I caught this little tid-bit the other day: Is Ford’s parting gift to ex-workers ‘cruel joke’?. It seems Ford fired this guy 9 months before his 30th Anniversary with the company–which would have allowed him to retire with full benefits. Instead, he gets a reduced pension and he has to wait 10 years to start drawing on it. Then, to add insult to injury, last week, Ford sent him a congratulatory certificate “recognizing his 30 years of service to Ford”!

He’s already involved in a law suit over his termination. Now, this is how law school changes you… my first thought was, “Can he add an IIED claim?”

(That’s Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress to the non-law-talking-people who read the blog…)

Sort of…

In this article in today’s Tribune, McGuireWoods is taking on the billable hour by offering “alternative billing arrangements.”

Note, the article does go out of the way to avoid saying, “flat fee”. However, any step towards predictability and management of legal costs is welcome, I’m sure.

I wonder if that means associates at McGuireWoods would have reduced billable hour quotas? Or if they would have actual dollar amount goals instead–or god forbid–reduced quotas all around.

There?s a really interesting discussion about an attorney in Kentucky, Ben Cowgill, who purchased a Google AdWord to promote his new law practice. No big deal, you might say, except that the term he purchased was ?Peter Ostermiller? his local competition.

Now, there has been a huge outcry about the ethics of this move. Mr. Cowgill, ironically, represents attorneys who are facing ethics charges. Kevin O?Keefe at Lexblog,com compared his actions to “standing in front of another lawyer’s office with a sandwich board saying, `Would you consider coming down to my office instead?'”

This really isn’t the same as standing in front of a competitor’s practice with a sandwich board directing clients to your firm at all. A much more accurate analogy would be taking out an ad in the same section of the yellow pages as your competitor. That’s hardly illegal, or unethical. I think the problem here is the confusion about what Google is and what it is not. Certainly both men have websites which are indexed and searchable via Google. Similarly, AdWords purchased from Google are not exclusive. So, how is this different from competitors buying billboards on the same stretch of highway, or paying retail chains for adjacent shelf space? I personally don?t think it is any different.

The link displayed for Mr. Cowgill when users searched for Mr. Ostermiller wasn’t misleading, it was clearly marked as advertising, and obviously it might be of value to someone searching for that type of legal service. The only real argument I’ve heard that I buy in this case is from Carolyn Elefant, who notes that Mr. Ostermiller should have the first right to use his own name (in essence a trademark) as his own search term. But his failure to do so does not make Mr. Cowgill’s behavior unethical, and in fact, there was nothing to prevent him from doing so.
I do agree that Mr. Cowgill stepped into a hornet’s nest on this one, and it would have been wise to avoid the issue altogether. However, there seems to be a lot of confusion out there about what Mr. Cowgill really did, which is to simply purchase an ad that would be displayed in the same place as a competitor?s ad. I?ve read several blawgs about how it?s this kind of action that gives lawyers a bad name, but in reality, I think what gives lawyers a bad name is over-reaction and hyperbole.

Ever wonder just how it is that you buy a piece of software, and then, after already having spent the money on it, you are forced to “agree” to a license you never had a chance to review beforehand? The ‘Duh” of Shrinkwrap Licenses.