The Better Chancery Practice Blog

As I write this, around 500 Mississippi lawyers and judges, many with their families, are in Destin, Florida, for this year’s bar association meeting. That is around 1,000 Mississippians who are spending Mississippi dollars in Florida hotels, on Florida golf courses, in Florida restaurants and bars, in Florida shops, on Florida souvenirs, on Florida fishing charters and equipment, and at Florida gas stations and convenience stores.

Why is Mississippi not worthy of this largesse?

Admittedly, when the Mississippi Bar made its move away from Mississippi back in the 80’s, the coast was a tired place in serious need of updating, but that was before the casinos. Now, even after Katrina, the coast is well able to accommodate the brigade of lawyers and their retinue. There are hotels, casinos, restaurants and shops, there are fishing charters, excursions and every conceivable amenity.

Money spent by the bar members here in Mississippi would pay Mississippi jobs, put money in the pockets of Mississippi vendors, and directly benefit the coast … and any other area with a fitting venue, like, for instance, Desoto County, Jackson, Vicksburg or Natchez. Even if the bar were to meet in Mississippi every other year, that would be a positive.

And it would be a plus in the eyes of Mississippians for a profession that continues to be cynically judged from the Scruggs fallout.

Why not Mississippi?

Please allow me to tell you about an experience I had that comes to mind every July 4, an experience that made literally true for me the phrase, “We hold these truths …”

Several years ago my daughter Aimée was living in Boston and working at the Massachusetts Historical Society. On one of our visits, she invited Lisa and me to visit her place of work, around the corner from hallowed Fenway Park, which has its own impressive history. Our son Mark, who was in school in Boston, joined us.

In the Society building, we saw the expected reading rooms where scholars pored over obscure texts. There were artifacts and oil portraits, many invaluable and irreplaceable. There were rooms of antique books and maps. Four or five floors of scholarship steeped in history.

We were introduced to Peter Drummey, Librarian of the Society. Peter is acknowledged by David McCullough in his book, 1776, as ” … the incomparably knowledgeable Librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society …” for his help in reviewing the manuscript and suggesting revisions. Peter graciously took us in tow and shared his encyclopedic knowledge of early American history and the priceless collections stored in the building.

As we wound upward in the building, we moved from one mind-bendingly impressive item to another. Here in the cradle of the American Revolution, we were standing in the presence of some of its most cherished sacramentals.

On the uppermost floor, we came to a locked door, and Peter pulled out a ring of keys. We entered the room and passed among rows of library stacks until we arrived at a locked gate in an iron-grate, fence-like wall behind which we could see many books, manuscripts and other items.

Peter explained that this gated area protected the most rare and valuable works in the entire collection. Here he showed us some remarkable items. There was the entire, original, handwritten journal of the acerbic John Quincy Adams, documenting every day of his life from youth to his death. There were breathtaking, hand-colored sketches by American plains Indians depicting buffalo hunts, Indians in full regalia riding horseback, and Indian warriors in combat with Anglo soldiers. There was Thomas Jefferson’s day book, which included entries about selling slaves and buying various provisions; On July 4, 1776, the entry related the purchase of some gloves. On another day, the supreme rationalist’s entry noted only that on that day his mother had died.

I can not catalogue all the emotions I felt as I held in my own hands these two ordinary-looking pages of notes that were anything but ordinary. They played a not-so-minor role in an event that changed the world and continues to reverberate through history even more than 230 years after the fact. I was awe-struck, of course, but mostly I felt a sense of how unfathomably remarkable and extraordinary were these two men who took care to get it right, knowing as they must have that the pronouncement they were fashioning must say exactly what needs to be said because it would live for many years thereafter. These were the self-recorded thoughts of two of the eyewitnesses to and participants in the creation of the republic.

I passed the two pages on to Lisa, Aimée and Mark, and they were as moved as I had been. We held in our hands these sacred papers that recorded profound truths.

This is what comes to my mind every July 4, the day we commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It’s the kind of experience that stays with you. It’s the kind of experience that gives fresh meaning to the words, “We hold these truths …”

It was exactly one year ago today that I started this blog.

My hopes then were the same as they are now:  that I could provide a way to communicate with lawyers about the way we do business in this district as well as how to do better chancery practice.

I have heard from lawyers throughout the state that they are reading this blog regularly and deriving some benefit and enjoyment.  I have heard it from lawyers on the coast, in the Delta, Jackson area, Tupelo, Southaven, Vicksburg, Hattiesburg, both M.C. and Ole Miss law schools, other judges, and even from other states.  A few lawyers in our district actually read it from time to time.  Good. I’m glad to be of help.

We get between 250 and 350 views on the average Monday through Friday; occasionally something will catch readers’ attention or another blog will point out a post, and the views will spike over 500. Readers drop down to about 100 each on Saturday and Sunday.  Those are not big numbers for some blogs, but considering the limited scope we work with here, and the narrow focus, I consider that pretty good.  I’ll keep it up as long as it continues to be a helpful resource.

I’m looking at changing the appearance of the site to make it more visually appealing, although I favor lack of clutter and minimal frills.

I still encourage your comments.  Just because I interpret something in a particular way does not end the debate.  Lawyers in my district will tell you that I am open to differing opinions without taking umbrage.  Don’t be afraid to take issue with my stand. You might not persuade me, but there’s no penalty for civil disagreement.

As always, if you have an offering to publish, or an idea for a post, or a suggestion, send it on via email.

Thanks for letting me be of service this past 365 days.

Politics without principle.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Knowledge without character.
Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Worship without sacrifice.

— Mohandas K. Gandhi, 1925

• Okay, all you art lovers.  Which is the Rothko and which is the aerial photo of a tulip farm?
• Tina Fey offers a prayer for her daughter.
• Is the law school industry a bubble, and is it about to *POP*?
• Opera is a popular web browser in Europe.  Oprah is, of course, Oprah.  Give email accounts to folks who can’t spell, and you wind up with email intended for Oprah being sent to Opera.  You can read some of them and the responses here.
• If you love to hoard stuff and would like to make some money off of it, Amazon has a deal for you. You can ship them (they pay the freight) your electronics, dvd’s, textbooks or video games, and they will send you a gift card you can use to purchase more stuff from Amazon. Only catch is that they only buy stuff they have listed as “eligible.”  Check it out here.
• When you think of Walt Whitman, do you think about the poet or the Reconstruction Era bureaucrat?  You win the stuffed rabbit if you answered “both.”  Seems he worked in the US Atty General’s office in DC from 1863-1873 as a scribe or copyist, and generated memos recommending policy during the post-war period — 3,000 of them.  You can read and hear about it at the National Archives site.

From outside, the Yocona River Inn in rural Lafayette County looked like nothing more than the ramshackle country service station and grocery that it had once been.  Inside, though, there was no mistaking that this modest exterior housed one of Mississippi’s truly great and memorable dining experiences.

Yocona River Inn

Chef Paige Osborne worked her magic in an impressive array of dishes.  The grilled salmon was always superb, as was the catfish.  But the pièce de résistance was unquestionably the beef tenderloin filet with Yocona sauce.  If you never had it, imagine the tenderest, perfectly-cooked full-flavored beef that literally melts in your mouth, topped with a sweet, buttery, pungent sauce that perfectly complements the rich beef taste.  Forgive me for not elaborating more on the menu, but the steaks were so almighty good that I seldom ventured deeper.

As if the food were not enough, the convivial atmosphere in the dining rooms was always just the right complement to the superlative cuisine.  The aromas from the kitchen wafted over all, piquing your appetite almost unbearably.  Diners brought their own bottles, and any that had not already been consumed outdoors awaiting a table was downed with the exquisite food.  It was a homey, relaxed, fun atmosphere where you often ran into folks you knew.

Alas, in 2009, the Yocona River Inn burned to the ground, and although there was an attempt to revive it, including a Yocona in Exile restaurant in Abbeville, north of Oxford, undercapitalized in a shaky economy, the valiant effort failed.  In December, 2010, Ms. Osborne recognized the inevitable and closed her doors for good.  The Yocona River Inn was no more.

Or so it seemed.

This weekend Lisa and I popped into LB’s Meat Market in Oxford to check out the steaks, and discovered the fabled Yocona Sauce for sale.  It is outrageously expensive (if you do the math it comes out to about 90 cents per serving), but I sprung for it anyway.  After all, it’s as close as one can get to the Yocona experience since the restaurant went extinct on us.

The ingredients are modest: Burgundy, molasses, balsamic vinegar, Lea & Perrin worcestershire sauce, black pepper and kosher salt.

You heat the sauce concentrate, whisk in some butter (I know what you’re thinking, but if you’re going to eat a big ole steak, why are you worrying about your arteries in the first place?), and let stand at room temperature.

Voila!

Then you spoon some over your steak and enjoy the phenomenal flavor.

If you shut your eyes for a moment as you savor the delicious flavor, you just might be able to imagine an enjoyable evening with friends at the Yocona River Inn.

Oh, about LB’s … a real meat market that sells some local meat.  A rarity in these mega-market days.  And they sell Hoover Sauce, too.

Over there on the right of the page is a list of links headed “LAWYER BLOGS.”  These links will take you to blogs published by Mississippi lawyers on topics of interest to Mississippi practitioners.  My intent is to provide links that you can check frequently for useful, entertaining information.  Blogs that are not updated regularly are deleted until they resume regular posting.

Several of these blogs I read every day.  Some I check occasionally to catch up.  Some are aimed at laypeople, and are clearly marketing efforts.  They might give you an idea or two about your own marketing.

All of these blogs are lawyers using the internet to inform, entertain, increase client base, or promote ideas about the law.  I encourage you to check them out yourself and use them as a resource.

• Elder Law Blog.  Ronald C. Morton of Clinton posts on matters of interest in the filed of elder law.  For you lawyers who handle conservatorships, guardianships, trusts and wills, there is some material here that may just help you in a given case.
• Hattiesburg Divorce Lawyer.  Tim Evans of Hattiesburg has a blog that targets clients and lay people who are seeking info about divorce and related issues.  It’s a clever marketing tool, and you will find the information useful from an attorney’s standpoint.
• Mississippi Accident Lawyer Blog.  Paul Snow of Jackson uses his blog primarily for marketing, but he also offers informative posts about personal injury litigation.
• Mississippi Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog.  This is the blog of Curt Crowley of Jackson, who takes criminal defense issues and posts about them in terms that laypersons can understand.
• Mississippi Lawyer Blog.  The Coxwell law firm of Jackson posts about legal matters for a general audience.
• MS Litigation Review & Commentary.  A blog I read every day.  Philip Thomas of Jackson focuses like a laser beam on Mississippi litigation, verdicts, appellate decisions, and issues affecting Mississippi practitioners.  Highly recommended.
• Mullin’ Over.  Winky Glover of Meridian’s blog on tax issues.  Alas, not updated frequently enough.
• NMissCommentor.  Another highly recommended blog that I read every day.  Tom Freeland of Oxford posts on a wide variety of topics including Mississipi, regional and national legal issues, the blues, food and restaurants, books, politics, current events, etc., etc.   He was a superior source of information on the Scruggs scandal, and continues to cover its developments.
• randywallace.  A new blog by Randy Wallace of Clinton.  He posts on a variety of topics, and it will be interesting to see how his blog develops.
• Thus Blogged Anderson.  Ah, yes.  The blog of the enigmatic, eccentric and quasi-anonymous “Anderson,” who styles himself as “Another proud member of the irony-based community.”  His posts on almost every subject imaginable are notable for their sometimes caustic wit, insight and sharp intelligence.  Another blog I read nearly every day.

Do yourself a favor and pick a handful of these links to add to your favorites or bookmarks list on your browser.

The death and devastation that fell on our state and neighboring Alabama last Wednesday is sobering and sad.  Four killed in our own Clarke County.  Another three in Kemper to the north.  A woman who works with Lisa lost four members of her family in the storms, including her husband and mother.  And Smithville.  The images take your breath away.  A friend from Tupelo carried a truckload of supplies down there early Thursday morning before Homeland Security cordoned it off, and he said that the photographs are inadequate to capture the scope and severity of the damage.  He saw bodies scattered in the wreckage and the survivors wandering in shock.

The reports of people responding with help bring a lump to your throat.  Families in the surrounding communities are taking the homeless families in until they can make other arrangements.  A man in Columbus who caters barbecues hitched up his cookers, rounded up some friends and lots of food, and set up in Smithville to cook free for anyone there who needed it.  Yesterday on the Square in Oxford in the midst of Double Decker people were taking up money for the people in the devastated areas.  There were thousands of people there, so I hope they reaped a bountiful harvest.

While so much of Mississippi was being walloped last week by the deadly tornadoes, the judges were in Jackson for the spring conference.  Most of us spent a lot of time on cell phones checking on things back home.  Chancellor Jim Davidson of Columbus learned that his home in Oxford had five trees on it and roof and water damage.  All of our families made it through okay, though.

As always, I picked up a lot of helpful information at the judges’ meeting, and I will be passing much of it on to you here.

On Friday, Lisa and I met up at Oxford for the Double Decker Festival, which is without a doubt one of the best street festivals in the state.  At DD Sarurday morning we ran into folks from Meridian and old friends the Gambrells of Oxford and the Tutors of Pontotoc.  Robert Gambrell, a bankruptcy lawyer, told me the roof was ripped off his office in the storm that hit Oxford, and many files and some equipment were damaged.

The weather for DD was a gorgeous counterpoint to the turmoil of the days before.  It was clear, sunny and cool, and a gentle breeze kept things comfortable.  After wandering the more than 100 vendor booths admiring paintings, pottery, handicrafts, jewelry and whatnots, and enjoying the music and aroma of delicious food wafting across the area, we ambled over to Tom Freeland’s office to meet and visit with him.  He treated me to a delicious rum punch made with fresh-squeezed limes and a generous dose of rum.  Now that’s hospitality.  I think next year I may bring a couple of lawn chairs and trespass on the front lawn of Tom’s office just off the Square on West Jackson so we can make a longer day of it.  Lisa’s back does not enjoy the few hours of walking and standing that DD entails.

From there we had lunch at Two Stick (owned by friends of my daughter) and headed back to our Oxford retreat tired but happy.

Next week we’re going to give some money to that nurse who lost four family members.  I encourage all of you to give whatever you can to the Red Cross or your church, or whomever you know will put it to good use to help the Mississippians who are hurting right now.  No gift is too small for that purpose.  And let’s remember them in our prayers.

In a post aptly entitled Intestinal Fortitude, the blog Mocking Words enlightens us about two recent cases in which various surprising items were discovered in cavity searches of a woman in Scranton, PA and a man in Sarasota, FL.

As the term “cavity” implies, the searches involved rather intimate internal regions of the body accessible only by means that you probably prefer not to think about in detail.

The Scranton woman had concealed 51 packages of heroin, some 30-odd drug baggies, 8-1/2 prescription pills and fifty-two dollars and twenty two cents in her “cavity.”

*Ouch*

In the case of the Sarasota man, the routine cavity search on his booking into jail turned up: 17 oxycodone pills; one cigarette; six matches; a flint (!); an empty hypodermic syringe with an eraser stuck on the needle; one lip balm container; one condom; a drug store recipt; and a coupon.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t care to think about how that stuff got into that — uh — cavity.  I also don’t care to think about whether some unsuspecting bona fide purchaser for value without notice was going to smoke that cigarette or use that lip balm <shudder>.  And how much would you have to be paid to have the job of the store clerk to take that coupon?

Human ingenuity is an amazing thing, isn’t it?  If those two geniuses had devoted as much time and effort toward world peace as they did to hiding stuff in their nether regions, the world might be a better place.  Or maybe not.