Another Great Idea

(03/11/2014)

I know I am not yet in charge of the world, but when I am, there will be a few changes. First, in elevators, there will be a skip pattern. The elevator will not stop on back-to-back floors. People must start taking the stairs. Two flights of stairs is not too much to ask. Sure, there are people who physically cannot walk the stairs so I will need to come up with an exclusion/inclusion principle, but let's leave that aside for a minutes. If the elevator stops on the 9th floor to pick someone up, the guy who pressed 10 is now out of luck and needs to get out, take a hike or get off at 11 and walk down. It would just save a lot of time. And it would improve the general well being of the whole city. Small steps, people. Small steps. And frankly, I think this should be a three-floor skip pattern, but we have to start somewhere.

photo credit: http://uiobservatory.com/media/2011/ElevatorButtonPanel.png

"Soon, no one will even know how to try a case!"

(01.29.2011)
This week I have had the most wonderful opportunity to meet with local attorneys for a variety of reasons. One meet up was in regard to an upcoming event where practitioners will have the chance to ask local judges for their candid response to a number of questions. As part of the planning for the event, we were brainstorming questions that could be posed to the judges. One attorney was formulating an idea that would question the frequency that judges refer cases to mediation. The response from another lawyer was: "If judges keep referring cases to mediation, soon no [attorney] will even know how to try a case!" From his tone, it was clear that this would be a travesty. No attorneys litigating would be the end of his world. Oddly, or perhaps obviously, it dawned on me that if we as a society got to a point where alternative dispute resolutions were the norm and not the exception, I would be the happiest attorney in town. Society needs a shift.