Mergers and Acquisitions

I'm learning about those time-honored corporate transactions known as M&As in class now and thought it would provide the perfect opportunity to do a little merging of my own.

From this day forward Alice in Wonderland ("Parent-blog") will hereby merge with Law-and-Disorder ("Subsidiary-blog") because I realize that I'm just too darn lazy to keep up two blogs at once.

WITNESSETH

WHEREAS the Boards of Directors of both blogs (myself being the sole director, sole shareholder, president, CEO, CFO, COO, employee, and coffee-gopher-intern) have approved the merger;
WHEREAS the subsidiary-blog was failing in performance reviews and returned no profits, as measured by entries, since the end of Winter 2007;

The Parent-blog and Subsidiary-blog shall hereby merge at the Effective Date, Subject to the following terms and conditions:
(1) Parent-blog shall be entitled to all intellectual topics and property formerly designated as the sole domain of Subsidiary-blog;
(2) Parent-blog shall periodically, on a regular and timely basis, produce entries concerning law school and topics related to the legal field in general; and
(3) Subsidiary-blog will cease to exist as an ongoing venture and will only be accessible for archival purposes.

As soon as practicable after satisfaction or waiver of any conditions set forth in subsequent one-woman Board meetings, the parties hereto shall cause the Merger to be consummated by filing with Blogger, and shall to the best of their ability refrain from using this kind of nauseous legalese hereafter.

What Women Want in a Man: Every inch matters

First of all, get your mind out of the gutter. It's not about that.


Recent studies show that women prefer taller men. Duh. You don't need a researcher to tell you that!

But did you know that men can compensate for their shortness by padding their (not shoes but...) wallets? Women are willing to relax their height standards for a bigger bank account. That's probably not surprising either.

But exactly how much money makes up for each inch?

A study of 20,000 online daters by Gunter Hitsch and Ali Hortacsu of the University of Chicago and Dan Ariely of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that a 5-foot-8 man was just as successful in getting dates as a 6-footer if he made more money — precisely $146,000 a year more. For a 5-foot-2 man, the number was $277,000.

But short women have it good. A 5-foot-6 woman needs to make $59,000 more than a 5-foot-0 or 5-foot-2 woman to do as well. She’d need to make $50,000 more than a 5-foot-4 woman. Take that Elle McPherson! As a 5-foot-almost-5 woman I find this liberating. I'm definitely buying some trendy ballet flats now!

Overall, I find these studies to be depressing. They seem to confirm with to-the-cent accuracy that age-old truism: looks matter a lot. And therefore: life is unfair.

For more trade-offs, see nytimes.com/tierneylab.

I'm such an idiot!

Sometimes I'm so retarded I can't stand myself. Everyone gets the occasional paper-cut. But leave it to me to give myself a paper-cut on the nose! Right smack on my snauser.


What happened: so I thought it would be comfy to read a report on the couch. As I started to drift off into a nap I suddenly jerked myself awake, report in hand...and the rest is history.

Let this be a lesson to you all: Paper and naps don't mix.

No Spring in Sight

It snowed yesterday.
SNOWED!

The White White Mountains

The White Mountains is like the Yosemite of New England: a beautiful national park for campers, skiers, and day-trip hikers alike (like yours truly).


But very much unlike Yosemite, it's covered in snow even in the last week of March! Imagine our surpise as we descended from our car only to find four feet of snow everywhere and signs saying: "Closed for the season. See you in May!"


This was not the springtime conditions we anticipated...but we tried to make the best of it.

It was the best of times...it was the worst of scores

Michael and I did something new last week: went bowling with some friends.


As a couple, we were by far the saddest of the bunch.

Yours truly had the lowest total scores all night. Here I am doing the walk of shame, which I did all too often.


And here's Michael, the MDP of the night: Most Degenerated Player. While everyone else's scores improved from game 1 to game 2, Michael's deproved by a signifigant amount.


We can't wait to go again. We're gluttons for punishment!

Euphemism of the Day

Ever need to call someone out for lying without offending them? Then here's a handy euphemism for you:

Harsh version: "That never happened!"

Euphemistic version: "Well, actually I think that statement may be historically inaccurate."

Source: Inspired by the ATA v. FAA opinion written by the diplomatic Judge Henderson.

Some Sunshine from California

The single digit weather finally warmed last weekend, coinciding with the visit of my good friend Joy.


Joy and I have been friends since junior high school so seeing her again always makes me reminisce and marvel at "how old we are now!"

It's strange how so much has changed and yet nothing really has changed. The same fears, the same flaws, the same confusion plague my quiet moments now as they had then. And Joy seems as certain, optimistic, and ebullient as I've always remembered.

As always Faulkner rings true: The past is not dead. In fact it's not even past. That's kind of a terrifying thought for those who grew up as I did...but thank God I believe in redemption. I have to.

You know you're depressed when...

As I plopped my butt down in front of the boobtube, as is my wont, guess what I chanced to see?

An entire hour of The View dedicated to the topic of women and depression. Their guest was saying how she knew she was depressed because of her extremely low-energy and the fact that she watched a lot of QVC.

That sentence struck me like a lightening bolt.

Meet some of my best friends:


Ever since last year I've been a newly converted devotee of HSN, the local cable counterpart of QVC. Instead of quickly flipping past Channel 70 with slight annoyance, like any sane person would do, I started to just let my fingers pause on the remote and let the sound of the snakeoil salesmen and women wash over me like a warm stream of sunshine in a cold dark living room.


It's something about their tone of voice. So cheerful, so optimistic, so concerned for us to enhance our lives by buying their products. Is it wrong to be attracted to such love and joy exuding from a fellow human being?


Many times I just leave the tv on as I do other chores simply to have that positive energy flowing around the apartment at all times.

(Shivan's my favorite. When people ask her how she's doing she always responds: Happy happy!)

It's exactly what a depressed person needs.

Oh Trenchie, I hardly knew you.

I spent all winter anticipating the day when I would don a beautiful new trench coat in the Spring. Since December, I have been scouting catalogue after catalogue, shopping-site after shopping-site, in hunt for the perfect trench.

From cheap to sleek, nice to nouveau, cotton to polyester, I've seen them all. And after months of searching, I can announce that I've finally found IT. The One. Perfect price point. Perfect construction. Perfect details.

Behold, the trench of my dreams:

Notice the tortoise shell buttons and buckles, the traditional double-breasted trench styling, the on-seam side slash pockets. Ah, at last, the holy grail, the stairway to heaven, nirvana, eureka!

But a funny thing happened on the way to perfection.

In the end, I could not bring myself to buy it.

Why? At first I could not explain it. Why? Why, after months of pouring time, money, and effort into finding this coveted object, would I just let it slip away?!! All the previous duds I had purchased and returned...was it all for nought?!

I can think of two minor reasons and one major one:
(1) It's a wee bit too pricey.
(2) Michael thinks it's too fancy-pants.
(3) What social psychologists call, the theory of reactance: When our sense of freedom is threatened, we attempt to restore it.

I can't bring myself to own a trench coat because after scouring the fashion retail world for months, I realized they are one of the top 10 trends for Spring. I hate following trends! I want to assert my individuality and autonomy! No marketing ploy is going to make me buy anything! No trench, no leggings, no cropped jackets, no jewel-colored tights, and no ballet flats! (Ok, maybe just one pair of ballet flats).

So in the end I returned it,
the trench of my dreams,
the shortest love affair that never was.

A Better Way

Anna Mae, born to Chinese parents, was adopted by an American family nearly 8 years ago. Very soon after the adoption (3 months I think) Anna Mae's biological parents said they wanted her back again. The Bakers said No.


Thus began a long custody battle (8 years!!!) that ended recently with the Tennessee Supreme Court ordering Anna Mae to be returned to her birth parents.

The Bakers are devastated and claim that Anna Mae is too. After living all her life in Tennessee, she may have to move all the way to China where she knows no one and does not even speak the language.

What was the cause of this tragic controversy?

Apparently it was some horrible miscommunication. Some unfortunate ambiguity. The birth parents thought they were placing their child in temporary foster care from which they could retrieve her soon thereafter. The Bakers thought it was permanent adoption.

Of course the real tragedy is: Why couldn't they have just settled this 8 years ago?!!!!! Now it's a lose-lose situation.

This kind of case really brings out the Mediator in me. After taking the Negotiation Clinic I feel the kind of crazy optimism that all negotiators feel: We can work this out. There is a better way.

The first step in negotiation is identifying a common ground. In this case, it's easy and powerful: Anna Mae's best interest.

No party wants her to be miserable in a foreign land or estranged from the deepest sources of her identity, her biological parents.

The next step is to brainstorm options. Lots of options. Creative options with no ownership and may be completely impractical but will get the juices of cooperation flowing. They say Clinton was very good at this. He would relentlessly spitball for hours until something stuck.

Could the birth parents stay in America and live close by? Could the birth parents share custody with the Bakers, like divorced spouses? Could a neutral-third-party child psychologist give the final say?

The beginning of the solution is when the parties realize that this is a JOINT problem. It's not YOU versus ME like good versus bad, as if there will be a winner versus a loser. It's not a zero sum game in which a pie is being split. The child needs BOTH sets of parents. As most divorces know, when a child is involved, either we all win, or we all lose.

More info on Wikipedia.

Mommy, what's a scrotum?

That is something I would never want to hear from my 10 year old child. So why did award winning children's author, Susan Patron, put that word in her newest book, The Higher Power of Lucky?

She says the word is, "delicious..."

Hmmm...I think that explanation actually makes everything worse.

Read more about this bizzaro controversy here.

Ice-capades

A recent ice storm has provided the perfect platform for Michael's own rendition of Happy Feet: (the disembodied chuckling voice is mine, obviously)

Love is in the air...

All this talk about love makes me think...

I haven't lived that long or experienced that much, but this I know. The sweetest love of all for a woman is: SisterLove.

Sure the love of a man is nice. But Men are from Mars. They don't and can't and frankly shouldn't be able to understand "everything." There are parts of our psyches that only fellow Venusians can ever really get. And who's going to be there for you when you and your man have issues?

And sure it's great to have a loving family. But they love you without any real choice in the matter. Heck, you share their genes, so it's like loving an extension of themselves. But girlfriends choose you. They really really like...YOU.

It's the purest love there is. It's not because of euphoric chemicals, hard-wired by evolution to help us procreate. It's not an addiction, a compulsion, a convenience, or a social convention.

It is the truest form of human compassion.

So why is it so hard to find SisterLove? We've all heard (and unfortunately experienced) that women are catty and jealous. They all compete to be the Queen Bee and fake being nice only to stab their "friends" behind their backs first chance they get. That's a pity. And that's why SisterLove is so precious.

To find sisters whom you trust completely,
who will tell you the Truth,
who *genuinely* care,
I have been blessed.


To three great loves who need serious work on their "sexy" poses
(I said sexy! Not bored, not lost, and not confused!):

Happy Valentine's Day.

Law and Disorder Updated

Ok, old habits die hard. I've done such a bad job keeping up my lawschool blog that I can't shake the need to announce I've updated it. So sue me, I lied. New entry:

Everything I Need to Know About Corps I Learned From Dr. Seuss.

"Black Don't Crack," said Oprah.

Can you guess how old this woman is? Bet you can't!

After watching a recent Oprah show on aging, I am convinced that 50 is the new 30. (To clarify: this woman is NOT 50.) The show was a virtual panoply of post-menopausal women looking fabulous and fit and feeling vibrant and energetic.

I used to think my life would basically start heading downhill by 35, but these women have given me a new lease on life. I used to think I have only 8 good years left in me (and resented the fact that 4 of those precious years would have to be taken up with pesky child-rearing). But since learning the stay-young secrets of these youthful grandmas, I've taken my one proverbial foot out of the grave.

What are their secrets?

Well, I think the common denominator is serious devotion to exercise. Oprah wanted to make it sound all "spiritual" and "deep" by saying that the common denominator was that they all "loved themselves" and felt "open to experiences." But that would be putting the cart before the horse. Exercising and being fit produces feelings of competence and confidance, which then leads you to positive experiences. Oh yeah, and another secret is A LOT of moisturizer.

So how old was that woman?

Seventy years old. I kid you not.

A Feat of Supernatural Strength

Sometimes you're up,

mostly I'm down.

I've been free falling,
and today I hope the brakes go on.


Do you know how hard it is
to stop the descent of a heavy heart,
accelerating as it gathers velocity?

Getting Paid Forward

2002 was a bad year for me as a driver.

(1) In early March I crashed into a man at the intersection because I was studying a map while driving.

(2) The very next week I bumped into another man because I failed to realize the light had turned red. He stopped his car to see if his baby was ok.

(3) The week after that I knocked a woman's driver-side mirror out when I was backing out of a parking space.

(4) A few months later I totalled my car on a busy L.A. freeway, fishtailing into three lanes and finally ended up facing oncoming traffic as my car slammed into the center divide.

(5) And last but not least I dented another guy's car a few months later as I pulled into my church's parking lot. He told me it was his wedding day that day.

The amazing thing about all of this is that each person whose car I damaged decided not to make me pay. I can't explain it, but my insurance record remained as pristine as a mountain lake that year...as pure as the fresh driven snow.

I feel like I owe the universe.

Perv-o-vision?

Did someone send me a beautiful jewelry box and forget to tell me about it?

Seriously. Last week I opened my front door to find a package waiting for me and inside was a beautiful wood jewelry box that plays music and everything. The package had my name and address on it but no note or return address. I think it was shipped straight from the manufacturer.

I unwrapped it and put it on my dresser but Michael made me put it back in the box and stuffed it in our junk closet. He was suspicious. "What if some perv sent it to you and installed a hidden camera in it?"

Normally I would just laugh off a comment like that but I had just finished watcing a Dr. Phil show on crazy stalkers.

The most likely identity of my mysterious donor is my father-in-law's wife. She's given me a couple jewelry boxes in the past (in person) and maybe just forgot the card.

The Age of Miracles is Over

Now that I'm back in the law-blog-updating groove I won't be announcing the times I update it anymore. You're on your own.

Features of this semester will include:

Administrative Law: boring but ubiquitous
Corporations: aka, business for lawyers
Mediation and Concensus Building: aka, why can't we all just get along and not go to court?