Publisher's Notebook

J.D. Salinger, the notoriously reclusive author of “The Catcher in the Rye,” died Wednesday at the age of 91.

“Catcher” shows up on many lists of great books of the 20th century. I remember reading it one summer when I was home from college and thinking it was well done (I never had it assigned in any of my American Lit classes). 

Holden Caulfield, the misfit protagonist, wasn’t the easiest character to like, with his chip-on-the-shoulder view of the world. But he did come up with one line that I’ve always remembered and quoted on occasion, a way to describe something so bad that it’s a thing of wonder. Forgive me if my quotation isn’t absolutely accurate.

Holden was generally out of sorts one day (like most days), so he went to see “a movie so putrid I couldn’t take my eyes off it.” 

Indeed.

More news from the VBA meeting in Williamsburg: The association changed the guard at its winter meeting, with new officers taking over last Saturday.

Richmond lawyer John Epps of Hunton & Williams moved into the highly coveted “past president” slot. Taking over the presidency is Epps’ law school classmate at UR, Steve Busch of the Richmond office of McGuireWoods.

Pia Trigiani of MercerTrigiani in Alexandria became president-elect and Hugh Fain of Spotts Fain in Richmond is the new chair the VBA board of governors.

New members of the board include Jim Hingeley, of the PD’s office in Charlottesville, Leighton Houck of Caskie & Frost in Lynchburg, Loc Pfeiffer of Kutak Rock in Richmond and John Walker of Williams Mullen in Richmond. William & Mary Law Dean Dave Douglas will be the law school representative; Judge Jane Roush of Fairfax will be the judicial representative. Michael Quinan of Richmond’s Christin & Barton will chair the VBA Law Practice Management Division.

The Young Lawyers Division also tapped new leadership. Henry Willett of Christian & Barton will be chair; Webb King of the Roanoke office of Woods Rogers is chair-elect.

The Virginia Bar Association held its winter meeting in Williamsburg this past weekend. Attendance was good, very good. Maybe we really have turned a corner.

One of the CLE sessions I sat in on involved advocacy in ADR, providing a panel’s reaction to a wide array of points about arbitration and mediation. Here’s one item – how you handle your clients in the opening session of a mediation.

Richmond lawyer Dave Harless was one of the panelists, and he mentioned he sometimes is reluctant to get parties together at the outset of a mediation. He said he had one client who “violated the Mother Rule” right away, going off on the other side.

The “Mother Rule”? What’s that? asked Doug Rucker of Richmond.

“You don’t say anything you wouldn’t say in front of your mother,” Harless answered.

“Maybe he had a tougher mother,” offered Rucker.

WILLIAMSBURG–The Virginia Law Foundation held its induction dinner last night here in the Colonial Capitol, welcoming 25 new Fellows. They are:

* David P. Baugh, Richmond
* Craig D. Bell, Richmond
* Lynda Lee Butler, Williamsburg
* Thomas J. Cawley, McLean
* Edward L. Chambers, Yorktown
* John G. Douglass, Richmond
* Hon. Ernest P. Gates, Chesterfield
* Tracy Allen Giles, Roanoke
* Michael HuYoung, Richmond
* Brian K. Jackson, Richmond
* Peter J. Kenny, Charlottesville
* William L. Kirby III, Martinsville
* Robert T. Mitchell Jr., Winchester
* Margaret A. Nelson, Lynchburg
* David J. Novak, Richmond
* G. Michael Pace Jr., Roanoke
* Alfred M. Randolph Jr., Norfolk
* Michael L. Rigsby, Richmond
* Carlyle C. Ring Jr., Washington, DC
* Jacquelyn E. Stone, Richmond
* Richard C. “Rip” Sullivan Jr., Falls Church
* John M. Tran, Alexandria
* Russell W. Updike, Covington
* Kimberly Slayton White, Halifax

The Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce, of which our company is a member, has tapped into a program called “Connect 4 Lunch.” You sign up and based on your general stated interests and profile, you get matched to three Chamber members you don’t know and the four of you meet at a restaurant for lunch.

It’s a great concept…power schmoozing and networking for an hour, and you don’t even have to worry about juggling the plate of food or spilling your drink. I went on a “Connect 4” yesterday. Among the things I heard from three other businesspeople in Richmond:

The economy remains troublesome. One guy said he thinks 2010 will be more difficult than 2009. Reason: Real estate projects in process last year will be completed and there’s nothing in the pipeline to replace those jobs.

As a result, architecture firms have been laying off their associates. There’s no work, in part because…

It’s harder to build. Government red tape, at both the federal and local levels, has gotten worse in the past year, according to my colleagues.

Government measures intended to “help” don’t.

Case in point: The new RESPA guidelines, designed to aid consumers, make it harder to complete real estate transactions. Our Peter Vieth apparently hit it on the head with his RESPA story in our Jan. 18 issue. Sources said in that piece that the new regs actually may slow down the recovery (I brought audio-visual aids and passed out copies of the paper in addition to my business card).

With layoffs, many businesses have been forced to do more with fewer people. One guy said he has a colleague who said he actually made more money in ’09 than previous years by cutting expenses, including personnel. But my companions worried that with cuts like those, important details will get missed, overworked employees will make mistakes and the level of customer service will suffer.

Despite some of this gloom and doom, there is reason for guarded optimism. The table was confident that the proverbial pendulum, which seems to have swung in one direction in the past year, would swing back toward the middle. We came back to that image about four times.

And businesses are being creative in their efforts to respond to the current reality. For example, some banks have thought up new products designed to get people into houses easier and still satisfy all the new requirements.

I cited the UVa Law Foundation survey of lawyers we wrote about last year and its basic conclusions: When a recovery comes (and it will), law practice will have changed. But no one knows what that looks like yet. Nods around the table to that one.

One last thing: No one at lunch liked the name “Flying Squirrels” for the new baseball team in Richmond. But the management group behind the new team gets points for its energy and its approach to building up a new operation.

Here’s an item in honor of the Minnesota Vikings, who may or may not be headed to the Super Bowl after this weekend.

Alan Page, a defensive tackle, was one of the Vikings’ vaunted “Purple People Eaters” of the 1960s and ’70s. During that stretch, Minnesota made the Super Bowl four times, all losses. Page, who played for Minnesota from 1967 to 1978, was an All-Pro nine times. After hanging up his spikes in 1981 (he spent his last few seasons as a member of the Chicago Bears), he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame seven years later.

That’s his football story. A Notre Dame alumnus, he envisioned a life after the gridiron. He attended law school at the University of Minnesota, earning his degree in 1978. He was an associate at a Minneapolis firm for a few years, then in 1985, he went to work for the attorney general’s office.

In 1992, he was elected to the Minnesota Supreme Court, the first African-American to serve on that bench. He has been reelected twice since; he comes up on the ballot again this fall.

Here’s a preview of coming attractions for the Virginia Bar Association winter meeting later this week.

Good Guys, Part 1. The VBA will give its William B. Spong Jr. Professionalism Award to two men, Bill Van Buren of Norfolk and Tom Spahn of McLean.

The Spong Award recognizes leadership by example that inspires the legal profession and the public, according to the association.

Van Buren was VBA president in 2006 when he appointed Spahn to chair a special commission to put together Principles of Professionalism for Virginia Lawyers. The commission went to work and the Principles were released last spring. They have been endorsed by the Supreme Court of Virginia, many other state and federal courts in the commonwealth, every statewide bar group and many local bars.

Good Guy, Part 2. John Oakey will receive the VBA’s Roger D. Groot Pro Bono Publico Service Award at the meeting. The Groot award, named for a late Washington & Lee law professor, is given in recognition and appreciation of outstanding pro bono and community service work.

Since he retired from McGuireWoods, Oakey has devoted much of his time to pro bono work. He has represented clients through the Richmond Legal Aid Housing Program, prosecuted child support cases, represented domestic violence victims and handled court appointments. Also, Oakey has served in the leadership of the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, the Legal Aid Justice Center and the Greater Richmond Bar Foundation.

Well done, gentlemen, and cheers!

Every now and then we’ll get a story about a judge or lawyer behaving badly, based on something really kind of off the wall.

Here’s one from Southern Maryland: A circuit judge has been brought up on ethical charges for…deflating the car tire of a part-time cleaning woman at the courthouse.

What sounds like a juvenile prank actually happened last August, according to The Washington Post. Charles County Circuit Judge Robert C. Nalley, 66, apparently didn’t like the fact that a car was parked in a restricted zone. He used a pen or other sharp object to deflate the car tire of Jean Washington, a part-time member of the cleaning crew at the courthouse in La Plata.

Washington’s reason for parking there: It is dark when she finishes her shift and she didn’t want to walk through an isolated parking lot alone.

In his response to the charges, Nalley admitted deflating the tire of the car. Cars parked in the wrong place seem to bug Judge Nalley. After the incident became public, he told a reporter that yes, he did it, and that he had done this before.

The Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities will hear the charges against Nalley, which are based on the canon that a judge “shall respect with and comply with the law and shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the impartiality and integrity of the judiciary.”

The judge is willing to step up and take his medicine. He pleaded guilty to tampering with a vehicle in October and paid a $500 fine. In a creative sentencing twist, he also was ordered to write a “heartfelt” apology to Washington.

Nalley’s lawyer said he will “consent to an appropriate reprimand” from the Maryland judicial commission to the administrative charges.

Apparently there are grass scofflaws in Spotsylvania County that need to be given the business.

Eighteen counties currently have the authority to enact local ordinances requiring residents to keep their grass cut to a length of no longer than 12 inches. (Actually, a foot-tall lawn is pretty long, come to think of it).

The 18? The counties of Arlington, Augusta, Campbell, Chesterfield, Fairfax, Frederick, Hanover, Henrico, Henry, Isle of Wight, James City, Prince William, Roanoke, Rockingham, Stafford, Washington, Wise, and York.

Del. Robert D. Orrock Jr., R-Thornburg, has introduced House Bill 38, which would add Spotsy to the list.

Those grass-cutting ordinances have the potential to have some bite, if the county presses the point. If a resident ignores county officials and fails to get out the Lawn Boy, the county can cut the grass for him then send a bill. And violations also can prompt a $100 fine.

Probably easier to pay the kid next door a few bucks and be done with it.

Richmond lawyer Andy Nea will be honored later this month by the Richmond Bar Association when he picks up the RBA’s John C. Kenny Pro Bono Award for 2009-2010.

The association gives the Kenny award annually to an individual or law firm that shows dedication in furthering the delivery of pro bono legal services to the poor and underserved in the metro Richmond area.

Nea, who is the pro bono partner at Williams Mullen, has given thousands of hours of his own time on pro bono work and he coordinates the activities of more than 300 lawyers in Virginia, North Carolina and DC.

Among the groups for whom he has worked or given his time and leadership: Habitat for Humanity, the Boy Scouts of America, the Legal Information Network for Cancer, Lawyers for Warriors, the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society and the United Way.

Also, he is a member of the board of directors of the Greater Richmond Bar Foundation.

One nomination noted that Nea was instrumental in creating the “Firms for Service” organization, which was started with the purpose of encouraging pro bono work from all of Richmond’s law firms.

And another nomination perhaps said it best: Andy “does not see his service to the community as a requirement of his profession – rather, he views his service as a duty of the heart. He embodies the spirit of service, and opens the doors for others to serve – and receive services – like no other.”

The award will be presented at the RBA’s Jan. 21 luncheon at the Omni. John Luke, the chairman and CEO of MeadWestvaco, will be the featured speaker that day.