Good Ideas, Bad Ideas & Depeche Freaking Mode

First off, everyone needs to take a look at this video from The Atlantic. It’s an excellent example of how long form video should have a place in one’s media diet. Every now and then I run into someone who insists on perpetuating the myth that only the shortest of videos have any merit on the Internet. These people are so wrong; like Mayor of Wrongtown FOR LIFE wrong. Anyway. Check this out. Fascinating conversation on an important topic with serious people. You just can’t do this in prose or short form video.

Also, I wanted to touch on the Starbucks kerfuffle. To be clear, the coffee barons goofed. There was, however, the smallest kernel of an idea worth pursuing on their end. Hear me out. There are few people in our day-to-day lives that we see on such a regular basis as those who give us our coffee. It’s totally reasonable for Starbucks to try to bolster customer loyalty by having their baristas and baristos talk more to people in their stores. It was a great idea until someone came up with staff engaging customers on race. In America. In 2015. Gawker got their hands on the internal memo announcing the plan and…on second thought this was a bad idea from the outset…

Ok, look, it’s not the end of the world and they get points for having their hearts in the right place. We’ll continue buying their awful coffee, but not before we get some vicious mockery out of the way. Mock away, Internet. Mock away.

Today I learned that piranha feeding frenzies are real. And terrifying. Go read this article about a really bad idea.

• Morgan Lewis pulled off a fascinating merger with Singapore’s Stamford Law Corp. These guys have been adding attorneys to their ranks aggressively for the last 4 months or so. I don’t see them slowing down.
• Layoffs hit Goodwin Proctor. Similar story to Kasowitz last week and it has us wondering what’s going on in Litigation Land.
• Litigation finance shop Burford Capital posted some spectacular growth numbers. 35% increase in revenue year over year.
• The Bank of England just announced the appointment of a former Clifford Chance partner as GC.
• K&L Gates launched a rather interesting content hub. Great looking platform. Here’s to hoping they put good stuff on it.
• Sutherland Asbill is being sued over allegations that a former partner snagged $60M in trust assets.