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Tell me about your firm.
Fourty-one lawyers. Last year we earned more per lawyer than any firm our size or larger. That includes every big firm in the country. We takeonly rich clients corporations, banks and wealthy people who pay our healthy fees and never complain. Weve developed a specialty in international taxation, and its both exciting and very profitable. We deal only with people who can pay.
How long does it take to make partner?
On the average, ten years, and its hard ten years. Its not unusual for our partners to earn half a million a year, and most retire before theyre fifty. Youve got to pay your dues, put in eighty-hour weeks, but its worth it when you make partner.
Lamar leaned forward. You dont have to be a partner to earn six figures. Ive been Mitch thought about this for asecond and figured by the time he was thirty he could be well over a hundred thousand, maybe close to two hundred thousand. At the age of thirty!
They watched him carefully and knew exactly what he was calculating.
Whats an international tax firm doing in Memphis? he asked.
That brought smiles. Mr. Lambert removed his reading glasses and twirled them. Now thats a good question. Mr. Bendini founded in 1944. He had been a tax lawyer in Philadelphia and had picked up some wealthy clients in the South. He got a wild hair and landed in Memphis. For twenty-five years he hired nothing but tax lawyers, and prospered down there. None of us are from Memphis, but we have grown to love it. Its a very pleasant old Southern town.By the way, Mr. Bendini died in 1970.
How many partners in?
Twenty, active. We try to keep a ratio of one partner for each associate. Thats high for the industry, but we like it. Again we do things differently.
All of our partners are multimillionaires by the age of forty-five,Royce McKnight said.
All of them?
Yes, sir. We dont guarantee it, but if you join our firm, put in ten hard years, make partner and put in ten more years, and youre not a millionaire at the age of forty-five, youll be the first in twenty years.
Thats an impressive statistic.
Its an impressive firm, Mitch, Oliver Lambert said, and were proud of it. We are a close-knit fraternity. Were small and we take care of each other. We dont have the cutthroat competition the big firms are famous for. Were careful whom we hire, and our goal is for each new associate to become a partner as soon as possible. Toward that end we invest an enormous amount of time and money in ourselves, especially our new people. It is a rare, extremely rare occasion when a lawyer leaves our firm. It is simply unheard of. We go the extra mile to keep careers on track. We want our people happy. We think it is the most profitable way to operate.
I have another impressive statistic, Mr. McKnight added. Last year, for firms our size or larger, the average turnover rate among associates was twenty-eight percent. At Bendini, Lambert and Locke, it was zero. Year before, zero. Its been long time since a lawyer left our firm.
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They watched him carefully to make sure all of this sank in. Each term and each
condition of the employment was important, but the permanence, the finality of his acceptance overshadowed all other items on the checklist. They explained as best they could, for now. Further explanation would come later.
Wouldyou like to come visit us? asked Oliver Lambert.
When? asked Mitch, dreaming of a black BMW with a sunroof.
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The Charter of the United Nations
CHAPTER 1:PURPOSES AND PRINCIPLES
Article 1
The Purposes of the United Nations are:
1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end; to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
3. To acieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; and
4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
Article 2
The Organisation and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following principles.
1. The Organisation is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfil in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.
3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relationships from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance n any actionit takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.
6. The Organisation shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.
7. Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Charter VII.
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Hate Crimes: When Thoughts Are Against the Law
Does the country really need a national thought police? asked Investors Business Daily in an editorial. A bill currently sailing through the Democratic-controlled Congress would create exactly that, by expanding federal hate-crime laws to protect gays, transsexuals, and the disabled, along with racial and religious groups. Fortunately, the USA president has promised a veto. Dont get us wrong: we hate hate as much as anybody, but also hate the idea of punishing people for theigh thoughts. If you murder or assault anyone you should go to jail for a very long time, no matter what evil, twisted rationale drove you to it. In a free society, we should be punished for what we do to one another, not what we think about one another.
But intent matters, said Donna Brazil in The Washington Times. If it didnt, a woman who killed her husband for the insurance money would get as much jail time as a woman who killed her husband because she didnt know he was allergic to shellfish. That would be absurd; the first womans motivation makes her deed much worse. And its the same with hate crimes. When violence is motivated by hatred of a particular group, it affects the group as a whole, not just the individual victims. Dont believe me? Ask a transsexual if you can find one alive. Most of us have a 1-in-18000 chance of being murdered. For transsexuals, its 1-in-12. Expanding hate-crime laws to include gays, transsexuals, and the disabled wont bring back the dead, but it will at least show those still suffering that we will protect them.
But why protect some groups and not others? Said George Will in The Washington Post. The mass murderer at Virginia Tech last month said he hated rich kids, yet, for some reason, the wealthy are not a category protected in this years hate crime legislation. This is a bill that confers special status enhanced protection on certain government favoured groups but not others. Thats unfair. But the consistency argument cuts both ways, said Andrew Sullivan in TheAtlantic. com. Personally, I oppose all hate crime laws, but the fact is we already have some on the books punishing violence
motivated by hatred of someones race, color, religion, or national origin. What sense does it make to say that hate crimes laws are fine for all targeted groups except gays? None. If the USA president vetoes this bill, hell be sending a strong message about the moral and human and political inferiority of gay people.
The Week
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