Miers Hot Jobs
George Bush's lukewarm candidate for the Supreme Court has held some big jobs...or has she? Mark Obbie writes on Slate that we shouldn't be too impressed about her heading up a bar association and a law firm:
The point non-lawyers may miss here is that these accomplishments don't necessarily signal astonishing professional achievement. Implicit in the president's loving assessment of Miers' résumé are these assumptions: that lawyers choose their leaders based on merit, and that leading a bar association or a law firm is a position of great respect and honor. So, let's explore each notion, in the context of Texas in the late 1980s and early '90s, a time and place in which truly outstanding lawyers pawned off their "leadership" duties on those who wouldn't be much missed from the billable-hours assembly line.First, take the bar associations. They come in two flavors: voluntary and mandatory. The Dallas Bar Association and American Bar Association are voluntary. Lawyers are not required to join, and in fact many do not. Those who pay their dues get various goodies in return: dreadful magazines, decent educational seminars, schlocky trade shows, and any number of excuses to get out of the house and tip a few. It's like that crew of thirsty Knights of Columbus on Saturday Night Live, except in pinstripes and with slightly better haircuts. Mandatory bar associations—like the State Bar of Texas—are pretty much the same deal, but in these states, lawyers have no choice about joining. They're mandatory because they serve a dual role: licensing lawyers for the state while keeping the draft beer and Scotch flowing at lawyer parties.
Guess who seeks election to such groups. Not the busiest, in-demand lions of the bar. Instead, it's usually the second stringers, the runners-up in the lawyer game. Real lawyers, for the most part, snicker about "bar weenies"—much as they did about the goofs in high school who ran for class president. Does David Boies spend his $800-an-hour time going to committee meetings and wrangling over the ABA's next convention schedule? Hardly. He might deign to give a speech at a bar gathering if he can fit it into his busy trial schedule. But bar weenies—their slightly kinder name is bar junkies—are the ones holding the Town Car door open for Boies when he arrives at the hotel. And when they're not doing that, they're jabbering endlessly about legal-regulatory policy questions that even most lawyers find stupefying.
In fairness, it was still considered revolutionary for a woman to climb this career ladder when Miers did it in Texas. But other than that distinction, she slipped right into the customary role of the bland leading the bland. What occupied the Dallas bar's time in those days? Not much worth remembering, except for the nativism on display in the local bar's horrified reaction to the arrival of a big, national law firm, Jones Day, during Miers' reign at the bar. Dallas law firms, always far smaller in size and national prominence than Houston firms, reacted with a mix of resentment and disdain to some good old competition. The bar's steady diet of seminars back in those days might as well have been renamed "Jones Day??!! Oh, crap."
The State Bar of Texas back then had similar aspirations to great consequence. Recall how Miers' presidential pronouncements in the Texas Bar Journal caused recent hand-wringing about her skills as a thinker? Well, she was only doing what little was expected of her in that role—bad writing included. The rest of the nation's legal establishment at that time was alarmed that the state of Texas was rushing convicts to execution without providing them with counsel in the latter stages of appeals. So, how did the State Bar of Texas respond? By relying on out-of-state volunteer lawyers—and grudgingly at that—to pick up the slack Texas lawyers had left by averting their eyes. Rather than impose pro bono time requirements on Texas lawyers, the state bar endlessly debated mandatory reporting of pro bono hours—in other words, we don't care how much you volunteer, but we do want you to fill out a form telling us what you haven't done. And if that nice Mr. Boies comes to town to save the life of a death-row inmate, please meet his Town Car at DFW Airport!
If this brand of public service is easy to ridicule, it's even easier to diss the business savvy of a 1990s-era law-firm manager. By the 1990s, when Miers' partners put her in charge, law firms had reluctantly concluded that they were in fact a business. Now that they were thinking outside the box, they had to figure out how to run themselves like businesses. Mostly they failed. Often it didn't matter anyhow. As recession-proof money machines, most firms could wait for clients to seek them out. "Managing" such an enterprise meant divvying up too much money among partners, paying overworked associates just enough to keep them chained to their desks, and deciding whom to admit to the partnership—mostly those who could turn a profit and not those destined to be bar weenies.
Law partnerships, at least then, weren't so much managed as they were administered. Certainly there were exceptions with strong leaders—typically firms still led by a founder who brought in all the business, held much of the equity, and made all the key decisions. But your average corporate firm, like Miers', was like a university faculty—democracy run amok. The ostensible leader had a pretty short list of duties: calling meetings at which he or she could be informed of his or her failings, and making speeches.
Among the big debates of that era in law-firm management: Word vs. WordPerfect (endlessly amusing as dinner-party banter and sure to become a Harvard Business School case study). Another biggie was whether to shorten firms' names from way too many unpronounceable surnames (e.g., Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom) to punchy brands like the giggle-inducing MoFo (for Morrison & Foerster).
Your prediction? Will she be removed from consideration? Made to go through the process to save face (Bushie's)? Or was she just a fake candidate all along? Are they that stupid and arrogant in the White House? Was it just that Rove was a bit busy trying to save the skin on his own ass? This is all-too-puzzling all the ways around.
I predict the nomination to be withdrawn sometime between the next two Fridays. Alberto Gonzales will be nominated and confirmed to court the ever increasing Latino vote.
eric at October 26, 2005 9:21 AM
If Postrel says no, I say no:
http://www.dynamist.com/weblog/archives/001934.html
Crid at October 26, 2005 9:52 AM
Also Eric, see Kausfiles.com from Monday the 23rd re: Gonzalez. (Short version: Maybe nothing to worry about)
Cridland at October 26, 2005 10:10 AM
> Are they that stupid
Does anyone remember Thanksgiving 2001? On Wednesday night, Bush appointed Kissinger to lead the commission investigating 9/11. Two weeks later, Kissinger had declined the appointment, as he was not going submit to the review of business partnerships and conflict of interest which approval for the chair would entail. Specifically, he was not willing to dismantle Kissinger Associates on behalf of this President, as Bush must have known. (Has any other Secretary of State gone on to greater financial success and influence than Henry?)
But news coverage of the war criminal's appointment was muffled, first by the four-day holiday weekend, but also by the events of the hour (Afghanistan, anthrax). There was no reason for Bush to make this appointment but that a forty-year chorus of beltway wonks thought that Kissinger was that man to turn to for such things. Bush knew better. Specifically, Kissinger and Rumsfeld never liked each other. Rumsfeld has thousands of faults and one compelling blessing: HE'S NOT AFRAID OF HENRY KISSINGER. And his boss, the dyslexic alcoholic from the ranch with no cattle, isn't afraid of the professorial german either. His handling of this matter was deft and effective, and it cost MUCH less than it might have... The appointment was never mentioned during the race in 2004. It was a brilliant maneuver.
> This is all-too-puzzling
> all the ways around.
Dubya, grandson of a senator, has spent his entire life watching politics played at the highest levels. He's spent his adult life watching the White House at close range. He's an MBA (remember: better grades than Gore) who probably feels the rhythms of the news media the way a fisherman reads the waves. That's not to say he reads the editorial pages because we know that he doesn't. But up until now it was possible to imagine motives for his chess even if the strategy wasn't clear.
The Miers nomination seems pointless, except for squelching the "swing vote" precedent, which was not worth this hassle to a conservative of mild, iffy ideology.
You're right, all too puzzling.
Crid at October 26, 2005 10:55 AM
Speaking as a Texas attorney, I can confirm that the majority of lawyers here have no idea who is the president of the state bar, nor do they care.
I don't know Miers. For all I know, she could be a towering legal genius. But what I do know is that anybody who would want to be president of our state bar must be a bootlicking ass-kissing faker.
Jason Ginsburg at October 26, 2005 12:58 PM
Miers will be withdrawn, after a fake struggle over documents, because conservatives don't support her.
Now I have a question for the liberals who don't like Miers: if it came out that she'd given Bush a series of blow jobs, you'd pretty much be required to support her, right?
I thought so.
Richard Bennett at October 26, 2005 6:25 PM
I wouldn't care if she blew the entire Bush clan if she were qualified for the Court. People's sex lives are of no concern to me -- unless they're selling governent secrets in exchange for sex.
Amy Alkon at October 26, 2005 6:32 PM
Speaking as a lawyer in a big firm, this article is right on the mark.
According to some pundits on NPR, Meirs financial disclosure form revealed virtually no assets other than a retirement fund, which currently has about $200K, down from a level of $500K-$1M a few years ago. She was reportedly making over $600K annually at her firm before she went to work for the White House - so where did the money go? The speculation on NPR was that (a) she tithes and (b) the retirement fund is being drained to provide care for Miers' elderly mother. But that doesn't account for all her income, and it begs the question of why Miers didn't have more assets amassed before she started tapping the retirement fund for mom.
She doesn't LOOK like a coke freak, and a gambling habit would probably come out in a background investigation, but I can't think of many other lifestyle choices that would eat up hundreds of thousands annually for a single woman whose main activities seem to be work, church, and writing stupid fawning notes in greeting cards.
Clearly she doesn't spend it on clothing, hairdressers or plastic surgery, so if I were a Senator, I'd want to know how Miers could burn through at least a couple hundred thou a year after taxes, tithing and normal living expenses. Exotic vacations? Lap dances at Chippendales?
Melissa at October 26, 2005 7:53 PM
Richard, you are are so aptly named.
I wrote a whole lengthy retort to this, but deleted it as unnecessary.
eric at October 26, 2005 7:54 PM
> Clearly she doesn't spend it on clothing,
> hairdressers or plastic surgery
That was cruel. It was coarse, base, vulgar and uncalled for, and belittles a respected White House figure.
Nicely done! Hope you post here more often.
> Speaking as a Texas attorney
Jason, what kind of law and where in Texas? It would be be great if you'd read the Postrel link above and say what you think of it.
Crid at October 26, 2005 9:28 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/27/miers.nominations/index.html
Big surprise. Nomination withdrawn. And the spin to try to make Miers look like a loyal martyr rather than a sycophantic crony that was never taken seriously was a nice touch.
Jamie at October 27, 2005 6:19 AM
nomination withdrawn!
wwaaahhhh wwaaaahhh.
g*mart at October 27, 2005 8:38 AM
Richard, your posts have sunk to uncharted levels of inanity.
As for Miers, she voluntarily withdrew today. Especially telling was the last paragraph of her letter of withdrawal to President BuLLshIT.
Of course, we already know that Bush wouldn't appoint anyone but conservatives, but it's nice to see someone at least being candid about it.
Patrick at October 27, 2005 8:49 AM
> we already know that Bush wouldn't appoint
> anyone but conservatives...
Does this really, really, surprise you? Is it evidence of a fault in the system or the player?
Cridland at October 27, 2005 8:53 AM
Hey Crid.
I'm a real estate attorney in Houston. The Postrel piece is accurate in that it portrays people like Miers as being good at networking, if nothing else.
A paralegal in my office used to work in an office with Miers - she says that Miers is a tough, smart lawyer, and I'm sure that's true. Nevertheless, anyone who wants to head up the Texas state bar, whether a good attorney or not, is somebody who places their personal popularity waaay up on their priorities list. And that's fine and good for many folks, but it's probably not what you want in a judge who will have to make controversial decisions.
Jason Ginsburg at October 27, 2005 9:37 AM
As I said: Miers will be withdrawn, after a fake struggle over documents, because conservatives don't support her.
Amy, you say that people's sex lives are of no concern to you unless they're selling state secrets.
But what about politicians who attempt to buy votes by passing or signing laws that make the sex lives of certain people the public's business? Surely you believe that politicians doing this deserve to have their own sex lives examined, don't you?
Richard Bennett at October 27, 2005 3:48 PM
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