Publisher's Notebook

Back in the mid-1990s, a book called, “Make It So: Leadership Lessons from Star Trek: The Next Generation,” was published.

This was when STNG was in its heyday, and the author took examples from episodes of the series to illustrate the leadership style and techniques of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Each chapter covered a different episode.

Alex Knapp, a writer for Forbes magazine, says that he covers “the future of science, technology and culture.” Makes sense that he’s a Trekker.

Knapp has applied this same approach to Picard’s predecessor as captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, James Tiberius Kirk (above, portrayed by William Shatner).

Instead writing of an entire book, though, Knapp has penned an article for Forbes enumerating “Five leadership lessons from James T. Kirk.”

These include:
• Never stop learning
• Have advisors with different worldviews
• Be part of the away team
• Play poker, not chess
• Blow up the Enterprise

Really good stuff and worth a look if you are in charge of an operation, whether it’s a law practice or a starship.

Live long and prosper.

It’s Cyber Monday, the day when retailers hope to rake in the bucks online. It serves as a bookend to Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving filled with bargains and sales. Hopefully no one will get pepper-sprayed while rushing to the keyboard today.

Does your law firm allow employees to shop from their work computers?

If you say no, you’re not alone. According to a new survey from Robert Half Technology, 60 percent of the businesses surveyed forbid workers to shop from their desks.

And another 23 percent allow some shopping but monitor usage.

Robert Haft hired an independent research firm to do the study; they interviewed more than 1,400 chief information officers at companies with 100 or more employees.

The number of companies that bar at-work shopping is going up. Last year, 48 percent said they did not allow shopping at work.

But savvy shoppers may have a way around the restrictions. John Reed, executive director of Robert Half Technology, said in a statement,” With an increasing number of firms blocking access to shopping sites, many employees may turn to mobile devices to shop at the office.”

Warning: Employees who phone-shop may want to stay on the alert for the HR equivalent of pepper spray.

Why are so many lawyers unhappy?

It’s a question that keeps the therapists in business but it’s not easily answered.

A clinical psychologist in DC, in a piece called “The Depressed Lawyer,” cites a report finding that lawyers have the highest incidence of depression of 100 occupations studied.

This same piece, published in a blog from Psychology Today, offers 10 tips to help lawyers in distress.

Check it out if it might help someone you know.

I was out in Nevada (that’s Nev-ADD-ah, not Nev-AHD-ah) last weekend, at the Society of Professional Journalists convention in Las Vegas.

If you’ve never been there, suffice it to say that Vegas is over the top and in-your-face on just about every level. After I checked in to the Planet Hollywood, where the SPJ was meeting, I rounded the corner and right there on the elevator doors was a larger-than-life poster of Holly Madison, former Playboy Girl Next Door and star of “Peepshow.”  I managed to miss that show, but I assume it was suited to Holly’s talents.

And billboards. All over there were lawyer billboards. Law firms must be keeping the Vegas billboard industry in business.  

One p.i. firm tried poetry: “In a wreck? Get a check!”

Many others offered bankruptcy help. Considering Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the country, I’m guessing those lawyers stay busy.

Traffic tickets must be a problem in Vegas. You can call the ”Ticket Busters” for help. The billboards and website feature a cartoony cop. The firm promises, “NO court. NO traffic school. NO insurance increase (asterisk: “In most cases”).  

There was one firm that seemed to be everywhere: “Half Price Lawyers,” a group that promised to handle your traffic ticket for 50 bucks. For other matters, they have payment plans starting at $100 down.

How can they work so cheap? Their website explains that Half Price Lawyers can charge lower fees “because we only hire experienced seasoned attorneys who have already handled lots of cases like yours.” The site adds, in case you didn’t know, “Experienced attorneys can usually find the answers more quickly than new lawyers lacking experience.”

HPL is the brainchild of Adam Stokes, who has been practicing in Nevada since 2004. He was the force behind Ticket Busters before he sold the firm to another guy, according to Wild Wild Law, “a tabloid blog” dedicated to Nevada law, judges and lawyers.

The Half Price crew is multimedia. In case anyone in Las Vegas missed them, the site features little pictures of their bright yellow and red billboards and their ads on city buses. There’s a little radio you can click to hear their jingle:

Bankruptcy or DUI
Tickets or divorce
Or you’ve been in an accident
And looking for recourse
None of these are pleasant
But here’s something that’s nice
Our lawyers want to help you
And our lawyers are half-price.

If you’re interested, there’s a link to “Franchising and Licensing Opportunities.” The firm will consider licensing the brand. In other words, the “Half Price Lawyers” moniker doesn’t have to stay in Vegas.

Here’s a preview of coming attractions.

In October, we will publish our “Leaders in the Law” magazine, highlighting the honorees in the Class of 2010. Right now we’re collecting info and stories from this year’s group and preparing the copy for the magazine.

They are a highly successful and accomplished group. But one leader admits he wasn’t always so.

Rick Witthoefft of Hirschler Fleischer offers an example of how not to get a job at a law firm. The culprit: himself.

He reported that early on when he was looking for legal work, he put together his resume and a nice cover letter to a firm. Signed, sealed, mailed.

Then he realized that in the envelope he somehow had included “a 3×5 card on which my wife had just typed a friend’s banana nut bread recipe.” Oops.

Witthoefft considered his options. He noted that’s when he learned “that breaking into a public mail box is a federal offense.”

Did he get the job? Nope. But he said he “heard later that they liked the recipe.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel, the author of “Prozac Nation” and “Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women,” has a column in this morning’s Wall Street Journal on “Tough Times for Big Law.”

Wurtzel, who graduated from Yale Law School last year and has been taking the New York bar, writes about hiring at some of New York City’s biggest firms. Some of the big-dog firms have been delaying the start dates of new hires (sounds familiar) and paying them while waiting for that start (ditto).

Some of the bright shiny new law grads have been offered $80,000 to cool their jets until they start briefcase-toting in earnest. These individuals have turned that offer down. The question Wurtzel asks is this: What are they thinking?

I was walking down Main Street in Richmond one sunny lunchtime about a week ago. It was one of those Richmond-in-June days…humid, temp around 80, not bad but you know it’s going to get ugly before long.

Standing in line to get cart food were two guys in their mid to late 20s. Both were in seersucker suits that looked new; one was a light blue and the other gray. Bowties ruled the day, allowing them to show off the crisp starch of their dry-cleanered white shirts. Both had expensive sunglasses: one guy had just a shock of fashionably long hair falling over one lens.

They looked like they were working hard to blend in and, if perhaps a bit overdressed, they succeeded. On a summery day in downtown Richmond, you won’t see that many men wearing a tie, let alone a jacket. It wasn’t that long ago a friend who worked at one of the big firms told me that the office code for men was always to wear a jacket when you went out at lunch, and you always buttoned the button. Even in 90-degree heat. But times do change, thankfully.

I overheard them talking to each other. Casual hail-goodfellow talk, each eager to please and be solicitous of the other. They sounded like two guys who had been thrown together about a week before and were working at becoming friends.

Count on summer to bring four things: Fireflies, corn on the cob, peaches and summer law clerks.

A word of advice to the two guys in seersucker: Work hard and try to enjoy your summer. I hope you get your offer in August.