the Zealous

At this time 23 years ago, OJ Simpson was on trial in Los Angeles Superior Court for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.

Simpson’s defense team, which would come to be known as the “dream team”, included F. Lee Bailey. Bailey conducted the cross-examination of Mark Furhman, a detective with the LAPD who had discovered a right-handed blood-covered glove at Simpson’s residence that matched a bloody glove found at the scene of the double-homicide. The blood from both gloves was identical, and DNA evidence from the left glove revealed a mix of Simpson’s blood and that of the two victims.

The theory of the defense was that Mark Fuhrman was a racist and had planted the glove at Simpson's residence in order to frame Simpson, or at least, to pump up the case against him.

M&A lawyers (of which I'm one): we are not above criticism.

M&A has been characterized as a bloodsport. In a strategic transaction, the stakes are high for all concerned: careers, reputations, and business and financial fortunes and are on the line. In addition to the high stakes, the one-off relationship between a typical seller and buyer in an M&A transaction may particularly lend itself to disputes. Opportunities and incentives to resolve disputes or even to be reasonable in deference to the greater relationship are often absent in M&A, with the calculus changing (and the incentives to cooperate often declining) after each successive step of a transaction, from signature through closing to the end of the survival period for indemnification rights.

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In the nineties, Saturday Night Live ran a series of skits centered around an unfrozen caveman lawyer, played by Phil Hartman. This was a typical episode:

Announcer:

One hundred thousand years ago, a caveman was out hunting on the frozen wastes when he slipped and fell into a crevasse. In 1988, he was discovered by some scientists and thawed out.

He then went to law school and became … Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.