Book Reviews
This Month's Featured Selections
Quicken in One Hour for Lawyers
By Gerald J. Robinson. Chicago: ABA Law Practice Management
Section, 1997. Soft. 70 pgs. Retail: $29.95. To order, call (800)
285-2221.
Reviewed by Richard Berkley
Having never read one of the ABA's computer software "in-one-hour"
books, I was curious to see exactly what one could learn about
QuickenTM in one hour. Quicken's reports function, by itself,
can take hours to explore. Its accounts, categories, investment and
reconciliations functions are similarly complex. Thus, I was surprised
to find that Robinson's entire book is less than 100 pages long.
Apart from two caveats, I thought this book could be quite useful in
giving a techno-phobic or computer-illiterate lawyer a very basic
knowledge of Quicken. After reading and following its simple case method
instructions, a lawyer probably could begin using Quicken immediately.
Of course, you still must use the manual or online help to learn the
program's full capabilities and to keep from accidentally damaging or
losing data.
Unsurprisingly, Robinson instructs his readers in Quicken's simplest
features. Using the case method, Robinson guides the reader through the
process of opening a Quicken account. Robinson then instructs the reader
in making entries in the Quicken register the central area to
manage accounts and ascertain balances. Robinson's third lesson is in
creating categories, which enable you to segregate and track your
expenditures and receivables. The fourth lesson introduces Quicken's
reports function, which also uses categories. This highly developed and
configurable reports function is one reason why Quicken is so popular.
For example, you can generate payee reports, profit and loss reports,
income and expense reports, budget forecast reports, and so on. In
addition, you can generate these reports from all accounts or from
selected account groups. Unfortunately, these four lessons are as much
as you learn from Robinson's book.
The book's second half is entitled "Beyond the Lessons." Here,
Robinson provides skeletal instruction in some of the program's
customization features and a few tips that could increase your
productivity. If I were a beginning user, I probably would have
preferred Robinson to bypass the customizations section and, instead,
have him focus upon Quicken's investment or loans function.
Additionally, this section contains two tips that I find questionable
for practitioners who have not thought through the implications of
Robinson's advice. Those unwary practitioners could potentially find
themselves committing computer- assisted malpractice.
Robinson's first questionable suggestion is that practitioners use
Quicken's class feature to track entries for more than one client or
property within the same checking or savings account. One could, for
example, create a J. Marshall class and a J. Douglas class within the
same account. To report upon an individual client's fund balance, one
would use the report function to segregate the account's activity into
those two separate classes. The savings here, Robinson states, is that
separate accounts are not needed for each client or for each property
managed. However, commingling of client funds and/or failure to keep
accurate records of client funds and property could contravene the Model
Rules of Professional Conduct and SCR 20. Consequently, it seems more
prudent to keep separate Quicken accounts for each client, thus avoiding
any possibility of trouble. True, I may be advocating a level of care
above that which a lawyer is duty-bound to provide, but hard disk space
is cheap and little is lost by taking more care.
I also have difficulty with Robinson's advice that lawyers use
Quicken's password function to provide security for confidential
information. Yes, Quicken is able to encrypt its data files, but that
encryption function is more of a convenience for home use than a serious
attempt at industrial-level security. Although SCR 20 and the Model
Rules do not speak to this issue, it would be better to keep such
confidential financial information upon a C3 level secured server at the
office or home, or upon removable hard disks or ZipTM disks
that one locks in the safe after use. Lawyers should not depend upon low
quality encryption to safeguard confidential documents. As a cursory
glance at the newspapers over the past few years suggests, even
high-level encryption can be broken fairly easily. Thus, a lawyer would
have no reasonable expectation of privacy of financial or client records
encrypted by Quicken's password feature.
Finally, Robinson fails to address an important issue: the question
of whether Quicken is even the proper software for keeping track of a
firm's or practice's finances. Quicken is primarily a home finances
program; it is not a business accounting program. Intuit, the company
that makes Quicken, advocates that customers use QuickbooksTM
for their business finances. In addition, programs such as
One-Write-PlusTM or Peachtree AccountingTM
only two of many retail or custom business software packages are
far better adapted to a business's accounts payable, accounts
receivable, billing, or payroll needs.
The Crime Conundrum: Essays on Criminal
Justice
Edited by Lawrence M. Friedman and George Fisher. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1997. Hardcover. 210 pgs. Retail: $59.
Reviewed by Timothy McAllister
The Conference on Crime and Criminal Justice held at Stanford Law
School in October 1995 served as the basis for the essays that compose
The Crime Conundrum: Essays on Criminal Justice, edited by
Lawrence Friedman and George Fisher. This collection of short essays
covers a variety of perspectives on the past and current state of
criminal justice, primarily focusing upon the United States. Historical,
political, sociological, and economic views are presented in an easily
readable manner. All the essays are well-referenced, but few make use of
graphs or tables.
Some of the essays are straightforward cost-benefit analyses and
reporting of statistical trends. Others have a fair amount of dancing
around the ideological campfires. Corrosive market influences upon the
criminal justice system, criminal justice as Social Darwinism, the
political perpetuity of the "war on crime," and a theoretical alteration
of the purpose of the criminal justice system from one of punishment to
that of risk management are examples of the spin on some of the
essays.
Titled appropriately, the conundrum of the roots and appropriate
societal reaction to criminal behavior is discussed, but solutions are
ducked at all but the academic level. While composed of a well-balanced
set of essays, this book would be used as an adjunct text for an
undergraduate introduction to a criminal justice course. There is little
to offer the well-versed practicing professional.
Fair Measure: Toward Effective Attorney
Evaluations
By the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession. Chicago, IL:
ABA, 1997. Looseleaf. 120 pgs. Retail: $49.95, with diskette. To order,
call (800) 285-2221.
Reviewed by Robert J. Kasieta
In April 1997 a Dane County circuit court jury found that the U.W.
Medical School Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology had intentionally
violated the Equal Pay Act by compensating a tenured woman professor
less than comparable men. The court then found the University had acted
in bad faith in its violation of the law. The public seemed shocked that
the department of the medical school dedicated to women's health issues
was treating a woman faculty member so unfairly because of her
gender.
But the legal profession cannot look askance at such behavior and
claim any superiority. There still are few women partners in law firms.
There still are too few women judges. Certainly, studies of the bar and
bench assure us that the numbers are growing. But the rate of growth
suggests that parity is not in sight. Those same studies identify an
intact glass ceiling that does not yield to many qualified women. Isn't
it shocking to us that the institution of our society entrusted with
ensuring justice for all still suffers from this flagrant internal
injustice?
This is the troubling issue that Fair Measure addresses. It
does so in a matter-of-fact, nonthreatening fashion. Fair
Measure is no manifesto of the wrongs of society or of the legal
profession. Rather, it is a practical guidebook to applying fairness in
the evaluation process in the profession which has for so long held
women back. The book focuses upon the manifestations of inequity and
attempts to provide remedies. This is not the stuff of political or
social movements. It is very much the stuff of effective management in a
male-dominated environment that must do better to recognize competent
employees of either gender.
The book is in a handy three-ring binder format that one could use as
a repository for all evaluation forms. Best of all, the appendices,
which contain forms for attorney evaluations, are reproduced on an
accompanying diskette so that human resource managers can pattern any
firm's evaluative process after the model suggested in the book.
The book also has a good discussion of the stereotypes that blight
the advancement of women in workplace evaluations. Fair Measure
takes these bigoted views head-on and attempts to debunk them with
suggestions for evaluators. It is in this general discussion that the
book falls somewhat short. For example, the authors note that there is a
stereotype that women are not as committed to their careers as men. One
of the antidotes to this perception is weak at best: "Train supervisors
to be flexible and demonstrate the employer's commitment to stated
goals." That is, tell employees that gender inequity is wrong by
legislating against it and then compel people to do the right
things.
The book is at its best when it makes specific, practical suggestions
for responsible evaluation systems that apply to men and women alike.
Many of the suggestions make good sense regardless of gender issues. For
example, it is appropriate in any circumstance to implement an
evaluation system that provides performance criteria, a rating scale,
and narrative comments. Fair Measure provides other very good
ideas. It recommends blind evaluations of written work. This is a
practical, helpful solution not only to gender bias in the evaluation of
written work, but to political disfavor and any other improper form of
bias.
G.K. Chesterton once noted that to reform a person one should begin
with the grandparents. Fair Measure does not attempt global
reform. Rather, it implicitly recognizes that important and lasting
reform comes slowly. Fair Measure acknowledges inequity in
evaluations as a barrier to women's achievement and nobly tries to
address that one issue. In limiting its scope and dealing thoroughly
with its topic, the book does well and provides a valuable service to
the profession.
Superlawyers: America's Courtroom
Celebrities
By Colin Evans. Detroit, MI: Visible Ink Press, 1998. Soft. 257
pgs. Retail: $17.95.
Reviewed by Lori Granger
If, as Woody Allen says in his latest film, a circle of hell is
reserved for "lawyers who appear on television," here is the Dante-esque
guide to that circle.
Colin Evans profiles "40 top lawyers and the cases that made them
famous." They range from the O.J. trial stars (Marcia Clark and the
entire Dream Team make it, Chris Darden doesn't) through Clarence Darrow
and William Kunstler.
How does one become a Superlawyer? Not by toiling in the law library,
that's for sure. The objects of Mr. Evans' admiration are cocky
performers, most marked for early success by an aura of well,
success. F. Lee Bailey joins the Navy because he is "unsuited to
academia" but is soon a "brash young lawyer, who had already begun to
amass an enviable reputation in the Boston area." Thomas Dewey as a
young assistant U.S. attorney was "already in charge of lawyers much
more experienced than himself. It was the beginning of an incandescent
rise through both the legal and political cosmos." Somebody, Mr. Evans
tells us, called New York's Thomas P. Puccio a "fresh-mouthed ... glory
hog."
Less exalted practitioners will alternately cheer and cringe reading
each Super's biography with its synopsis of one famous case won, usually
through sheer force of character. Typically, Brooklyn's Edward J. Reilly
wins freedom for Olivia Stone in a very public 1922 homicide, and
outside the courtroom, "[f]ive hundred people roared their approval as
she kissed her gallant defender. Then it was three cheers for Reilly and
off to the nearest bar."
Not quite the way I or lawyers I know experience the practice of law.
Well, not all the time, anyway.
Wisconsin
Lawyer
