the Zealous

25 Aug 19

From a recent ethics opinion of the Colorado Bar Association Ethics Committee, A Lawyer's Response to a Client's Online Public Commentary Concerning the Lawyer (March 2019) (citations omitted):

[G]iven the absence of binding authority, a Colorado lawyer must be cautious when deciding whether and in what fashion to respond to online criticism. For the lawyer wanting to err on the side of caution, the Pennsylvania Bar Association suggests the following language as a potential response:
 

"A lawyer’s duty to keep client confidences has few exceptions and in an abundance of caution I do not feel at liberty to respond in a point-by-point fashion in this forum. Suffice it to say that I do not believe that the post presents a fair and accurate picture of the events."

27 Jul 19

Excerpts from The Unique Psychological World of Lawyers:

Martin Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the founder of the School of Positive Psychology, which focuses on the attributes that produce success and happiness, has identified optimism as critical for both. In his book, Authentic Happiness (Free Press, 2002), Dr. Seligman reviewed his research on whether any personality attributes were consistently correlated to success in any of 104 careers he studied. Interestingly enough, the only career he found consistent correlations for was lawyering. And the attribute? Pessimism. Pessimism was so highly correlated with success in lawyers that the higher the pessimism in law students, the higher their grades.

16 Jun 19

This professor in Geneva predicts that artificial intelligence will displace 800 million jobs in the next ten years. In an interview you can find here: Globots and telemigrants: The new language of the future of work, Prof. Richard Baldwin is asked if the rise of the telecommute economy, ie, flexible work hours and/or work from home, is the precursor to massive job displacement. His answer:

(Laughs) Yes, there’s an element of a Greek tragedy to it. By trying to be more flexible with work, you thought you were getting control of your life. You could come home and take care of the kids while handling a few emails. But you actually arranged it so you ended up out of work because a telemigrant took your job for much less.