The Chronicles of a Capitalist Lawyer: General

Showing posts with label General. Show all posts

2013 was a really bad year for my blogging activities. In fact, it is my worst year of blogging within the last 5 years and I am committed to ensure that this will not happen again. Let's start the 2014's first article by analyzing a misleading story.

A couple of days ago I read the following short story: a child asked her/his mom whether the mother would ever leave her precious jewelries and purses full with money with the maid. The mother's answer was no, explaining further that she does not trust the maid. Then the child replied: why do you leave me with the maid then? End of story.

I hate this kind of story, simply because it tends to be misleading most of the time. The quick reaction on the mother would be: how could you leave your child with the maid when you actually don't trust her? Are you saying that the jewelries and money are more valuable than your own child? Typical. But this quick reaction is completely wrong. If you read it further, you will realize that making a comparison between the child and the jewelry is misleading in the first place. Why?

First, from the mother's perspective, when she said that she does not trust the maid, she wasn't talking about the maid's capability to take care of the child. She was basically saying that the probability of the maid to escape the house with her jewelries and money are higher than the probability of the maid to stay at the house, guarding the jewelries.

Second, from the maid perspective, the costs of badly treating the child are generally higher than stealing the jewelries and money. If you treat the child badly, you can be held liable and you may lose your job and salary, or even go to the prison (if it turns out to be a criminal activity). Meanwhile, if you steal the jewelries, although there is also a probability of going to the prison for stealing, at least you gain something to compensate the costs, i.e. jewelries and monies. Ultimately, the maid will need to do cost-benefit analysis: will getting the jewelries and monies be more beneficial compared to the costs of penal sanction multiplied with the probability of getting caught?

Given the above incentives of the maid, it would really make sense for the mother to trust the child to the maid but not her jewelries. So yes, that's the answer to the child question. If you think that this answer is too long, I have prepared a shorter answer for the child: "nak, pertanyaanmu gak nyambung."

Oh dear, it seems that I almost forgot the second anniversary of this beloved blog! I've been busy with the preparation for my post graduate study at the University of Chicago Law School, e.g. completing all of my remaining corporate lawyer work prior to leave (so that I won't have any additional homework during my study), preparing my travel to and living needs in Chicago (getting US visa and securing an apartment lease), and pulling together the learning materials (the law school database was opened already in June and I must say that I am overwhelmed with the enormous data, very exciting!).

I hope that I can be more productive in this blog as soon as I have settled my live at Chicago. Stay tune folks.

So I guess it's official. I will be going to the University of Chicago School of Law in September 2011! I must say that I'm very happy and excited with this result. After all, learning Law and Economics at the law school which created this field at the first place is one of my biggest ambitions. But the best part of being admitted at a first class law school like Chicago is that I will have access to "unlimited" legal materials, and not to mention the fact that I will also be able to spend nine months to read and write new materials without being disrupted with my day to day work as a lawyer. Hopefully, I will have more time to write in this blog during my school days. Another advantage is that Chicago is not that far away from Ohio where my Shiye (the teacher of my kung fu teacher) teaches his class of Bajiquan. An opportunity to learn the art from a real living master is surely a big bonus for me, and I can only be grateful for all of these opportunities. Can't wait to go there! :)

Due to my accident in Bali last Saturday, there will be no post for this week, and thus the second part of the Gridlock Economy will also be postponed.

Kind regards,

The Capitalist Lawyer

Wow, today is already the official first anniversary of my blog! To commemorate this day, I decide to start writing again (see my post on Gridlock Economy, 2 August 2010). Hopefully, I can maintain my consistency this time. If you ask me where the hell was I for the last 8 months, I can only say, "blame Twitter!" Okay, I admit it, it's a lousy reason :p. Anyway, apart from that lousy reason, the fact is, too much tweeting has caused a real blow to my ability to write fluently in this blog and yes, I think this is the right time to put and end to that. I won't say that tweeting is bad. It's good and I've gained so many ideas from the Twitverse. However, as told by many people, most of those ideas need better elaboration, and what fits better to achieve that purpose other than a blog? So stay tune with the Capitalist Lawyer and for all of you who have visited this blog during my absence, a big thanks from me :)

Please see here. This is the first time I am mentioned in a footnote. While there is nothing extraordinary with this, I am happy and appreciate the writer for using one of my articles (written with my partner) as a source of reference for his paper. There are still many things to come from the Capitalist Lawyer, and I'm planning to make all of those things happen.

Today is my 26th birthday, so in this special day, instead of writing and analyzing things, let me tell you some of my wishes and random thoughts on my most beloved subjects, law and lawyers. Enjoy!

I believe that laws should be made by professionals not some common people, i.e. the parliament, and I wish that we could achieve that as soon as possible. Of course, the process of recruiting those professionals should be made as democratic and transparent as possible. If not, then we would only have another despotic government.
I wish to have a virtual data base that has complete legal references and sources which have been systematically organized and all I need to do to find them is by one click. That would be glorious.
I wish that I could have more time in learning all the new things about law. Law is a never ending process, continuously evolving in order to achieve perfection. It is really frustrating that I can't follow all of those new developments.
Being a lawyer requires great intelligence, perseverance, persistence, and diligence, but none of them would be helpful if you don't have the passion.
Good lawyers love to be challenged, great lawyers surpass those challenges. However, always remember the golden rule of lawyers: Do not take responsibilities more than you are being paid for.
Never underestimate the usefulness of inputting your time sheets daily.
Commercial pragmatists are the next generation of lawyers, those who can smoothly combine superb legal knowledge with deep commercial understanding of the client's business.
Lawyers are consultants and therefore our job is to help our clients in making decisions not to make decisions by ourselves. See the golden rule above.
If you're only looking for the money, you should not work as a lawyer, since there are other jobs that will give you better income with less working time. But, if you're looking for a respectable profession that can satisfy your pride, you have come to the right place.
If you have worked as a lawyer for years and you still can't gain the trust of your clients, you should stop and pick another career. Without client's trust there would be no business development, no business development means no advance in career, so why bother working as a lawyer?
Doing you best is not enough to reach the top. Always try to surpass your own standard and never be satisfied with your performance even when you think that you have reached the top, there is always a room to grow, a room for improvement. Like my partner once said: "I could never be fully satisfied with my associates since I fear that once I tell them how satisfied I am, they would cease to improve their qualities."

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As the author of this site, I am not intending to provide any legal service or establish any client-attorney relationship through this site. Any article in this site represents my sole personal opinion, and cannot be considered as a legal advice in any circumstances. No one may use or reproduce by any means the articles in this blog without clearly states publicly that those articles are the products of and therefore belong to Pramudya A. Oktavinanda. By visiting this site, you acknowledge that you fully understand this disclaimer and agree to fully comply with its provisions.