“Thank God that I didn’t allow a sport or a business or any part of my life to dominate me completely.”

Friends:

I don’t typically find myself commenting on current events or engaging in discussions regarding controversial issues impacting the world today.  But I felt I would be remiss if I didn’t comment on the current status of the Los Angeles Dodgers.  My feelings for the Dodgers have never been a secret; in fact, it creeps into my posts periodically with affection.  So the events of the past week, with Major League Baseball wrenching control of the franchise from its current owner, was something on which I could not remain silent.  I can say that I am at polar opposites– embarrassed and excited. 

The Los Angeles Dodgers are a storied franchise, for whatever that means.  I mean, seriously, every team has stories, right?  Victories and losses, colorful characters and scandals… every team has them.  Whereas I can tell you that my love for the Dodgers began solely because I lived in Los Angeles, it has continued because of what the Dodgers mean and have meant to baseball and to the world.  I might even say that it is my love of history that has fostered my love for the Dodgers.

The Dodgers have been underdogs and superstars, trailblazers and models of consistency over the past 70 years.  Starting with their rise to some prominence in Brooklyn in the early 1940’s (their history prior to the 1940’s was comical at best), the Dodgers have been consistently on the map.  First and foremost, of course, is the breaking of baseball’s color lines.  At a time when the Jim Crow south was still in full swing and bigotry and hatred lurked around every corner, the Dodgers took a stand and introduced Jackie Robinson to the world as the first African-American baseball player.  Over the next two years, the Dodgers expanded their roster to include three more African-Americans.  The Boston Red Sox, by comparison, did not sign their first African-American player until 1959, 12 years after Jackie Robinson.

While it may have been devastating to the people of Brooklyn in 1958, the Dodgers’ move to Los Angeles brought baseball for the first time to Americans west of Kansas City and truly made baseball the national pastime.  The Giants, by the way, followed the Dodgers out west on the urging of the Dodgers’ ownership. 

Over the next 30 years, the Dodgers were a franchise of consistency and success.  Numerous pennants and 5 world championships created and cultivated a love affair with this city.  Fans of the team knew that every year the same players would be in their familiar positions and ownership made it a point to ensure that the fans were kept happy by putting a product on the field that would compete consistently. 

Over that time, the city grew to love the team and devote themselves to it and the Dodgers continued to chart the course for the rest of the league.  Whether it be Sandy Koufax refusing to pitch on Yom Kippur, the record-setting infield, the two separate streaks of four straight rookies of the year, Fernando-mania, Hideo Nomo as the first Japanese player, Chan Ho Park as the first Korean ballplayer, and consistency of ownership and management (only two managers over a 42 year span of time — take that Yankees!), Dodgers fans knew that they had something special in their team. 

All of that began to change with the sale of the team in 1998 to an international media conglomerate.  The Dodger family was no longer; it was now a business.

Look, I am not naive; I know that baseball is a business.  But I am susceptible to being fooled.  And so long as you openly promote a focus on the fans and maintaining a level of pride, I don’t really care that it is a business.  But when it became more about the business than anything else, the mystique begins to fade.

So with the purchase in 2004 of the Dodgers by the McCourts, there was optimism and hope.  Could the Dodgers return to the glamour and dignity that had made them Los Angeles’ team for so long?  It looked promising, but alas, the final word is no.  Whereas the family ownership of the O’Malleys was one of innocence and anonymity, allowing the play on the field to define the team, the McCourt ownership has been one of decadence and self-promotion.  The play on the field and the history of the team, has been overshadowed and overtaken by gluttony.  The attraction should be the team, not the train-wreck running it.

So with the latest developments, I am sorely embarrassed.  In 2008 when Manny Ramirez came to the Dodgers, Los Angeles became relevant yet again, wrenching attention away from the east coast.  For a glorious two-month period, the Dodgers were front-page news because of what was happening on the field.  Since then, they have been front-page news for what has happened off of it.  And it is humiliating.  The history and glory of the boys in blue has been all but forgotten and the challenge now will be to re-build what was all but destroyed and return to being one of the, if not THE, most relevant and important franchises in baseball.

For that, I am optimistic and excited. Hopefully the team will be sold and perhaps it will be sold to an owner or group who understands the history of the team and its great responsibility to Los Angeles, to its fans, and to baseball itself.  The team needs to return to prominence as a model of consistency, success, and more importantly as pioneers.  As many of you may know, my daughter’s name is Brooklyn because of the Dodgers and their history in that borough.  It was a conscious effort on our part to not select a name that had ties to the current team, for the history of the team has not yet been written, whereas the history of the team in Brooklyn has been completed.  It cannot be changed.  The heroes of that team, Brooklyn’s place in baseball history is unchanging. 

The question is:  what will be the history of the Los Angeles Dodgers and what will this team’s impact be?  Will the consistency and accomplishments of Koufax and Garvey and Hershiser and Gibson be lost in the annals of baseball lore as mere apparitions in favor of the destruction of a team and its fans, or will it be a minor speed-bump on the road to euphoria?

I sure have my fingers crossed. 

Have a great week.

Rob

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going in their pants.”

Friends:

  

Times are tough.  They have been tough and they will continue to be tough.  With no clear end in sight it is time to face facts.  If change hasn’t been made to deal with adversity, the time is now.

  

Adversity is an interesting word.  It is defined as “a condition marked by misfortune, calamity, or distress.”  I think you would agree, there is no better word to use for the current situation than adversity.  But how does one effectively deal with adversity?

  

History provides us with many examples of success in the face of adversity.  Whether it be the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the 9/11 attack on New York, or the 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers, it has been demonstrated time and again that strength can be found through adversity.  And what is fascinating is that every instance of success in the face of adversity has the same key characteristics.  I know that many of you are leaders of your respective organizations; do you and your team embody these characteristics?

  

1) A strong leader.  Every instance of success in the face of disaster begins with a strong leader.  Whether it be Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rudy Giuliani, or Tommy Lasorda, the team needs to know that its leader has a plan, is committed to the plan, and is fearless in the face of potential failure.   

  

2) A plan.  Speaking of the leader having a plan, the team needs to know that there is a course of action.  Whether it will work or not, no one can predict at the outset.  But there needs to be something in the works, not just flailing about with no direction.  Once the disaster is discovered, and that could take minutes or months, there needs to be a concerted focus on righting the ship.  There is no better way to lose the support of your team than by lengthy periods of inactivity and indecision.  Your team would rather you have a plan that is iffy at best than no plan at all.

  

3) Transparency.  The leader and the team need to be on the same page as far as overcoming the instance of adversity.  How does that happen?  There needs to be complete transparency regarding the plan of action.  Transparency breeds trust and confidence and without transparency there will be a looming concern that secrets are being kept, secrets which could detrimentally affect the plan.  If a team member feels they are being lied to or are not being told everything, they will become a cancer which could destroy the cohesiveness of the team.  And transparency, by the way, means the good and the bad.  No one will believe a leader who only paints rosy pictures. 

  

4) Cohesiveness.  The team has to band together.  Everyone has to be pulling in the same direction.  Imagine, if you will, a tug of war.  Everyone on your team grabs some rope and starts pulling back, trying to move that flag.  But what happens if two people do nothing?  They don’t pull, they don’t push, they just stand still.  What happens is sluggishness which eventually causes a traffic jam.  The people in front will pull back into the people standing still.  Trips, falls, face-plants, and eventually a reversal of course as the other side pulls back.  Everyone has to be pulling in the same direction.  Sounds simple, but it isn’t.  There will be those team members who want instead to stand still because change is difficult.  And overcoming adversity requires change.  Or perhaps they don’t want to pull because they feel that the team is pulling in the wrong direction towards a goal which is either unattainable or poorly defined.  Tension causes inactivity causes failure.

  

5) The Right Team Members.  A leader cannot do it all by himself or herself.  A leader can come up with the plan, point the team in the right direction and set the course, but without the right team members in place, the plan is destined to fail.  FDR had Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Patton and hundreds of thousands of men and women who were united in the fight against fascism.  Rudy Giuliani had the NYPD and the NYFD and a city and country united in re-building.  Tommy Lasorda had Orel Hershiser and a team that bled Dodger blue.  It is one thing to have a plan, but you need the right people.  Who are the right people?  That is a good question.  The right people must walk a fine balance.  While you want a team that is going to follow the path charted by the leader, you don’t want a team that follows blindly.  You want a team that will challenge its leadership, not in a way to expose the leadership to failures and failings, but to work towards a proper course.  You don’t want a team member who is only in it for them and takes pride in exposing the shortcomings of its leaders.  The team has to buy into the plan, they have to own it as if it was theirs, and they have to identify opportunities to push the plan forward.  It is easy to be a cog in the machine, simply doing a job to push a plan forward.  It is another to own the plan, the look for ways to improve the plan and to go above and beyond the tasks and duties assigned in effort to further the plan.  At the end of the day, the success or failure must fall on everyone’s shoulders equally.

  

What will the future hold?  No one knows.  But the path to success is more clear when the stars align and the five characteristics above are present.  Without one adversity prevails.  With all five, success is guaranteed.

  

Where will you land?

  

Have a great week.

  

Rob

  

www.robcohen13.wordpress.com

www.twitter.com/robcohen13

“Me? In love with a pig? Wait ’til I tell the guys in marketing.”

A funny thing happened on my way to the blog this week.  I had it all planned out and then, a hard right turn, comes out of nowhere and it becomes the new obsession.  It is a curse sometimes to be an attorney.  Not only are people always picking your brain for legal insight and advice, but we as attorneys view every situation as a potential law school examination question.

  

If you are unfamiliar, law school exams are frequently comprised of lengthy fact-patterns from which the student is to identify the potential legal issues contained therein.  For example, a fact pattern concerning a character who enters into a contract and doesn’t perform, the student is expected to identify the potential claim for breach of contract, defenses that may exist, elements of the cause of action in order to state a claim, things of that nature.

  

Whereas everywhere a scientist looks she may find molecular activity, everywhere an attorney looks, he may find a cause of action.  We are trained to take our client’s stories and experiences and identify the traps, look for the pitfalls, and (if the client comes early enough in the process) ensure against potential disaster.

  

So when I watch television, for example, I spot the issues; sometimes without even knowing that the legal part of my brain is at work.  Thus, imagine my surprise when I identified many potential issues while watching that most wholesome of programs, a muppet movie.  The Muppets Take Manhattan, to be exact.

  

In all fairness, I am more critical and suspicious of children’s programming because of the lessons that are being learned by our children.  As the father of a 5 year old and 6 month old, I am very careful about what information is disseminated to them.  So when I watched the muppet movie, I was shocked and appalled by what I saw.  And it is because of that, that The Muppets Take Manhattan has been banned from my house.

  

What was the egregious error being taught to our children?  Well, it was one of improper employment practices. 

  

If you are unfamiliar with the movie, there is a scene at the end of the movie when the muppets are backstage getting ready to open their show on Broadway.  As they are heading to the stage, Kermit is asked if all of the dogs and pigs and chickens and whatevers can watch the show from backstage.  All of the friends that the characters had met up with during the movie have shown up and want to watch the show.  Instead of letting the dogs and pigs and chickens and whatevers watch the show from backstage, he tells them they are to be in the show.

  

First things first– I am not going to criticize the movie as being unrealistic but there is no way that any of the dogs and giraffes and birds and possums could possibly know any of the songs, the staging, the dance moves, or the lines from the script.  Kermit, you are opening on Broadway!  Do you really want to send animals that have no acting experience at all onto the stage to effectively carry the main opening number?  Umm, hello– how could any of the costumes fit?

  

No, the part that was ultra-distressing to me was the flippant method by which Kermit just gave all of these animals jobs.  I bet the show’s insurance broker, if you will pardon the vernacular, “shit a brick.” 

  

So let’s issue spot, shall we?  My issue spotting is, actually, not only from the standpoint of the lawyer, but also from the perspective of a business owner.

  

A) The human resources director did not have time to interview all of the new employees to determine if they were qualified for the job.  Did any of them have any experience on a stage?  Summer stock, maybe some commercials, or a pilot?

  

B) Did the employees complete the necessary new hire packet?  I assume they filled out a W-4 and an I-9, right?  How much withholding did Bear #3 request?  And if you will recall, the animals were introduced in various places of the country.  Is it possible that one or two or more of the new hires were born in a different country?  It is probably pretty easy for a frog to leap from lillipad to lillipad, crossing Lake Michigan from Canada.  I bet the border control agents aren’t covering that method of immigration.

  

C) Were the new employees given the employee handbook?  Did they understand that they were being hired for 8 shows a week, one show a day Tuesday-Friday and two on Saturday and Sunday each, with Monday off? 

  

D) Umm, anyone care at all about the unions?  The theater looked to be fairly large, so doesn’t that require that only Actors Equity members be hired?  Did they make sure to comply with the union’s rules regarding hiring and compensation and benefits and contributions and all of the other guidelines regarding employment?

  

E) Did Kermit check with the producer ahead of time to make sure that there was room in the budget to pay everyone?  He might be in breach of his contract with the producers, unauthorized hirings and firings without producer’s approval.

  

The list could go on and on. 

  

But let’s fast forward the story.  Fast forward to the day after opening night.  Everyone is hung-over from a long night of partying and celebrating.  Kermit and Miss Piggy and the gang were at Sardi’s all night, living it up.  Rowlf the Dog commandeered the piano while Fozzie Bear grabbed the mic and regaled the crowd with jokes.

  

As the cast rolls over to the theater for the next evening’s performance, they are met with a picket line.  The union is protesting the hiring of non-union workers.  The crowd for the show, unwilling to cross the picket line, demands a refund of their money for the tickets.  Chicken #2, who had called her agent that morning to brag about her new gig, informs Kermit that she will hold out because she wants to renegotiate her contract.  It seems that she wants her own dressing room and doesn’t want to have to share the stage with the bears for fear that she may be the bears’ next dinner.  She also has requested that her dressing room be stocked with M&M’s, but only the green ones.  The pig has filed a lawsuit for unfair hiring practices because he feels that he should have had a chance to audition for the role of Dog #5 but was discriminated against because he is a pig.

  

With all of the strife now looming for the show, the producer has decided to pull the plug.  It seems that since Kermit did not obtain employment practices liability insurance, there is concern that many of the new employees will bring wage and hour claims as well as unfair hiring practices.  The producer does not want the liability and has decided to close the show down. 

  

What started out with so much promise… Kermit thought he was doing a solid for his friends by giving them jobs and having them in the show, but at the end of the day, it was like trying to catch a fly caught in fly-paper.  Kermit got stuck and he can’t get away.

  

Sorry my friends, the curse of being an attorney.  But you can well understand why I The Muppets Take Manhattan is out of the house.  Brooklyn and Kensi want to watch a movie, it will be on which teaches important lessons, like Scarface.

  

Have a great week.

  

Rob

  

www.robcohen13.wordpress.com

www.twitter.com/robcohen13

“I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!”

Friends:

  

I am in the midst of an ethical dilemma.  Attorneys are expected… no, required, to hold themselves out to the public as paragons of virtue, as pillars of society who live a morally and ethically sound life 24/7.  Just hearing the word “ethics” evokes thoughts of the legal community, the attorney-client privilege, the rules of fair play and proper procedure.  And of honesty and integrity.  As attorneys we have a responsibility to the public to conduct ourselves so as to set an example of the respectable lives that can be led by upstanding and decent people. 

  

And yet I am conflicted because of this duty that expects so much of me, but which does not allow for gray areas or wiggle room.  Sure there are exceptions.  Attorneys are permitted to violate their ethical obligations of confidentiality when necessary to prevent a crime which they reasonably believe will occur and cause great harm.  But it still has to be an egregious situation with a real expectation that the crime will be committed if the confidence is not breached.  But if the crime has already been committed?  No such privilege– failing to confirm the existence of criminal activity is not only ethically deficient, it could also be criminal in its own right. 

  

Thus, my dilemma.  What if the criminal is your own family member?  Sure, a victimless crime, no one was hurt, but a crime nonetheless.  And where my cooperation has been requested by the authorities trying to put an end to such conduct?  Do I request immunity from the government and turn state’s evidence?  Or do I turn a blind eye and resist the urge to do my duty?

  

The internal struggle is great and the angel and devil on my shoulders make persuasive arguments.  Laws have been enacted to protect society, whether they be laws to punish intentional conduct leading to injury to others or laws simply to regulate society and ensure safety.  But they are laws and we as a society are not permitted to pick and choose those laws that we wish to follow.  We are required to follow all of the laws and a crime has been committed here… what does an attorney do?

  

On a recent family vacation out of the state, a vehicle registered to my family was allegedly utilized in connection with a crime… speeding.  A serious offense when traveling 50 in a 45.  The problem is, the driver was not the registered owner of the vehicle.  It would have gone unknown except for the use of traffic cameras which recorded the crime and photographed the culprit.   So where is the dilemma if it wasn’t either of the registered owners driving the vehicle?  The state in which the offense took place has requested my assistance in identifying the driver so that all due prosecution takes place.  The state has requested that I turn stool pigeon and rat out someone potentially near and dear to me…

  

It is a Catch-22 of epic proportions.  If I cooperate I risk sending a close relation to the big house, the hoosegow, the graybar motel, the slammer, the icebox, the clink.  If I don’t cooperate, I turn my back on the oath I swore to uphold and promote the perception that it is acceptable to overlook crimes when it serves a purpose of protecting someone close to you.  That is definitely not the message I want to send.  I have a responsibility as an attorney.  I have a responsibility.

  

A more pressing issue arose in this respect just this past week.  If you are not aware, a brutal and unconscionable attack of a Giants fan took place Thursday after the Dodgers Opening Day game.  The Giants fan was so viciously attacked that he is still in critical condition and a medically-induced coma.  And yet a ballgame attended by 56,000 people and no one saw a thing.  No witnesses have come forward, no perpetrators have been arrested.  I would hate to think that no one has come forward because it was a Giants fan who was attacked.  Did he get what he deserved?  Do we need to protect our fellow Dodger fan? 

  

No– it was embarrassing to me as a Dodger fan and as a firm believer that Chavez Ravine is hallowed ground… hallowed ground that has been desecrated not only by the conduct of unruly and ignorant fans, but by the passersby and witnesses who have not come forward.  It is embarrassing and atrocious.

  

Makes my dilemma seem like child’s play.  Rat out a family member for speeding?  Or report a heinous crime to the police…

  

You have to do the right thing.  The right thing is the only choice.  The right thing is the only choi…

  

Wait a second, I don’t even practice in that other state…

  

Have a great week.

  

Rob

  

www.robcohen13.wordpress.com

www.twitter.com/robcohen13