again and sign his name a hundred times.  I understand that.  But what bothered me was that his refusal to sign indicated to me that he didn’t appreciate how important he was to all of those campers.  Which led me to this:

Don’t underestimate how important you are to other people. 

You may not be a star athlete or a Hollywood star or a famous celeb-utante, but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t enamored with you or want to be with you or talk to you or spend time with you.  You are still important to people; in fact, you may be more important than the athlete or the entertainer or the celebrity because you directly impact the lives of those around you.  Why do I say this?  Look around.  Look at your family, your young children.  I guarantee you that my daughter doesn’t understand the significance of a Sandy Koufax, but she does understand the significance of me. 

Well, to close the loop on the story.  Either the story of his not signing was fabricated or Koufax changed his mind, but Stan got his picture signed, and Koufax made 100 grown men as excited as kids.

Don’t underestimate how important you are to other people especially when you may be feeling as if nothing is going right.  You have the ability to make someone’s day just by saying hello or giving them a few minutes of your time.  You may not even know it…

Have a great one.