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September 23, 2007
The war rooms at the Madonna Inn, San Luis Obispo
The whole Madonna Inn experience was incredible!
--P.T., Syracuse, NY
As my firm knew, post-Labor Day would be busy, and so many of the posts you've seen lately are quickies, re-runs, re-hashes or longer stuff we prepared over the summer anticipating all this. Holden "NantucketBoy" Oliver* isn't as busy, and is nicely holding down the blog fort. So why am I doing this one in real time on the eve of trial? Because we are now preparing to start a trial that gives lawsuits--never mind the details--a bad name in their often utter and profound anti-business wastefulness. So my like-minded lawyer in-house client
rep from Los Angeles and I came up with the perfect place to prepare the next 3 days in the defense of a "lawsuit" which should never have been able to bumble along this far: the purposely goofy outrageous over-the-top tacky high camp Madonna Inn. We even gave fake names so no one could find us. We have three rooms, including our associate/paralegal war room. All 119 rooms at the roughly 50-year-old Madonna Inn reek and exude an intended theme of "inefficiency and excess". The client rep--one of the few I know who reads our blog and/or will admit it--just called from his room and said:
"Dan, dude [he really talks that way: he's from NY and went to school in Boston but he's been out here a long time], why don't you blog right now about how stupid most lawsuits are? I'm fed up. I could care less. Just say they're a waste of resources and the system 'enables' them."
"You sure?"
"Yes, do it. I'm getting some coffee."
Well, he just said it: companies are defending some lawsuits which the court systems--federal and state--could and should just shut down. And now I have to get back to work in my room.
*After his live-in girlfriend left him 6 months ago, we let Holden cut down to a wimpy 2300 hours/year. It's not like we're a sweatshop or anything.
Posted by JD Hull at September 23, 2007 11:17 PM