Rush on Business : Iowa Corporate Lawyer & Attorney : Rush Nigut of Brick Gentry Law Firm : Serving Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, & Sioux City

Most people are familiar with Shakespeare's famous words spoken by Dick the Butcher in Henry VI (Part II) , "The first thing we must do is kill all the lawyers."  The majority of people perceive this as a lawyer joke, however, in reality Shakespeare realized that the surest way to chaos and tyranny even then was to remove the guardians of independent thinking.

But sadly, Shakespeare's character has now taken the form of out-state-interests who seek to take over our Iowa judiciary after an Indiana lawyer filed a federal lawsuit this week claiming that lawyers have too much say in the judicial selection process in Iowa. The goal is to deny the current Iowa State Bar Association members on the Judicial Nominating Commission the opportunity to vote on the short list of judicial candidates to be given to the governor.  According to James Bopp, Jr., Iowa lawyers have a "stranglehold" on our Iowa judiciary. Similar lawsuits like the one filed by Bopp in Iowa have been dismissed in other states.

In my previous post regarding the Iowa judiciary I warned this would happen.  Those that complained about judicial activism in our last retention election resulting in the ouster of three Iowa Supreme Court justices are now seeking judicial activism themselves. Iowans need to stand up and support an independent judiciary free from the whims of out-of-state political interest groups. Iowans should not be misled. Those that seek to oust our judges and change our judicial selection process don't care a wit about how our judicial system works.  The only goal is to push their political agenda. Nothing more. Nothing less.

*The views expressed in this blog post are my own and are not intended to speak for or represent the views of the other lawyers in Brick Gentry, P.C.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

The Franchise King, Joel Libava, has an interesting post on Small Business Trends asking Why Aren't Women Interested in Franchise Ownership? Joel says it's all in the numbers. According to Joel, about 25 percent of franchises are owned by women.

Joel references a book by Iain Murray that says women often have excellent qualities that allow them to become successful franchise operators:

• Women are good at organizing, at coordinating activities and people efficiently. This means women franchisees will be naturally inclined to organize and coordinate their franchise opportunity more productively and profitably.
• Women are good at prioritizing, at deciding which activities are more important than others. This particular skill works well in the franchising industry, when problems arise concerning planning, staffing, financing and people management.

According to my own unscientific experience this year, I'd say women owned franchise ownership is on the rise. I haven't kept exact statistics, but 3 out of the last 4 franchise reviews I've performed have been for women and I would say the number of women I performed reviews for this year is at  least equal in number to men. Of course, Iowa is always a little ahead of the curve.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks

The Wall Street Journal Reports that many law firms have begun offering flat monthly fees to their business clients. Done correctly, these type of arranagements can be advantageous to the client and the firm. I have worked with several companies in this way for several years and prefer to charge flat fees for many different services including Iowa incorporations and LLC formation and franchise review services.

My philosophy is that most business clients would prefer to know how much something is going to cost them rather than be surprised by an hourly bill where the lawyer took much more time than the client expected.

What do you think?

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks