Legal Commentary

Want to see me turn purple with anxiety? Put me anywhere near an Excel spread sheet. I may be a decent storyteller, but I'm notoriously awful with digits. My bosses long ago gave up on sending me anything that involves opening Excel, and even John Tredennick, author of two books on how great Excel is, couldn't get thru my brain lock. (He did teach me PowerPoint, but that's another story).

I write. And talk. That's what I do best. This is why I work for a company and I'm not a solo -- so that other people who are brilliant at numbers can work their magic and I don't have to!

But there is help for those of you who share my affliction: My friend Terry Lloyd (who guides me through the numbers I must crunch in my life) helps demystify accounting for our profession. Lloyd is a CPA/CFA and a director at the Finance Scholars Group in Orinda, Calif., and is part of the team presenting a two-day "Basics of Accounting for Lawyers 2009," for the Practising Law Institute. The road trip wraps up today and tomorrow in Chicago, (they've already  been in New York and San Francisco) but you can still get an MP3 audio, audio CD, or a DVD of the program. It will be released on Sept. 4.

Terry was part of the San Francisco program and live webcast, which was co-chaired by Curtis Burr (Burr, Pilger & Mayer) and Lawrence Cirelli (Hanson Bridget), and also included A. Christine Davis (Hemming Morse), David Evans (Haight Brown & Bonesteel), Christopher Holland (Krieg, Keller, Sloan, Reilley & Roman), Michele Kyrouz (Latham & Watkins), Robert Leach (SEC), Moji Saniefar (Orrick, herrington & Sutcliffe) and consultant Rashell Young.

Topics included Understanding GAAP, GAAS, and the Accounting Cycle: Framework & Principles; Anatomy of the Balance Sheet; Anatomy of the Income Statement; Understanding the Statement of Cash Flows: Follow the Money -- Cash is King; The Importance of the Notes to the Financial Statements; Avoiding Legal and Accounting Ethical Issues; Effectively Using Financial Experts; Lawyers' Use/Misuses of Financial Language; SEC Enforcement Actions/Priorities; Fraud and Other Issues on the Horizon.

I'm so glad there are Terry Lloyds in the world who can 'splain it all to those of us who would rather eat pins than even look at an Excel icon.