Friday Oct 16, 2009
Here is yet another example of sloppy lawyering, resulting in a $100 fine for an inaccurate citation that sent the court on a wild goose chase.
It's important that we take the time necessary to do our jobs properly and professionally. Proofreading (more than once if necessary), cite checking, and following local rules (including attaching a copy of an unpublished case, if required) all would have helped avoid this mistake. Sloppy lawyering is unprofessional and makes us all look bad. Take the time to care and to look good.
BTW, when I studied for the MPRE they told us that new lawyers are generally very careful in their practice and with ethics, and generally don't get disciplined very often. In addition, junior attorneys are generally more closely supervised, so it's harder for them to go astray. The lawyers who make sloppy mistakes and ethical compromises, and who end up getting disciplined by the State Bar, are usually those who have been in practice for a while.
If you want to conduct an informal survey of your own, take a look at the California Bar Journal, which comes out monthly. There's a section in each issue on Attorney Discipline, which gives the most recent disbarments, suspensions/probations, public reprovals, and other disciplinary actions against California attorneys, complete with the attorney names, bar numbers, ages, and a fairly detailed description of each attorney's misconduct. It's a great lesson in what NOT to do.
I looked at the June 2009 issue of the Journal (which seemed to be a good representative sample) and here's what I found. The date after each attorney's name shows when they were admitted to the CA bar. This information is not included in the Journal, but you can look it up here using the attorney's bar number that is included in the Journal.
Disbarment
Bennie C. Ferma, 1989 (misappropriation of funds from client)
Dawna S. Andersen, 1996 (forgery)
Marc B. Levine, 1990 (grand theft)
Suspension/Probation
Duane R. Folke, 1988 (abandonment of clients, failure to return unearned fees)
Craig M. Silman Jr., 2002 (failure to competently perform legal services)
Matthew T. Newman, 1992 (failure to properly maintain client trust account)
Robert F. Graham, 1997 (failure to perform legal services competently)
Richard Hamm, 1974 (DUI, failure to perform legal services competently)
Tarik A. Kanwar, 2003 (failure to perform legal services competently)
Darla R. Anderson, 1982 (acts of moral turpitude; Anderson was subsequently disbarred)
Patrick G. Christoff, 1991 (practicing law while suspended for non-payment of dues)
Mark S. Williams, 1995 (fitness to practice)
Craig E. Munson, 1989 (commingling of personal and business funds in client trust account)
Victoria M. Walter, 1997 (failure to comply with conditions of prior public reproval)
Geoffrey W. Newman, 1996 (conspiracy, soliciting a crime, and capping)
Warren J. Small Jr., 1979 (failure to perform legal services competently, failure to return unearned fees)
Public Reproval
Donald P. Balzano, 1976 (DUI, driving with a suspended license)
Michael L. DeFrank, 1997 (DUI)
Resignation/Charges Pending
Gerald R. Barrick, 1960 (no info. available)
So, the most junior lawyer who was disciplined was admitted to the bar in 2003, and had been practicing for 6 years. The average, though, of all the attorneys disciplined is 20 years of practice. This doesn't mean junior lawyers don't have to worry about discipline. It does mean that sweating the details and paying attention to ethics and the rules of our profession *always* matters, even after you get more comfortable with your job.
Thursday Oct 08, 2009
Like many, I always dread jury duty. Lots of wasted time sitting around in rooms with no ventilation and no Blackberry reception, just waiting for something to happen. As an attorney, it's doubly important for you to do your civic duty, because you can be disciplined by the State Bar if you don't.
Well, here's an idea that has merit: give attorneys MCLE credit for their time on jury duty. I like it - it could result in more smart, professional people serving on juries. If I'm ever a defendant in a lawsuit (heaven forbid!), those are the people I would want deciding my fate. Not 12 people who would rather be somewhere else!
BTW, if you ever doubt that one person can make a difference on a jury, watch this.
Tuesday Oct 06, 2009
This is amazing - it's hard to believe an attorney would submit something so unprofessional to a judge, and that a judge would take the time to mark up the errors in the document and order the attorney to show the errors to his client! Another reminder that *everything* you do is a reflection of your competence, your professional ability, and your personal brand. Make sure to proofread and use spellcheck!
p.s. (Most of) the comments after the article are also worth reading.
Friday Jul 31, 2009
Wow! I cannot believe how much time has gone by since my last post. Time is just flying by as we are working with Oracle on the acquisition integration.
It's sad to think of Sun not existing anymore as a separate company. There have been some great moments in Sun history, and especially in my 9.5 year tenure at Sun. Here are some of my favorite memories at Sun, in no particular order:
My office is full of pigs. I have loved pigs ever since I read Charlotte's Web in 4th grade. One particular pig, Squealer, was kidnapped from my office a few years ago. He went on a cross-country adventure, as reported by ransom notes, emails and photos.
The Las Vegas legal conference - no other details are available (what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas).
Getting to see Sun from at least three different perspectives. First, I supported OEM sales - so I got to see the outbound side of the house. Then I worked in Marketing & Brands, so I got to see a completely different side of Sun. Currently I work in the Products & Technology group, supporting inbound licensing and product development, a completely different perspective. It's like a total Gestalt experience.
Meeting my new manager (I'll call him Frank) for the first time on Halloween at the Santa Clara campus (he flew in from the East Coast to meet everyone). Frank had passed me in the hall earlier in the day and didn't realize that I was wearing a Hannibal Lecter costume (complete with can of fava beans) and thought maybe people just dressed that way here in California. (Come on, with a face mask and bars over the mouth?) He very politely did not stare at me. 
An unnamed large telco company's calling the "most favored nation" (MFN) clause that I had very carefully crafted for them in their Java license agreement "totally substantively useless." Exactly the result I was looking for. 
Participating on the Sun team for the Aids Ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles (7 days, 500+ miles on a bike). This was a truly unforgettable experience. I can't wait to do this ride again.
Who can forget International Talk Like a Pirate Day?
Sharing books and chocolate with colleagues.
The good ole days of free donuts on Wednesdays and mounds and mounds of free t-shirts everywhere you looked.
All the great April Fools' jokes, some of which required helicopters on the weekends to move the pieces into place.
Lots of other great memories - too many to mention. It'll be interesting to see what the future holds. 
Tuesday Jun 02, 2009
This put a smile on my face. It's nice to see someone from my alma mater doing good things. Way to go Balam!
Friday May 29, 2009
Sun's JavaOne conference is next week, starting June 2, at Moscone Center in San Francisco. As an in-house attorney at Sun, this has always been one of my favorite events to attend. It's always great fun to see all the different ways in which Sun's technology is being used. Negotiating an agreement to closure is satisfying, but then getting to see how the companies meld their technology together to create something new is even better. It helps put licensing deals in context and make them more "real." Not to mention being around non-lawyers for a few days!
Some of the things that look like lots of fun at JavaOne this year:
Java Pavilion. This is often my favorite part - with all the exhibits and booths, you can really see how and where Java is used. All of the companies are so willing to show you what their products are and what they do (as long as you don't tell them you're a Sun lawyer, that is
).
The "Java Utopia" lounge. Hopefully complete with flashy beanbag chairs, Sun Rays, and other geek ware. (Hey, I'm a "geek" too! I love gadgets and technology - I just happen to be a lawyer on the side!)
Speakers from Sun, IBM, Microsoft and Sony Ericsson. There are always a few surprises at J1 (as those "in the know" affectionately call it), and the General Sessions, complete with new product demos, are always very interesting.
James Gosling's "Toy Show." Santa just cannot compete.
A glimpse of the LincVolt. I would love to have one of these babies! Sun offers "preferred parking" for hybrid/electric cars - I would love to drive one of these into the office and edge it into a space next to all the Priuses and Insights.
T-Shirt launching. No J1 would be complete without this event. I actually caught a shirt one year, and then gave it to one of my kids. I don't even remember what it looked like. It's the thrill of the catch, not the actual shirt, that counts.
Watch for some great announcements coming from Sun and JavaOne next week!
P.S. Did you know that all of the Top 5 mobile phone makers run Java?
Friday May 22, 2009
Some of the best lessons in life I've learned from the School of Hard Knocks - by making mistakes and having to recover from them. But I've also learned many lessons vicariously - by watching others make stupid mistakes and learning what *not* to do.
This story has so many opportunities for vicarious learning that it's hard to know where to start. Make sure you follow all the links to the email thread and the ending to see how it turns out.
Some basic things that every lawyer should keep in mind:
We have a duty to represent our clients zealously;
Always think before using the "reply all" button; and
Basic grammar and capitalization *do* matter in emails.
Wow - it would be hard to make this stuff up!
Wednesday May 13, 2009
Sun continues to focus on eco-efficiency and greening its business. It's nice to work for a company that wants to do the right thing for the environment and the communities where its facilities are located.
Sun has been named to the Uptime Institute's Global Green 100 list. The role highlights the significant energy efficiency achievements of global corporations that have demonstrated a board-level policy and governance commitment to increasing energy efficiency and reducing the carbon footprint of their enterprise IT and datacenter operations. You can see the whole list of 100 here.
"Being named to the Uptime Global Green 100 is a shining recognition of Sun's continued commitment to eco-innovation," said Subodh Bapat, vice president and distinguished engineer for Energy Efficiency at Sun. "We've developed a solid blueprint for green datacenter leadership which we can deliver through Sun Services. Additionally, we have delivered innovative servers, storage, and service products in order to make computing more sustainable and to help drive significant efficiencies in terms of cost, electricity and overall carbon savings to both Sun and its customers."
"Sun's effective leadership in 'greening' its own enterprise demonstrated an outstanding commitment to energy efficiency for the betterment of its own business performance and the eco-sustainability of our planet," said Ken Brill, executive director of the Uptime Institute. "The Uptime Institute is proud to recognize Sun with this distinguished achievement."
And we're proud to be so recognized.
Friday Mar 27, 2009
As a big sci-fi fan, I've always loved the idea of time machines and time travel. I'd love to be able to travel back 200, 500, 2000 and 2 million years ago and see what the Earth and life was like then. That's one reason why I love visiting museums - it gives me a glimpse into different eras and what life might have been like then. I also find books about different time periods fascinating.
That's why I'm so excited about this. The Internet Archive, one of the fastest growing digital libraries in the world, has migrated its digital archive efforts onto Sun's open hardware and software platforms and established a new primary datacenter that will be housed at Sun's Santa Clara, California, campus. The Internet Archive chose Sun to help move away from its customized storage architecture into a flexible and open Sun Modular Datacenter comprised of open storage technology like Solaris ZFS and low-cost industry standard Sun Fire systems.
Founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle, the Internet Archive is a non-profit organization that has built a library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form that include moving images, live audio, audio and text formats. The Internet Archive offers free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public; and also features "The Wayback Machine" -- a digital time capsule that allows users to see archived versions of Web pages across time.
At the end of 2008, the Internet Archive housed over three petabtyes of information, which is roughly equivalent to about 150 times the information contained in the Library of Congress. Going forward, the Internet Archive is expected to grow at approximately 100 terabytes a month. Wow! You can check it out here.
Just for fun, I looked up Sun's website at the beginning of 2000, when I first started working at Sun. My how things have changed! Take a peek.
Not quite as cool as the time travel H.G. Wells might write about, but it's up there!
Thursday Mar 05, 2009
Fortune has posted its annual listing of the "World's Most Admired" companies - and Sun is #5 in the Computers category, up from #6 last year.
Full details on Sun's ranking can be viewed here.
Below are Sun's 2009 scores and rankings (with 2008, 2007, and 2006 in parenthesis):
Overall score: 5.92 (6.71, 6.24, 5.95)
Rank among Computer Companies: 5 (6, 8, 11)
Innovation: 3 (2, 4, 9)
Use of corporate assets: 4 (6, 9, 9)
Global Competitiveness: 4 (6, 10,11)
Social Responsibility: 3 (4, category not included in 2006 and 2007)
Long-term investment: 5 (8, 9, 14)
Quality of products/ services: 5 (6, 7, 8)
Quality of management: 6 (6, 9, 10)
People management: 6 (5, 8, 10)
Financial soundness: 7 (8, 10, 14)
Sounds like a company I might like to work for. Oh, wait - I already do.
Monday Mar 02, 2009
Good news!
One of my kids' schools is going to try OpenOffice on their Macs, and they recognize the potential money savings in the long run! Woohoo! Hopefully that will translate into fewer candles and magazine subscriptions I have to sell.
I haven't yet heard anything from my kids' other school. I'll keep you posted.
Thursday Feb 26, 2009
My kids are always involved in fundraisers for school. Wrapping paper. Candles. Cookie dough. Nuts. Candy. Magazine subscriptions. Who knows what else I've sold.
I used to reach out to friends and family to hawk these wares, until I hit burn-out. Remember, I have 4 kids to peddle for. And the schools never expect that *they* will actually sell the stuff - only that the parents will. So 4 kids times 3 fundraisers a year x 9 years they've been in school = approximately 108 fundraisers. Wow - it's amazing I have friends and family left.
Now I just buy a few of the useless items myself and call it a day. I've decided not to feel guilty about not being the top fundraiser (or even anywhere close) with all of my other responsibilities as a parent.
This week I was thinking about all of the email attachments I get from my kids' teachers in Word format, and I thought, "They must be paying a mint to Microsoft for license fees. No wonder they need all these fundraisers." Then I had a great idea! Why don't they use the OpenOffice productivity suite?! It has all of the word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications that the school uses, and it's available at no cost because it's open source software. Many companies (including Sun), schools, and governments use OpenOffice because it's open, easy to use and, best of all, it's free.
So, as an experiment I sent emails to the principals of the two schools that my kids go to, suggesting that they use OpenOffice rather than Microsoft Word to save money (think of it as fund-keeping rather than fund-raising). So far I haven't received a response. We'll see what happens. Maybe I'll include information about the OpenOffice productivity suite in the envelope next time I'm asked to participate in a fundraiser.
Wednesday Feb 25, 2009
Very cool!
Wednesday Feb 25, 2009
Sun has completed its green, energy efficient datacenter in Broomfield, Colorado!
The largest datacenter consolidation project undertaken in Sun's history, the Broomfield facility incorporates the latest in our portfolio of energy-efficient systems and expertise, including breakthroughs in innovative datacenter design, and power and cooling technologies. With this project, we estimate that we'll save more than $1 million in electricity costs and 11,000 metric tons of CO2 per year in Broomfield, and that we'll be able to reduce our carbon footprint by 6 percent in the U.S. Sun has also announced the availability of new datacenter efficiency services to help our customers retrofit and build more efficient datacenters like Sun's Broomfield and Santa Clara datacenters. For more information, including photos and a video tour of the new Broomfield datacenter, go to this site.
The new Broomfield datacenter follows similar Sun projects that I've previously mentioned were completed in Blackwater, UK, Santa Clara, CA and Bangalore, India. It builds on designs used in Sun's Santa Clara datacenter and features water savings, chemical reduction, free air cooling and flywheel uninterruptible power supply (UPS). As in Santa Clara, the Broomfield datacenter is based on Sun's Pod Architecture, which delivers dramatic footprint compression while still providing capacity for future growth.
A full complement of Sun's high-performance, energy-efficient SPARC and x64 servers, Open Storage and tape products and the OpenSolaris Operating System are at the heart of the Broomfield datacenter. Specific products include the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 and M5000 servers, as well as the SunStorageTek SL8500 modular library system, the Sun Fire X4500 storage server and Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems. These systems are part of a major hardware replacement program that led to a 66 percent space compression (saved space = saved $$). In one example, Sun consolidated 63 servers and 30 direct attached storage devices to two Sun servers.
"The Broomfield datacenter showcases revolutionary datacenter design with the latest in modularity, scalability and flexibility to drive incredible efficiencies in cost, electricity and overall carbon savings," said Dave Douglas, Sun's senior vice president of cloud computing and chief sustainability officer. "As a company we've achieved our first 20 percent reduction in electricity usage since 2002, and the Broomfield datacenter is a great step forward in meeting our goal of another 20 percent reduction."
Through its own datacenter consolidation efforts around the world, Sun has achieved 60 percent datacenter square footage compression globally, decreasing the company's datacenter operating expenses by 30 percent in the Bay Area alone during the last two years. In October 2008, Sun announced the reduction of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from U.S. operations by 23 percent, surpassing its goal five years early. The Broomfield datacenter is a major contributing factor in Sun's ability to reach its goal of another 20 percent reduction in GHG emissions. I wonder how many other companies are doing all of this?
Features of the new Sun Broomfield datacenter include:
Greater space efficiency. A scalable, modular datacenter based on the Sun Pod Architecture led to a 66 percent footprint compression, by reducing 496,000 square feet from the former StorageTek campus in Louisville, CO to 126,000 square feet.
Reduced electrical consumption. Electrical consumption was reduced by 1 million kWh per month, enough to power 1,000 homes in Colorado.
Reduced raised floor datacenter space. Raised floor space in the datacenter was reduced from 165,000 square feet to less than 700 square feet, representing a $4M cost avoidance.
Greener, cleaner architecture. The datacenter includes flywheel UPS that eliminates lead and chemical waste by removing the need for batteries, and a non-chemical water treatment system, saving water and reducing chemical pollution.
Enhanced scalability. We incorporated 7 MW of capacity that scales up to 40 percent higher without major construction.
Innovative cooling. The datacenter includes the world's first and largest installation of Liebert advanced XD cooling system with dynamic cooling controls capable of supporting rack loads up to 30kW and a chiller system 24 percent more efficient than ASHRAE standards.
Overall excellence. The datacenter was recognized with two Ace awards for Project of the Year from the Associated Contractors of Colorado, presented for excellence in design, execution, complexity and environmental application.
Sun's New Datacenter Strategy, Design and Build Out Services
As part of Sun's Datacenter Efficiency Initiative, Sun recently announced its Datacenter Strategy, Design and Build Out services. These service offerings can help customers determine whether to optimize their current datacenters or build new ones, and are based on the same datacenter design methodologies and best practices Sun used in building its own datacenters. The services aim to maximize space utilization, minimize operating costs and accommodate future growth, all critical in today's economy. The new Strategy, Design and Build Out Services complement the existing Sun Eco Services Suite. Complete details on Sun's Datacenter Consulting Services can be found here .
Eco Responsibility at Sun
Sun promotes an actionable path to cut energy bills and reduce IT environmental impact through a three-step approach for assessing, optimizing and virtualizing IT infrastructures. This results in decisive actions that limit computing's impact on the planet and the bottom line of both Sun and its customers. Sun helps enable customers to reduce the GHG emissions and energy consumption of their IT infrastructures with a full portfolio of servers and storage, a complete suite of Eco Services and the Sun Modular Datacenter. Additionally, Sun continues to look for ways to decrease its carbon footprint through programs like OpenEco.org and Sun Open Work practice, Sun's extensive flexible work program and its global datacenter consolidation initiative. All reasons why I'm proud to work at Sun.
For more information on Sun's Eco Responsibility Initiative, visit this site.
Friday Feb 20, 2009
This week we had a suit drive for Dress for Success. Dress for Success is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support, and development tools to help women thrive in work and life. A very worthy cause.
So I decided to go through my closets and prune them of clothing items that I could donate. This was a long overdue task - something that had been on my to-do list for some time, but since it wasn't urgent it naturally fell to the bottom of the pile.
As I went through my work attire, I realized how drastically my clothing has changed from when I worked at a law firm to when I went in-house. Many of the suits I culled from my closet had dust on the shoulders (I'm ashamed to say 
) because I haven't worn them for so long. I think I can count the days I've worn a suit since I've been an in-house attorney on one hand. That's not to say that I haven't dressed up for important meetings and such - it just doesn't necessarily require a suit. The culture of a corporation is quite different than it is at a law firm - it's much less formal. I've traded in my suits, nylons and high heels for comfy sweaters, jackets, sensible shoes, khakis, and jeans. Yes, *jeans* - and it doesn't even have to be Friday to wear them. Now I fully subscribe to the Gilda Radner rule of fashion - if it itches, I ain't wearin' it.
It's interesting to see the new attorneys who come to Sun from law firms. At first, they're not quite sure how to dress. They start out dressing fairly formally like they did at the law firm, and then gradually go more casual. Eventually, they throw all caution to the wind and adopt the "in-house dress code." That always makes me smile, because then I know they're really feeling more comfortable and becoming integrated into Sun and the legal department.
You'll see some very interesting attire at Sun (outside of the legal department). Tie-dye shirts that look like they're older than the company, bizarre hats, shorts and sandals in the middle of winter, ripped up t-shirts and jeans worn day after day. But it's all part of the company's innovative culture, and it's part of what makes Sun so special. It all suits me just fine. I don't miss the law firm days where everyone looked the same.
One important interviewing tip: Even if you know that everyone at the company you're interviewing with shows up to work looking like complete slobs, you still need to dress up in a suit for your interview. This is your one chance to make your best impression on the interviewers and sell yourself - you want to give it all you've got.
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