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Vol. 71, No.
5, May 1998
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.
Richard Berkley, U.W. 1997, also has an M.A. in Public
History from N.Y.U.
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.
Timothy McAllister, U.W.-Oshkosh 1997 Master of Public
Administration, is employed by the Department of Corrections at the Wisconsin
Resource Center.
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.
Robert J. Kasieta, Marquette 1983, is the managing
member at Kasieta Legal Group LLC, Madison.
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.
Lori Granger, Chicago-Kent 1992, is a general practitioner
in Elkhorn. She was an assistant corporation counsel in Chicago for five
years.
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