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Legal Ethics
« Previous EntriesDon’t threaten to sue … unless you really mean it!
Friday, January 27th, 2012Continuing my Friday series on keeping your business out of court, let’s focus on a mistake that too many businesspeople make. On the theory that “the best defense is a good offense,” some people make it all too clear to their contractors, suppliers, and consultants that, if a single mistake is made, they’ll take [...]
Believe!
Friday, December 23rd, 2011Every once in a while, a movie comes out that knocks my socks off. “Arthur Christmas” (produced by those lovely English lunatics who brought you “Chicken Run” and “Wallace & Grommit”) did just that. Oh, it was clever. We now know why you can’t find Santa’s workshop on Google Earth (underground tunnels), [...]
Big Tobacco shouldn’t fight new warning labels
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011Earlier today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued nine new warning labels to be included on tobacco products by September of 2012. The labels are disturbingly graphic: pictures of diseased lungs, rotten teeth, an infant in a hazy cloud, a man exhaling smoke through a tracheotomy scar. Distressing as the photos are, [...]
Was this the right way to punish bin Laden?
Monday, May 2nd, 2011Late last night, President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden, presumed architect of the September 11th bombings a decade ago, had been killed by U.S. forces. The operation took place in Pakistan, after President Obama reportedly ordered a team of Navy SEALs to enter bin Laden’s residence and shoot to kill. The mission [...]
Anita Hill shouldn’t apologize
Wednesday, October 20th, 2010Talk about a bolt from the blue … nineteen years ago, Anita Hill grabbed the attention of the nation when she testified at the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She told an ugly story of sexual harassment, describing how Justice Thomas, her former boss, had made her working life extremely uncomfortable. [...]
Is BP trying to fix the problem, or just the blame?
Thursday, September 9th, 2010BP has taken a beating in the media since the release of its internal report on the Deepwater Horizon accident. The report identifies a number of interrelated failures that, together, led to the explosion that killed eleven people and massively polluted the waters of the Gulf. The report attributes some of those failures directly [...]
Don’t play games with disclosure
Friday, September 3rd, 2010Continuing my Friday series on keeping your business out of court, let’s look at a story reported by The Wall Street Journal yesterday. According to the Journal, disclosure has become an issue in the civil fraud suit that the SEC is pursuing against three former top officials of Countrywide Financial Corp. It’s an [...]
Duchess of York commits “grubby” ethical breach
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010After all the bad news from the Gulf oil spill and the economic meltdown, it was almost a relief to turn to press reports that Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson had to apologize for attempting to sell access to her ex-husband, Prince Andrew of Britain, for about $723,000. Seems that the duchess has been having [...]
Will conflicts of interest ruin oil spill tests in the Gulf?
Monday, May 24th, 2010Wouldn’t you think things were bad enough in the Gulf of Mexico? The Deepwater Horizon oil spill has already dumped millions of gallons of crude into the waters of the Gulf and ugly residues are starting to wash ashore. The New York Times reported Friday that local environmental officials in the Gulf states [...]
Now we know why BP hasn’t apologized
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010For the past several days, I’ve wondered why British Petroleum’s CEO, Tony Hayward, has skipped the crucial words “we’re sorry” when discussing the oil leak that’s pouring into the Gulf of Mexico after one of his company’s offshore drilling platforms exploded. It seemed odd because Hayward had already said that BP would pay for [...]
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