The Appellate Record : Texas Appellate Lawyer & Attorney Kendall Gray for Fifth Circuit & Supreme Court Appeals

As I was perusing my electronic copy of the Wall Street Journal Monday morning, as I am wont to do whilst savoring the caffeinated sacrament of our profession and delaying the inevitable onset of the day, I ran across an article by Pia Catton entitled "The Classical-Music Chaperon" about the book, What Makes It Great, by Rob Kapilow.

From the sounds of it, calling this merely a book is to do it a great injustice. Rob Kapilow, a conductor and composer and commentator, has taken his passion for classical music and attempted to create that same passion in those who don't necessarily share it.

Kapilow seeks to remove the barriers that keep people from enjoying classical music in hopes that others will love it as much as he does. He's been at this mission for 30 years. His latest creation is a book, an e-book, an accompanying website, and for the ipad, a multimedia experience that combines text and music and scrolling notation, removing barriers for those who don't read music.

In addition to making me lust after in iPad and the e-book, the article and the description of Kapilow's book got me thinking deep thoughts. After the break a brief homily about what Rob Kapilow and Leonard Bernstein and Michael Tilson Thomas have in common with the workaday world of law practice done right.

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This one goes out to all the law students or think you wanna be law students.

It has been a long time since last we met. Long time, no posts. I wasn't completely dead. I was just in trial. So like Westley, a/k/a, the Dread Pirate Roberts in the Princess Bride (a/k/a the greatest movie ever made) I was only mostly dead.

You can doubtless imagine my surprise when I awoke from my mostly dead state on Sunday morning and saw an article on the shortcomings of legal education on the front page of my New York Times. The article detailed how new lawyers graduate from law school not knowing the first thing about how to lawyer. Their firms then have to teach them that pesky lawyering part that the law schools left out.

The article quotes a client:

“The fundamental issue is that law schools are producing people who are not capable of being counselors,” says Jeffrey W. Carr, the general counsel of FMC Technologies, a Houston company that makes oil drilling equipment. “They are lawyers in the sense that they have law degrees, but they aren’t ready to be a provider of services.”

Firms try to fill in the skills that the law school left out, but in this environment, clients don't want to pay for that.

Is there anything to be done? Does it have to be this way? After the break, a comment from a crusty old Baylor lawyer about why it ain't necessarily so.

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There's no denying it. We're into the thick of another term at the SCOTX and next week is argument week again. Here's what the high nine have on their plate:

November 8, 2011

• Texas West Oaks Hospital, LP and Texas Hospital Holdings, LLC v. Frederick Williams, No. 10-0603--The expert report hits just keep on coming. If a health care worker is injured by a patient, is THAT a health care liability claim when he sues the hospital?
• In re the Commitment of Michael Bohannan, No. 10-0605--In a second expert case of the day, the Civil Commitment of Sexually Violent Predators Act requires "experts" to be used in making the determination to commit someone. Did the trial court err in finding that this witness was not qualified? 
• Texas Electric Utility Construction, Ltd. v. Infrasource Underground Construction Services, LLC, No. 10-0628--Can you recover attorneys fees as damages when, for example, defense costs are caused by the tort of another?

November 9, 2011

• Kerry Heckman, et al. v. Williamson County, et al., No. 10-0671--Because class certification never goes out of style, how do the named plaintiff's standing and potential mootness impact the ability to seek certification of a class?
• In re Frank Kent Motor Co. d/b/a Frank Kent Cadillac, No. 10-0687--Can an employee avoid a signed jury waiver by claiming that he only signed the mutual waiver because he thought he would lose his job? (Parenthetically, if so, can there ever be a bench trial in an employment case?)
• Jack Edward Milner v. Vicki Ann Milner, No. 10-0776--In a relatively rare family law case, did the trial court correctly enforce a judgment based upon a Mediated Settlement Agreement over the wife's motion for new trial?

November 10, 2011

• Venkateswarlu Thota and North Texas Cardiology Center v. Margaret Young, No. 09‑0079--whether the jury was properly charged on contributory negligence in a med-mal case involving alleged post-operative complications, and whether the charge was reversible error.
• In re XL Specialty Insurance Co. and Cambridge Integrated Services Group, Inc., No. 10-0960--A potentially significant case for attorney client privilege: does the attorney client privilege extend to communications between counsel for the insurer and the insured made for purposes of rendering legal services to the insurer?
• Nicholas Traxler v. Entergy Gulf States, Inc., No. 10-0970--And from the department of statutory and regulatory minutiae department, was that a "transmission line" or a just an electrical line that zapped the crap out of me? Meaning, did negligence per se apply when a plaintiff got zapped by an electrical line 20 feet six inches above the road, or was that just a power line, which did not have to be 18 inches higher like "transmission lines" have to be?

And don't forget the popcorn, because you can watch the arguments online. I'm especially looking forward to the charge error case. Dinner and a movie anyone?

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