Negotiation Law Blog

When last we left Ari and Terrence negotiating Ari's compensation Terrence had ceremoniously offered Ari "NOTHING!!!"

But we're not talking only money here.  We're talking power and agency in the psychological sense, i.e., agency as the capacity to control one's own future.  Before the "nothing!!!" offer, Ari had told his wife he was still "afraid" of Terrence even as she attempted to prop him up by reminding him that he was Terrence's partner now.  Although Ari wants control of the agency,  his strength falters when Terrence comes back from a seven-year sabbatical. 

Ari's discomfort in the scene below is palpable.  Terrence asserts his authority ("I hope you're not planning to expense the Bat Mitzvah to the agency"); implies that Terrence's daughter had better instincts for talent at eight years old than Ari has now; and, previews his plan to take over Ari's five-year relationship with the talent of the hour -- Vincent Chase. 

Ari is dealing from a position of psychological if not actual weakness.  Having Terrence back on the scene is a little like going back home for the holidays after a few years at college.  You feel independent but it takes only a few minutes with your parents to revert to your powerless teenage self.  The final blow to Ari's self-esteem below is delivered in the form of a "gift."  $50,000 for Ari's daughter's Bat Mitzvah.  Ari is fifteen years old again.

Sensing Ari's weakness, Terrence moves to consolidate his power by taking over a staff meeting from which he excludes Ari.  But Terrence has over-played his hand.  Using Terrence's violation of the agency's folkways ("you embarrassed me in front of my troops") Ari pries an apology out of him and wins his first battle over who can summon the other's attendence by fiat.   

When Ari returns to the negotiations, he has re-set the bargaining table in a way Lax and Sebenius in 3-D Negotiation would applaud.  The subject of the negotiation is no longer Ari's share of the profits, but the value of the company itself and Ari's share in it.  Note how Ari takes credit for the lion's share of the company's present value and emphasizes the company's vulnerability if Ari leaves.

The deal is sealed but the check unwritten and Terrence has no intention of fulfilling his promise when he learns that Ari intends to open his own agency, (tortiously) raiding Terrence's shop of its agents and clients. In a remarkable power play, Terrence brings together the "five families" Hollywood, to threaten Ari with ruin if he so much as offers CAA's mail room boy a paid position. Quick on his feet, Ari accuses Terrence of anti-Semitism (making Terrence the member of an "out group") and then promises not to touch any agency's clients other than Terrence's.

With no money to open his new agency, Terrence's agents are not inclined to follow Ari until an unlikely partner offers to fund his venture, below.

As Lax and Sebenius instruct:

3-D Negotiation involves not one, but three dimensions, all of which are in play more or less concurrently throughout an[y] effective negotiation[:]  1. Tactics  2. Deal design 3. Setup.

Deal designs, say the authors, create lasting value.

Smart people working at the drawing board can . . . discover hidden sources of economic and noneconomic value, then craft agreements -- design deals -- that unlock that value of the parties involved.

In the Entourage negotiation, Ari unlocks his own value when he finds the courage to leave the safety of Terrence's agency and open his own.  By episode's end, Ari has changed the players, the subject matter of the negotiation and the balance of power in town.  This is 3-D negotiation at its finest (even though it also rolls out at its most shameless).

All of that said, don't miss the opportunity to appreciate Ari's "at the table tactics" in negotiating the sale of his interest to Terrence.  He enters the room confidently, refuses to permit Terrence to use his old power plays ("save a tree; say it out loud"); re-anchors Terrence's $4 million open with "my counter is $#@$ you"; explains his own value; diminishes any claim Terrence might have to the present value of the agency; signals his firm willingness to walk away; and, demonstrates his commitment to stay away in the absence of a realistic offer ("I have a rich wife who loves to spoil me").  The power shifts and the deal is done in two minutes flat.

Yes, it's Hollywood.  But all good fiction, which Entourage certainly is, rests on hard facts, all of which are brought vividly to life here.

Copenhagen DK, Corvallis and Santa Monica USA – 22 May 2009

by Gregg Walker, Tina Monberg, and Kenneth Cloke of Mediators Beyond Borders, 
Jens Emborg, Mie Marcussen, Lone Clausen, and Vibeke Vindeløv of Nordic Mediators

Place: Glyptoteket, Copenhagen

Date: The 10th and 11th December 2009

During eleven days in December 2009 delegates from throughout the world will meet in Copenhagen for the 15th Conference of the Parties – COP15 – to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC. The Denmark meeting is crucial for the international climate change negotiations. The climate change crisis challenges people throughout the world to invent and implement innovative ways to mitigate and thwart climate changing causes and effects. The crisis calls for new methods for nations and people to overcome differences and work together with the objective of preventing and resolving conflict arising because of limited resources and/or the effects of climate change.

In a Manifesto from 9th July 1955 issued in London, Albert Einstein and other leading scientists urged humanity to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters based on new ways of thinking. An important new way of thinking features the use of the collaborative, participatory, and pluralistic conflict resolution processes like mediation and facilitation. Construction of a new global conflict prevention and resolution infrastructure is critical to a comprehensive international climate change policy. Such construction will be a major part of the Copenhagen Mediation Seminar, with discussions of conflict prevention and resolution. Our aim is to gather 100 mediators to create a new Manifesto showing the infrastructure to peaceful conflict resolution.

Please reserve this important seminar for 100 mediators attending from all parts of the world. More information will come shortly.

Gregg Walker, Tina Monberg, and Kenneth Cloke of Mediators Beyond Borders – Jens Emborg, Mie Marcussen, Lone Clausen, and Vibeke Vindelov of Nordic Mediators

During eleven days in December 2009 delegates from throughout the world will meet in Copenhagen for the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Denmark meeting is crucial for the international climate change negotiations. In December 2007 the parties to the UNFCCC agreed at Bali, Indonesia that negotiations on a future agreement have to be concluded at COP 15. The decision reflected the increased emphasis on the need for swift action made in the latest report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Bali delegates also recognized that 2009 would be a critical opportunity for an agreement before the commitments set in the Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012.

A Critical Issue

The International Crisis Group, one of the world’s leading independent, non-partisan conflict analysis advisory organizations, stresses that “a key challenge today is to better understand the relationship between climate change, environmental degradation and conflict and to effectively manage associated risks through appropriate conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms.” Conflict preventive measures and resolution mechanisms need to be part of the climate change negotiations, both in Copenhagen and beyond.

At the December 2007 United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia, the German Advisory Council on Climate Change presented a report, World in Transition – Climate Change as a Security Risk. Based on research into environmental conflicts, the causes of war, and climate impacts, the report states that climate changes could “overstretch many societies’ adaptive capacities within the coming decades. This could result in destabilization and violence, jeopardizing national and international security to a new degree.”

Drawing on the work of international experts and organizations including the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), the report notes, though, that “climate change could also unite the international community, provided that it recognizes climate change as a threat to humankind” and adopts “a dynamic and globally coordinated climate policy.” If the international community “fails to do so,” the report emphasizes, “climate change will draw ever-deeper lines of division and conflict in international relations, triggering numerous conflicts between and within countries over the distribution of resources, especially water and land, over the management of migration, or over compensation payments between the countries mainly responsible for climate change and those countries most affected by its destructive effects.” In its introduction to the report, the UNEP website states that “combating climate change will be a central peace policy of the 21st century.” Conflict preventive measures and resolution mechanisms should be part of the climate change negotiations, both in Copenhagen and beyond.

Scientists See the Need


In addition, the scientific community recognizes that global climate change issues challenge our ability to deal with a changing environment containing huge potential for conflict. In March 2009 over 2500 delegates from nearly 80 countries participated in the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges & Decisions in Copenhagen, Denmark. At the end of the conference the delegates presented a set of key messages that included cautions about conflict and climate change.

Key Message 2: Social Disruption stated that “recent observations show that societies are highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor nations and communities particularly at risk. Temperature rises above 2C will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with.”

Key Message 3: Long Term Strategy stressed that “rapid, sustained, and effective mitigation based on coordinated global and regional action is required to avoid ‘dangerous climate change’ regardless of how it is defined. Delay in initiating effective mitigation actions increases significantly the long-term social and economic costs of both adaptation and mitigation.”

Key Message 4: Equity Dimensions emphasized that “climate change is having, and will have, strongly differential effects on people within and between countries and regions, on this generation and future generations, and on human societies and the natural world.”

The delegates recommended the use of tools and governance practices to address these fundamental concerns. Conflict preventive measures, conflict transformation and resolution are essential to meet climate change challenges.

Rio and Kyoto Precedents


The COP 15 Provisional Agenda, reviewed in Bonn, Germany in early June, lists a range of essential issues, from emission reduction to technology transfer. Conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms are missing from the Agenda despite the fact that Article 14 of the 1992 UNFCCC (negotiated in New York and Rio de Janeiro and reaffirmed in Article 19 of the Kyoto Protocol) states that “in the event of a dispute between any two or more Parties concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention, the Parties concerned shall seek a settlement of the dispute through negotiation or any other peaceful means of their own choice.” This article, though, is not sufficient to address the complex conflicts between nations and peoples likely to emerge as climate change impacts accelerate. Conflict preventive measures and resolution mechanisms should be part of the talks in Bonn, Copenhagen, and beyond.

Beyond Rio and Kyoto, there is precedent for putting conflict resolution on the Climate Change Conference agenda. A number of UN treaties and conventions that deal with environmental issues include conflict or dispute resolution mechanisms. For example, the UN Convention on the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, adopted in 1997 by the UN General Assembly, specifies conflict resolution methods. Agenda 21, the Environment and Development Agenda administered by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) emphasizes conflict resolution.

Article 39.3 specifies the need:

g) To identify and prevent actual or potential conflicts, particularly between environmental and social/economic agreements or instruments, with a view to ensuring that such agreements or instruments are consistent. Where conflicts arise, they should be appropriately resolved;

    h) To study and consider the broadening and strengthening of the capacity of mechanisms, inter alia in the United Nations system, to facilitate, where appropriate and agreed by the parties concerned, the identification, avoidance and settlement of international disputes in the field of sustainable development, duly taking into account existing bilateral and multilateral agreements for the settlement of such disputes.

An Important Commitment


Climate change negotiators and decision-makers should affirm the commitment that people, communities, and nations will not be in violent situations due to conflicts that arise as a consequence of climate change. Politicians, diplomats, and specialists who attend the Climate Change meetings should consider conflict prevention measures and resolution mechanisms.

The climate change crisis challenges people throughout the world to invent and implement innovative ways to mitigate and thwart climate changing causes and effects. The crisis calls for new methods for nations and people to overcome differences and work together with the objective of preventing, minimizing and resolving conflict arising because of limited resources and/or the effects of climate change.

Construction of a new global conflict prevention and resolution infrastructure is critical to a comprehensive international climate change policy. Such construction can start with the Copenhagen conference, with discussions of conflict prevention and resolution along side the negotiations of scientific and technical issues of climate change.

The authors’ affiliations:


Gregg Walker, Ph.D., Professor of Speech Communication, Oregon State University, USA (gwalker@orst.edu)


Tina Monberg, Mediator, exam. psychotherapist and lawyer, Mediationcenter Ltd., Denmark (tm@mediationcenter.dk)


Kenneth Cloke, Mediator, President of Mediators Beyond Borders, California, USA (kcloke@aol.com)


Jens Emborg, Ph.d. MMCR, Associate Professor of Environmental Conflict, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (jee@life.ku.dk)


Mie Marcussen, M.Sc., MMCR, Mediator, President of Nordic Mediators, Private Consultant, Denmark (kontakt@miemarcussen.dk)


Lone Clausen, MMCR, Developing Aid and Crises Expert, Private Consultant, Danmark (lc@direkte.org)


Vibeke Vindeløv, Dr., Professor of Mediation and Conflict Resolution, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (Vibeke.Vindelov@jur.ku.dk)
 

Women in the United States Judiciary

2009 State Court Judges in the US:

• 4,325 women of 16,950 total
• 26% women

2008 Federal Court Judges

• 47 of 164 active judges on the thirteen federal courts of appeal are male (29%).
• 25% of United States district (or trial) court judges were women in 2008.

Women in Corporate America

• In November 2002, women represent 15.7% of the corporate officers in America’s 500 largest companies. These percentages are up from 12.5% in 2000 and 8.7% in 1995.
• In April 2002, there were six female CEOs in the Fortune 500 and a total of eleven in the Fortune 1000.
• The number of women corporate officers:  2,140 out of 13,673.
• The number of women corporate officers:  2,140 out of 13,673. T
• Almost 95% or 2,141 of the top earning corporate officers are men, compared to only 188 or 5.2% of women top earners in the Fortune 500.

Earnings on the Dollar Compared to Men

• Asian/other women: 67 cents
• White women: 59 cents
• African American women: 57 cents
• Hispanic women: 48 cents

Family

• Women managers are more likely to be single parents than male managers.
• Women managers who are unmarried and have children under 18: 22 percent African-American, 15 percent Hispanic, 8 percent White, and 5 percent Asian/other women.

Women Lawyers

 JOIN THE PROFESSIONAL WOMEN'S NETWORK OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TODAY!  We're "on the ground" locally and online nationally.  Building business one relationship at a time.

JUNE 9, 2009  |  FORUM

When It Comes to Joint Session Negotiations, Talk Isn't Cheap

By Victoria Pynchon

Whether parties to litigation should engage in joint session bargaining at some point in the process is a hot topic at the moment because joint session practice is nearly a dead letter in one of the most active and sophisticated mediation markets: Los Angeles.

Most attorneys do not like to begin their mediated negotiations with a joint session and neither do many mediators. The reason most often given is everyone's desire to avoid a polarizing set of zealously adversarial presentations.

The joint session, however, was never meant to be a mini-trial or reiteration of the parties' adversarial positions - positions with which they've been living, and defending their clients against, for weeks, months, years, even decades. The joint session was designed to give the parties with the dispute - the clients - the opportunity to brainstorm mutually acceptable solutions to their undeniably mutual problem: the sinkhole of litigation.

The news for mediation advocates (litigators and trial attorneys) is that avoiding joint sessions may deprive the parties and counsel of the "small talk" necessary to put the parties into a collaborative, even generous mood.

Click here to read the entire article

Here's a copy of the Judgment Confirming Final Arbitration Award.

Comment later.  In the meantime, Money Money Money from Cabaret.

This is a great discussion of mediation by local mediator Barb North -- another screen test for the mediation reality television show that will likely never become a reality because . .  . . I understand the producers are having trouble convening!

Check out Barb's great article on Conflcit Coaching at mediate.com here.

The 411 on Barb below.

Barb North has worked as a mediator and negotiator for over fifteen years, and has designed and delivered more than 2,500 trainings in such areas as Conflict Resolution, Mediation, Communications Skills, Acting, Couples Communication, Improvisational Theater, Speaker's Skills and Stand-Up Comedy.

She is the shorter half of the Comedy Team of Barb and Steve North. In addition to training and mediation, Barb has been a Comedian/Performer/ Writer/Producer with her husband, Steve for over 25 years. This background explains her unique ability to present trainings, give talks, conduct seminars, facilitate events, act as an MC or appear as a talk show guest AND incorporate an entertaining spin into the content. Her presentations are fun, informative, and funny.

Barb has designed and implemented custom conflict management programs for numerous organizations and businesses, including extensive work with the National Organization of Girl Scouts of the USA and individual Girl Scout Councils throughout the country, Los Angeles County, Voluntary Mediation Services, the EEOC, Girl Scouts of the USA and the NASD. She has written and produced corporate training films, led seminars, retreats and facilitated group discussions.

How smart is Chris Hill at Construction Law Musings to have a guest blogger every Friday?  That's just the kind of collaborative problem-solving you need in your litigation counsel, particularly when you're facing multi-party construction litigation.  This week, Chris was kind enough to ask me to add to the construction law conversation taking place every day at his tremendously useful, entertaining and enlightening blog.  Excerpt from Six Ways to Insure Your Construction Mediation Will Fail below.

1. Leave the Decision-Makers at Home

A mediation – particularly a multi-party construction mediation – is more drama than law; more character than rights; and more emotion than reason. Mediation, like trial, requires the lawyers to restore the texture, dimensionality, morality and personality back into the dispute that we lawyers flatten for the purpose of satisfying the law’s requirement that we litigate only the “relevant” facts necessary to satisfy legal “forms of action.”

On game day, it’s not the mediator, but the parties themselves who must decide who is bluffing and who is not; what allocation of responsibility among the parties feels fair; whose claims of poverty or freedom from liability have the ring of truth; and, which parties have deeper pockets or greater negotiation flexibility than their attorneys have claimed.

Just as you wouldn’t want your jury to “call in” their verdict, you don’t want the mediation decision-makers miles away from the mediation table when the cards are being played. Remember that people seek out lawyers only when they feel they have suffered an injustice. Righting that wrong requires more than money or dismissal. It requires the belief that you, the attorney, have gotten your client the very best deal possible in light of the facts finally revealed, the personalities involved and the hard realities faced.

2. Leave Early Because the Other Parties are Acting in Bad Faith

Continue reading here.

Sometimes, all that stands between us and giving up (R.I.P. David Carradine) is the knowledge that we are not in this alone and "cannot be forever blessed."  Paul Simon's ** American Tune from 1975, another time when the American Economy was flagging.

There's something about this song that always brings tears to my eyes at the same time as it makes me feel connected to something greater than myself.

Words & music by Paul Simon


Many's the time I've been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I've often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
Oh, but I'm all right, I'm all right
I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
or driven to its knees
but it's all right, it's all right
for we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong

And I dreamed I was dying
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high up above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty
Sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was crying

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age's most uncertain hours
and sing an American tune
Oh, and it's alright, it's all right, it's all right
You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying to get some rest

_________________

**  Paul Simon's been the sound track of my life.  In 1965, when I graduated from Middle School (then called "Junior High") my graduation speech was built around Simon's "I Am a Rock" (which Simon describes here as his "most neurotic song.")  Naturally.  I was 13 years old!

CORRECTION

Dear Ms Pynchon,

I write concerning the following statement on your website:

I looked this case up on the L.A. Superior Court's website. Assuming I have the right case number (BC353567), this appears to be a default judgment, a fact not mentioned in the press
release.

The statement is incorrect, although I think I understand the source of the error.  There were four iFreedom defendants in the case as initially filed:  Timothy Ringgenberg and the three corporate
entities.  One of those corporate entities defaulted.  The other three moved to compel arbitration.  The $4.1 billion judgment confirmed the arbitration award against the three arbitrating defendants.  It was
not a default judgment against the defaulting defendant.

I would be grateful if you would make the correction.

Many thanks.

From the California Punitive Damages Blog:

UPDATE: I looked this case up on the L.A. Superior Court's website. Assuming I have the right case number (BC353567), this appears to be a default judgment, a fact not mentioned in the press release.

UPDATE FROM THE LOS ANGELES DAILY JOURNAL -- FULL ARTICLE FOR SUBSCRIBERS AT LINK WITH COMMENTARY FROM SETTLE IT NOW'S GOOD FRIEND AAA ARBITRATOR JAY MCCAULEY (excerpt of DJ article below):

Arbitrator William F. McDonald, a retired Orange County Superior Court judge, found iFreedom Communications International Holdings Limited, and its founder, Timothy Ringgenberg, liable for more than $975 million in compensatory damages and awarded nearly $3 billion in punitive damages, as well as interest and penalties, to Paul Thomas Chester.

As chief marketing officer for iFreedom, Chester was promised commissions of 5 percent on the company's gross revenue. When he did not receive the compensation and confronted iFreedom, Chester was terminated without cause, according to his attorneys, Scot Bernstein and Steve Buchwalter.

Ringgenberg concealed data on gross revenue during discovery, even after McDonald ordered him to turn it over, the arbitrator found. Chester's award was therefore based on information Ringgenberg presented to the company's shareholders, including monthly revenue of $535,000 and monthly growth rates of 10 percent to 20 percent.

                                    *                    *                    *

Bernstein said the award illustrates how quickly damages, interest and penalties against an employer can snowball into a large sum. In arbitration, awards are most often binding.

Some employers, Buchwalter said, might now rethink whether arbitration agreements are in their best interest.

But for many businesses, the benefits of arbitration will continue to outweigh the risks, said Jay McCauley, an arbitrator on the American Arbitration Association's employment panel, who is not affiliated with this case.

With binding arbitration, "the good side is you're done," he said. "The bad side is if the result comes out big and contrary to what you've expected, there's no place to go. You're flying on a trapeze without a safety net.

"Some employers may say, 'We still like the benefits of arbitration - avoid the jury, faster hearings, someone who knows the case - but boy, maybe we should think twice about having no safety net at all, no chance when things go wayward,'" he said.

All I have now is the Plaintiff's attorneys' own press release.  Excerpt below.

SACRAMENTO, Calif., June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Released today by Law Offices of Scot D. Bernstein, A Professional Corporation, and Law Offices of Steve A. Buchwalter, P.C.: In what may be a record, the Los Angeles County Superior Court has issued a $4.1 billion judgment confirming a JAMS arbitration award. The defendants, including iFreedom Communications International Holdings, Limited, and its founder, Timothy Ringgenberg, were found liable for compensatory and punitive damages in an employment dispute with Paul Thomas Chester, their former Chief Marketing Officer.

Mr. Chester became the defendants' Chief Marketing Officer in June 2004. The defendants' promises to pay him certain commissions and overrides on gross revenues, his right to receive company stock, and the other elements of hiscompensation package reflected his experience in building marketing organizations. "When the promised compensation was not forthcoming, Mr. Chester raised the issue with his employers. By then, the employers had obtained the benefits of Mr. Chester's knowledge and expertise, and they quickly terminated him without cause," Scot Bernstein said.

Mr. Chester sought the assistance of legal counsel. Due to the lack of cooperation from his former employers, Mr. Chester was forced to file suit. The defendants, in turn, moved to compel him to arbitrate the case pursuant to an arbitration clause in the employment agreement.

The arbitrator, a retired judge, determined that the defendants had obtained Mr. Chester's services by means of false representations and fraud. In addition to all unpaid salary, commissions, travel expense reimbursements, and compensation for unissued company stock and unreturned intellectual property, the arbitrator awarded statutory penalties, interest, attorneys' fees, and punitive damages equal to three times the compensatory damages. 

(I don't imagine this is something JAMS will want to crow about)

Here, by the way, is the 411 on the Defendant against whom this spectacular award was made (from Buisness Week)

IFreedom Communications International Limited provides communication services via the Internet using the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) technology. The company offers Global Connect (GC), which is a global network providing voice communication services. iFreedom Communications is based in Hon Kong.

This article (Relationships are Key in Job Searches) flogging this book (Whacked Again! Secrets to Getting Back in the Executive Saddle) landed in my email box from law.com this morning.

I have to say that I agree with magazine mogul Tina Brown that we're in a "gig economy" not a job economy.  What does that mean?  It means doing an inventory of your dreams right next to a realistic assessment of your skills, along with a time line for getting your own business up and running, with or without investors, remembering that in a "gig economy" barter is a perfectly acceptable alternative to cash and in the age of the internet (Networking Wisdom in Mentoring Circles) hundreds of marketing tools that can reach millions of people globally and thousands of people locally, are right beneath your fingers on the keyboard connected to the computer that brings you the most exciting set of opportunities since we decided to send men to the moon -- social networking (now there's a proper run-on sentence, the reward for which is buying myself a new copy of Elements of Style which every job-seeker and new entrepreneur should do post-haste since written communication is the key to successful online business development). 

That said, for those who NEED A JOB RIGHT NOW to pay off their law school loans (remembering that dischargable or not, we no longer have debtors' prisons), here's today's Law.com advice:

The book gives a 12-step plan for landing a new job: 1. finding passion and creating vision; 2. creating a brand; 3. creating a value proposition; 4. creating stories; 5. developing a marketing plan; 6. getting a message out; 7. creating a marketing document; 8. meeting the friend's friend; 9. power résumé; 10. preparing for an interview; 11. negotiating terms; 12. landing the job; and the next step.

The book emphasizes the importance of keeping up contacts after landing in a new job -- knowing that another may search may be ahead. But it suggests maintaining contacts by looking for ways to help other people with a "pay-it-forward" approach. "We all need help at some point," the book says. "The concept is that you are thankful for those who helped you in the past."

Villwock told the group that in his experience, the most successful CEOs and other professionals are those who are most passionate about their work. "When they stop having fun, that's when they stop and go on to the next job," he said.

He also advised the group that attitude and personal skills are as important as professional credentials. From observing executives, he said, "half their success has nothing to do with performance on the job. It has everything to do with ability to sell themselves and build trusted relationships."

If you substitute business plan for power résumé and starting the business for landing the job, you've got a perfectly great recipe for engaging the gig economy eagerly awaiting your contribution.  Listen up!  You didn't get the highest PSAT and SAT scores, graduate cum, magna or summa, ace the LSAT, study your $#@% off, learn lawyering skills, conquer your fear and pass the bar exam to be hat in hand looking to be someone's apprentice galley slave. 

Think about it and join the rest of the gig economy. 

We're looking forward to your unique and valuable contributions to the new economy right now!

The writing on the inside of the secret entrepreneurial decoder ring?  MONETIZE EVERYTHING!

AND WOMEN!!  JOIN THE PROFESSIONAL WOMEN'S NETWORK OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.  WE'RE ONLINE NATIONALLY AND "ON THE GROUND" LOCALLY.