Opening Day
April 06, 2009
by David Krell
david@davidkrell.com
Around the country, today holds promise for baseball fans.
Today is Opening Day.
For the moment, the season is a clean slate with the future yet to be written.
Baseball pitchers will continue their intense study of batters’ tendencies and vice versa.
Mets slugger Carlos Delgado keeps a notebook in the dugout where he details each at-bat pitch-by-pitch. His notes prepare him for the next at-bat against the same pitcher.
In The Seventh Game, Roger Kahn explains the phenomenon of studying, memorizing, and exploiting the opposition. The story revolves around fictional New York Mohawks pitcher Johnny Longboat during the iconic seventh game of the World Series against the Los Angeles Mastodons.
Like most great pitchers, Johnny Longboat kept a mental book of batters, categorizing their strengths and weaknesses, their eagerness, their poise, their terror.
A lesson is here for attorneys.
Law firm associates serve many masters, i.e., partners. However, partners differ in their preference for how associates present legal research, analysis, and conclusions. Like pitchers and batters, associates who keep a record of the partners’ preferences will be better prepared for future assignments.
In litigation, intense research and record keeping is an absolute must. Which briefs has the judge found persuasive in the past and why? Which circuits beyond the judge’s own does he or she find influential? How has the judge ruled before in cases with the same circumstances?
Today is a day of beginnings. Wiping the slate clean and beginning a detailed record of reader’s preferences could lead to, pardon the baseball metaphor, home runs with partners, judges, and clients.
Play ball!
david@davidkrell.com
Around the country, today holds promise for baseball fans.
Today is Opening Day.
For the moment, the season is a clean slate with the future yet to be written.
Baseball pitchers will continue their intense study of batters’ tendencies and vice versa.
Mets slugger Carlos Delgado keeps a notebook in the dugout where he details each at-bat pitch-by-pitch. His notes prepare him for the next at-bat against the same pitcher.
In The Seventh Game, Roger Kahn explains the phenomenon of studying, memorizing, and exploiting the opposition. The story revolves around fictional New York Mohawks pitcher Johnny Longboat during the iconic seventh game of the World Series against the Los Angeles Mastodons.
Like most great pitchers, Johnny Longboat kept a mental book of batters, categorizing their strengths and weaknesses, their eagerness, their poise, their terror.
A lesson is here for attorneys.
Law firm associates serve many masters, i.e., partners. However, partners differ in their preference for how associates present legal research, analysis, and conclusions. Like pitchers and batters, associates who keep a record of the partners’ preferences will be better prepared for future assignments.
In litigation, intense research and record keeping is an absolute must. Which briefs has the judge found persuasive in the past and why? Which circuits beyond the judge’s own does he or she find influential? How has the judge ruled before in cases with the same circumstances?
Today is a day of beginnings. Wiping the slate clean and beginning a detailed record of reader’s preferences could lead to, pardon the baseball metaphor, home runs with partners, judges, and clients.
Play ball!