Legal Commentary

What a crazy week .... we're setting into the new digs (120 Broadway, 5th floor, NYC 10271, 212 457 9601), with the expected bumps and grinds of moving headquarters (challenging tech issues and trying to find your bearings in a new neighborhood).

I really like the downtown venue, although it's eerie to be leaving work every night at the Wall Street subway station, with all the finance meltdowns in our 'hood. There are daily TV cameras in front of too many highrises.

Meanwhile, it's been Yankee Stadium 24/7, with the final week of games before the Steiner Sports sells everything that can be moved and then wrecking crews arrive to get rid of anything else. I lucked out and got tix for the Sunday night Grand Finale -- they are keeping the agenda under lock and key but we hear that Bernie Williams and Aaron Boone are coming -- so I've already decided that I will wear my #19 Boone shirt to the Last Dance (We beat Boston with his extra-innings walk off home run against Tim Wakefield in the 11th inning of the 2003 ALCS. It's my all-time favorite Yankee Stadium memory, even though I was watching it on TV.)

It's been exhilarating this week -- David Baker of Baker Robbins, and my pal Ron Stevens, came in from Chicago, Joe Scott of CompuLaw flew in from LA -- for the Chicago series. Stevens is staying on thru the weekend and will join me at the Final Fete Sunday. Baker is so expert and passionate about his pale Sox he makes me look like an amateur... but he has reason to be happy because his boys are still in the race. 

This is blasphemy, but part me isn't terribly disappointed that we're not headed for October beisbol because between all the hoopla for the Final Season countdown, and the amazing All Star Games week, I'm ready to let the ghosts migrate across the street. My 2009 Final Report will be early this year, but next year it will have it's usual October dateline. So for 2008, GO RAYS!!!! (Sorry, David). GO CUBS!!! (Ditto). Like Paul Butterfield sings, I was born in Chicago,so I want the Cubs to take it all this year, so they don't have to go another century without a championship.

Moving right along:

* Thanks to the NYC chapter of Women in E-Discovery (esp. Babs Deacon) for inviting me to be the kick-off speaker for their Fall meetings yesterday, at MoFo's midtown digs. We had a great turnout, and they were a wonderful audience. I was honored to be invited. I mostly ranted about the post below (the absurd news about gender gaps in pay). If you are a woman in the EDD biz, check them out and join. It's a great group.

* Thanks also to Suzanne Hawkins and the ever-delightful Michael Kraft, for joining me on a wild panel at our CMO Conference Tuesday -- where we rather exuberantly all tried to hog the microphone with our enthusiastic advice about what technology general counsel REALLY want law firms to have. Hawkins is with Heller; Kraft with Kraft Kennedy. We have three really strong egos and it was a LOT of irreverant, substance-packed fun.

Turning to the in-box:

* Good works: I've told you a lot about John Wood's amazing Room to Read program that helps educate youngsters (especially girls) in Nepal, India, Cambodia, etc. If you are an AmEx member, please take a moment and vote for R2R in AmEx's competition -- the winners will get a boatload of money to help keep their momentum. It's just one click -- here's the 411.

* Mo Good Works: Lana Schell is still banging the drum for sponsors for her Oct. 3 Run for the Cure participation in the Susan J. Komen breast cancer fundraiser. 411 here.

* Making Rain: Larry Bodine checks in to let us know that Originate has chosen its 5 Rainmakers of the Year. Nominees were chosen by a panel of experts fielded by the Legal Sales & Service Organization:

Partner - Transactions: H. Patrick Callahan, Baker & Daniels in Indianapolis.
Partner - Litigator: Peter H. Klee, Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego.
Woman Lawyer: Lorelei Graham, Miller Thomson in Ontario, Canada.
Small Firm Lawyer: Wilton G. McDonald II, Truman Bodden & Co. in Grand Cayman.
Associate: Peter J. Bilfield, Withers Bergman in New York.

Read all about it here.

* The fabulous Andy Adkins III ,a longtime LTN board member, and director of the Univ of Fla.'s Tech Institute, has written a Tech Retrospective looking back over the last two decades. Read it here.

BTW, voting is now open for the LTN Vendor Awards. Visit www.lawtechnologynews.com for details (Click on award tab) or click here.