The Women of Corporate Law -- well, some of them anyway -- have established a new blog called Biz Fems Speak. So far, Christine Hurt and Joan Hemingway, two fellow Skadden alums, are carrying all of the water, but I am certain that the others will get into the swing of things soon. Among the bloggers is my co-author Cindy Williams and many other friends.

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Since coming to Madison, I have met more birders than I had encountered in my entire life up to this point. This summer, at a Cub Scout camp, I went on my first authentic birding hike, where I heard a catbird and saw various swallows and other local species. Also this summer, in England, I saw some Peregrine Falcons, and that was very cool. Birds are beautiful, but sitting here in my family room, I understand somewhat the origins of the term "bird brain." We have several birds in our backyard who insist on flying into our back windows. Now, I recognize that reflecting windows can be confusing, but when the same bird repeatedly konks itself on a window, well, you have to wonder.

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Not all that long ago, I completed my first transaction on eBay. At the time, I was just a little concerned that eBay might become an addiction, because the bidding was pretty fun. But I am happy to report that eBay-mania is in check at the Smith household. We have purchased a few items, but nothing that would break the bank.

We still haven't sold anything on eBay. It's not that we have nothing worth selling, but that we haven't taken the time to figure it out. Plus the packaging and shipping. It all seems like such a hassle. Enter the intermediary: the drop-off store. Like AuctionDrop, whose tag lines are, "You drop it off. We sell it on eBay." Others include AuctionWagon, QuickDrop, Picture It Sold!, and iSoldIt. To me the most amazing thing about these businesses are what they say about eBay. Still the great internet business idea going.

Today, the NYT is reporting that eBay is supporting these unaffiliated businesses with a link. EBay has said that it won't start its own drop-off business, but when the need to expand arises, how long will it take eBay to put the drop-off business on the table? Not long, I suspect.

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Thanks to the many readers who sent kind emails about the first installment in this series. In today's entry, I will discuss "The Book" -- the AALS Faculty Appointments Register. This is no longer a book, of course, as the AALS has ceased making paper distributions. Everything is online and searchable (though a bit clunky). For obvious reasons, however, you cannot see the contents without a password, so let me give you an idea of what we find in The Book.

As noted in my earlier entry, this first installment of The Book contains 613 resumes. There will be four installments in all, though the last (next January) will be too late for most of us. (I assume that this installment is useful to someone, but our recruiting will be done in December, so we won't even look at the January distribution.) By the time The Book is complete, it will contain over 1,000 candidates. The overwhelming majority of these people will not get jobs as law professors, at least not this year.

One of the primary tasks of the appointments committee is to sift through the candidates, looking for someone who is a good fit for the available position. If the position is well defined by subject matter -- for example, our tax position this year -- the search is relatively easy. The AALS database is searchable by expressed course preferences. In my view, if we are looking for a candidate whose primary scholarly interest lies in the area of taxation, that candidate should probably list one or all of the tax courses among those that they would most like to teach.  Using that as a search parameter, I find 40 of the 613 candidates who appear qualified for a further look. If I expand the search to include all candidates who have listed a tax course anywhere among their teaching preferences, the number of candidates rises to 59. Just to be thorough, I have reviewed all 59 forms.

If the position is open as to subject matter, the search becomes much more challenging. How do we find the "best athletes"? Unfortunately, the database offers only limited assistance here. We can search, for example, for candidates who list a PhD among their credentials. Often, these are candidates who expect to complete their degree next year, and they are hoping to land a teaching position that will provide a seamless transition from student to professor. If I limit the search to PhDs, I find 95 candidates or over 15 percent of the candidate pool. My impression is that this percentage has been rising over time. These candidates are often attractive because they have already tasted the life of the academic in a way not available to most JDs. On the other hand, my impression is that many marginal PhD students or marginal JD students seek the additional degree to enhance their marketability, but it does not change the fact that they are marginal scholars and likely to stay that way. In short, a PhD does not punch your ticket into law teaching.

Supreme Court clerks are difficult to find in the AALS database. It allows a search for those who have judicial clerkships, but it does not distinguish those with U.S. Supreme Court clerkships from those with other clerkships, and most of us think this might be a relevant distinction. Of the 613 candidates, 248 list some form of judicial clerkship. When I download the whole database -- all 613 forms -- and do a word search to find Supreme Court clerks, I locate only eight candidates. Hmm. Fewer than I would have thought, but perhaps some of the clerks who might otherwise be in the market have already secured a position through back channels. In any event, this group is always worth a look, even though many of them will turn out to be disappointing in the interview room.

Another relevant fact when attempting to separate the wheat from the chaff is publications. If you are a teaching candidate on the bubble, there is nothing you can do that will improve your chances more than publishing some good articles. Unfortunately, the searches are too imprecise here. Of the 613 total candidate, 560 list one or more publications. These range from newspaper editorials to continuing legal education presentations to Harvard Law Review articles. Among other things, we are attempting to predict scholarly potential, and many of the listed writings are not very helpful for that task. Law review articles or other scholarly writings are the best credentials here, but the AALS database does not provide for such detailed searches.

There are other ways to sort the forms. For example, sorting the forms by gender yields 182 women. (This was a surprise to me. Roughly half of all law students are women, but only 30 percent of the candiates are women?) A "minorities only" search produces 103 records (16.6 percent), with designations ranging from "Black/African American," "Hispanic-American," and "Asian" to "Pakastani," "Puerto Rican," and "Alaskan Native." And, of course, we can sort by selected law schools, though this is a search I never perform, except out of curiosity. For example, 7 candidates have University of Wisconsin degrees, while 15 have degrees from the University of Chicago. Other contingents include Columbia (46), Harvard (83), NYU (45), Stanford (22), Yale (44). (These numbers include LLMs.)

At this point, I have tapped out the potential for limiting the database through searches, and the only way to identify potential candidates is through a manual search: I will look at every one of the 613 forms. More on what I am looking for in the next post.

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When given a choice, I will usually opt for a local restaurant over a chain, but tonight I took my family to The Claddagh Irish Pub for the second time. My children have very diverse tastes in food, and finding one restaurant to satisfy all of them is difficult, but the Claddagh has accomplished that twice now. The menu purports to contain traditional Irish dishes, though, having never set foot on the Emerald Isle, I cannot speak to its authenticity. Still, the portions are generous and tasty. I also enjoy the ambiance, at least beyond the bar, where the cigarette smoke is offputting. The company's website refers to the ambiance as Craic, which apparently "means a fun, warm, friendly environment." Our local store is much brighter, roomier, and cleaner than pubs I have visited in England, and it has large-screen televisions tuned to ESPN, which give it something of a sports bar feel, though the Irish theme is too visible to go completely in that direction.

Based in Solon, Ohio, The Claddagh Irish Pub is expanding rapidly through company owned stores located mainly in the Midwest. The restaurant we visited is a large, freestanding building in the upscale Greenway Station, so it couldn't have been cheap to build. But if the crowds are consistently as large as those that we have witnessed, it is doing a good business.

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Faced with the sudden realization that only one of my children had plans today, I proposed a spur-of-the-moment family cycling outing on the Sugar River Trail. This is one of Wisconsin's rail-to-trails projects, and the path is mostly flat, covered with limestone. Somehow I managed to convince three of my children and my wife to go along, and we headed south about 30 miles to New Glarus, a quaint little town that bills itself as "America's Little Switzerland." It is also the trailhead for the Sugar River Trail.

Although overcast, it seemed like a great cycling day. The air was cool, but not cold, and we discussed how far we should ride. Unfortunately, the weather made the decision for us as the rain started falling about two miles into the trip. We made it another three miles out before concluding that the rain was getting heavier, not lighter, then we turned back to New Glarus. When we finished, we were splattered with mud from helmet to shoe, though no one seemed overly upset.

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Houdini may seem like a strange entry into the Entrepreneur Hall of Fame, but he was as entrepreneurial as they come, building his own name into a brand recognized around the world. Over the past few weeks, I have been listening to Kenneth Silverman's biography with the daunting title, Houdini!!!: The Career of Ehrich Weiss : American Self-Liberator, Europe's Eclipsing Sensation, World's Handcuff King & Prison Breaker. It is not a great biography -- except, perhaps, for Houdini fanatics, who might enjoy hearing about every variation on every one of his escapes -- but it contains some fascinating tales. Like Houdini's effort to become the first man to fly an airplane in Australia. But the part of the book that has most interested me has been Houdini's efforts to foil imitators.

Houdini began life as Ehrich Weiss, and spent several of his childhood years in Wisconsin. He began his career as a magician in his youth, and eventually worked his way into the specialty of escapes. His stage name was a tribute to the French magician Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, whom Houdini later "unmasked" in a book on the history of magic. Houdini's "Metamorphosis" routine and handcuff escapes (see photo) made him a popular vaudeville performer, but his international reputation was built on his spectacular stage show, which featured increasingly daring escapes. (Contrary to the 1953 movie, Houdini did not die performing an underwater escape.) Of course, many of these escapes were imitated quickly, which irritated Houdini immensely.

Houdini attempted to protect his escapes through patent, and then copyright, but ultimately found that his only true friend was trade secret. As he developed increasingly intricate escapes -- escapes that could not be easily imitated -- he kept the full secrets of the escapes to himself. Of course, he employed assistants, but he made certain that none of them knew all of the details. As an extra precaution, he made each of them sign a non-competition and non-disclosure agreement. In this way, he was able to develop and retain rights to the escape called "Upside Down in the Water Torture Cell," and many others.

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Kirsten at the re:invention blog is angry at Fast Company for using her trademark on one of their newsletters. She would like to seek legal redress, but her attorney advised, "It costs $5000 to file a complaint, and another $50,000 minimal to go to trial." Steve Bainbridge has blogged recently about the need to trademark blogs, but Kirsten's plight aptly illustrates the difference between the law on the books and the law in action, something we talk a lot about here at Wisconsin.

Ironically, when I visited Fast Company's "Fast Take" newsletter site, the sample newsletter began with a series of stories about the importance of brand. Even if you have to steal it, I suppose. (Though I did note that the August 25 newsletter does not appear to be using Kirten's brand. Perhaps her email to the editor got through after all.)

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Fish & Richardson does a nice venture capital survey every quarter, and it just released the results for Q2. Some tidbits:

* Half of the financings were up rounds, and half were down rounds.
* Cumulative dividends were a term in 44% of the financings, a term that is favorable to venture capitalists in the event of a liquidation or redemption.
* Almost all of the liquidation preferences were at 1X, but three-quarters of the deals involved participation preferences, suggesting that venture capitalists have plenty of bargaining power.
* About three-quarters of the deals involved redemption provisions (the survey does not distinguish between mandatory and discretionary redemption).
* Anti-dilution protections are almost all weighted average, not full ratchet.

Nothing here is terribly surprising. While the terms suggest that venture capitalists are firmly in the driver's seats, the market for deals seems solid and expanding.

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My friend Scott Rankin is a food scientist in Babcock Hall, which locals associate with great ice cream and cheese. Scott's website says that his research focuses on the "characterization of primarily dairy food flavor with sensory and instrumental techniques." I think that means that he tries to figure out how to improve the taste of dairy products. In any event, I know that he knows a lot about cheese, and he just tipped me off on the World Cheese Exchange database. (When you go to this site, click "Technical Resources" and then "CDR World Cheese Exchange.") The database is searchable and browseable, by name and by country of origin. Some of the cheeses have pictures, and all of them have information about the country of origin, milk type, flavor, and apprearance. Cheese lovers rejoice!

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State Street in Madison is an amazing little economy, with stores coming and going with regularity. Madisonians value the unique flavor of State Street, which is a combination of local and national businesses. In my two years here, however, I have noticed an increasing number of franchises on State Street, and today I picked up a sandwich at Jimmy John's, which claims to have the "World's Greatest Gourmet Sandwiches." They really are quite good, but how hard is it to make a good sandwich? (A: not that hard) Based in Elgin, Illinois, Jimmy John's now has three stores in Madison, and I believe all of them are franchised. The company has a nice website, which contains the following numbers based on 14 franchise stores:

* Average Sales: $849,779
* Average Food and Paper Costs: 25.91%
* Average Income from Operations: $226,806
* Average Unit Net Profit: 26.69%
* Average time before a first-time franchisee is doing so well that they decide it'd be silly not to open another franchise: 18 months

So they count "income from operations" as "net profit"? It's hard to tell whether "operations" includes financing costs and lease payments on the store property, but it is pretty clear that franchisees are not taking home over $200,000 from these stores. (If nothing else, the website contains the following: "How much can I make as a Jimmy John's franchisee? We are restricted by the Federal Trade Commission and various state franchise sales regulations from providing you with specific profit projections. To learn more about actual experiences, we suggest you contact existing franchisees.") The franchise fee is $30,000, and the royalties are 6 percent of gross sales. All this for a store with a menu that is nothing special? No, I am afraid that it will be hard to get me excited about a new food franchise until someone executes my idea for a Vegan fast food restaurant.

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I have been having a good time watching Law & Entrepreneurship News unfold. We are not having our official launch until next week, but the students have been building content since yesterday. Earlier today, I spoke with one of the student editors who was laboring over his first post. From what I could gather, he was essentially done with the post, but he was having trouble forcing himself to click "Publish." Like many first time bloggers, he was worried that he might inadvertently be posting something that would make him look stupid.

Having spoken with this student on several occasions, I am not the least bit worried that he will actually publish something stupid, but listening to him reminded me of a conversation that I had with an attorney at Skadden Arps, my former law firm. This attorney said that one of his goals in litigation was to construct a circumstance in which he could embarrass the opposing attorney in front of his or her client. According to this attorney, this was the time of greatest advantage. "An attorney will sell his client down the river to avoid being embarrassed," he said.

Perhaps litigators have thinner skins than we transactional lawyers, but I don't think so, and this does not seem like a strategy for consistent success, at least against experienced lawyers. On the other hand, the impulse to avoid embarrassment is strong, especially among those who fancy themselves as smart, but who are insecure in their own abilities, as most beginning lawyers are. So, how does one become secure enough to avoid manipulation? Just like riding a bicycle, it takes a few falls.

Contrary to myth of the The Paper Chase, we rarely attempt to embarrass students in law school, Indeed, most law professors I know strive to make the classroom challenging for, but not threatening to, students. So, when do students learn to live with the prospect of doing something stupid? If not now, when? If not us, who?

Oh, by the way, here's a hearty welcome to the first-year class! See you next week in Contracts!

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I am a little behind on my law school news, but I just noticed that David Schizer is the new dean at Columbia Law School. He is 35 years old, which makes him a very, very young dean. I have met David, and he is a very impressive person, and I suspect that he will do exceedingly well as dean.

The former dean, David Leebron, is heading south to become the new president of Rice University. On one of my other blogs, Rod Smith -- formerly the Dean at various law schools and now the president of Southern Virginia University -- mentioned that he is writing a law review article on "why/how law deans become college presidents." I am not sure I see the connection, but Rod writes, "Lawyers are attractive candidates for college presidencies because they are (or ought to be) thoughtful advocates. As a president, I am always sharing Southern Virginia's case, if you will. I should add that SVU is the best 'client' I have ever been blessed to represent, and I have had some wonderful ones over the years."

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Earlier this week, I spoke with Phil Greenwood, who is one of the driving forces behind the innovative M.S. in Biotech program here at the University of Wisconsin. I will be teaching a unit on entrepreneurial finance this fall to second-year students in the program, and I am very excited to be involved. Inevitably, the conversation turned to the local environment for biotechnology companies, and Phil opined, "We really need a home run." This has become the accepted wisdom in Madison. If we could just have one huge biotech success -- something that would create a lot of wealth in the community -- then other successes would follow.

Many had thought that Third Wave was going to be that home run, but it has turned out to be a double, I think. Promega is another company that is often mentioned with a faint sense of regret. Not that the company has been a failure, but that people keep hoping for more. The company that now seems to be the darling of all those who are looking for the home run is TomoTherapy. Who knows? The real home run may today be a small company, or just an idea in Hector DeLuca's laboratory.

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For every Svetlana Khorkina, there is a Rulon Gardner. He won bronze today, then proceeded to sit down on the mat and remove his shoes, signifying his retirement from wrestling. This from ESPN:

Tears streamed down his cheeks as he carried the flag around the arena, escorted by the unmistakable cheers of a dozen family members who made the long trip from Afton, Wyo., to Athens to see if he was good for one more gold. He wasn't, but he thought he was good enough -- even if a 4-1 overtime loss to Kazakhstan's Georgi Tsurtsumia earlier meant he couldn't duplicate the gold he won so shockingly in Sydney by beating the greatest wrestler ever, Russian Alexander Karelin, in his sport's upset of the century. "I came back and won a medal. Even though it's bronze, I have no regrets because I gave 100 percent in every match," Gardner said. "I didn't leave anything on the mat."

Rulon Gardner is more familiar to me than most Olympic athletes because he is a Mormon. We are still a small enough group that we rejoice when one of ours succeeds. As far as I can tell from this distance, Rulon Gardner is as genuine as he seems. All that emotion and gratitude is real, and I appreciate him for it.

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