#lsa arena

[laputaskies]

Kazer bantering with Arena

[nirgilis]

Lost Soul Aside some thoughts and speculations

This post will use a mix of 2021 and 2023 versions of gameplay demo, since 2023 has more polished graphics, but 2021 has English subtitiles. Also this translation of 2023 presentation with developers was used in the process.

Kazer

Piece of fabric, which could've been a scarf but isn't, waving in the wind seems like a wing? Something akin to Sephiroth's black wing, but not corporeal.

It's somewhat peculiar that he has green eyes. Especially protags tend to have almost any other eye color, but not green. And even if they do, it's more likely to be paired with blond hair, not black.

In a way in himself Kazer collected all base RGB colors. Blue from Arena-weapons, Red from his clothes and Green from eyes. Though this might hardly has any meaning.

2. Ventas

There might be a possibility that at some point Ventas will take off his modern looking religious dress/coat? Bc underneath he clearly has a blue suit with golden ornament. (Author of the post can't help it, but this belt under the coat which is possibly purposed to additionally make sure the coat won't fall off, looks like a car seatbealt).

While Ventas' clothes are heavenly/holy themed, most of his skills seems cosmic.

Swords orbiting him to create a shield.

When his sword leaves shining afterimage it recembles an arm of a galaxy.

These things aren't cosmic objects, but there's maybe no better way to describe them but "throwing stars."

4. Ability which, bc of visible rings, recemblases armillary sphere or astrolabe, but ultimately is supposed to be a celestial body with him at the core.

3. Story speculations

Very doubtful that this manga and its anime could've been one of inspiration for LSA, it probably has only a combination of elements, which can be present in other media, but author of this post recalled this one. Somehow LSA shares some main characters' elements with 2006 manga Hakkenden and its 2013 anime.

There's an older than protag character, Satomi Riou, who is aligned with Church in theocracic country, having not low, but nor the highest position there, but his interests aren't 100% aligned with the Church. They have complicated relationship with protag, in some ways being both enemies and friends.

Protag Inuzuka Shino is in symbiotic state with the strongest demon, Murasame. Murasame is initially is a living sword spirit and can't have a physical form unless has a vessel, which uses Shino as. While not in a connected combat state Murasame takes a form of a crow and usually follows Shino around. If Shino will fall unconsious and thus won't be surpressing Murasame, he will go berserk.

As both Murasame and Riou's familiar are demons, the Church views them as enemies. But in Riou's case he comes from a family of 1 of 4 Sacred beasts, power of which the Church wants for itself, so it takes chosen by beasts children under its wing.

Shino came into possession of Murasame on the edge of death, when Rio gave him a choice, either to die, or accept the demon to survive.

The event of Shino surviving has a number of rather strange circumstances happening in the row. That Riou visited the village when it got attacked, that he had Murasame with him, with it's being unknown how he got it.

With similarities between Hakkenden and LSA, and assumption what kind of character Ventas is supposed to be judging from characters he was possibly based on, Ravus from VS13/FF15 and Vergil from DMC.

Ventas' words about Kazer "This inhuman power, seems like I've got the right person," might have another meaning, that he had a hand in Kazer meeting Arena and it was his intention for things to happen like this.

Regardless of this assumption, it doesn't seem that Ventas will really pursue Kazer, since when he was leaving what he said was close to: "The next time we meet, I want to ask you something."

And their fight is more of a duel, otherwise there's not much point in crossing blades at the start then to move away in different directions.

4. Collectible items

Choice of colors for collectible items might've been for gameplay reasons, that they will be decently visible even in dark environment. Though this might still change for the release.

Kazer's clothes is black and red, which in manhuas and donghuas is used as a sign that character has relations to demonic side, so Kazer might be walking a rather dark road from a worldview of general population in LSA.

Somehow collectible items are of the same color as Ventas' robe, so in Church colors. Even though Kazer might be at odds with the Church, what looks like its small blessings in the form of collectibles is still useful to him.

[criticalbennifer]

11272023

A plant pap?

Even blurry her outfit looks stupid. Those pants go past trendy into ridiculous.

She announced her album yesterday (again) and engagement has been quite low and her more ardent fans are out here crying “but whhhhyyyy?”

Like, dude!!

First of all she’s old(er). And she’s too old to be doing this kind of “love” album. The way it’s been described so far, it sounds like she’s aiming for Olivia Rodrigo’s market. REALLY?! It sounds so adolescent.

Second, she can’t sing. People say she’s a performer but I don’t think much of her in that arena either. She barely has choreography, and what’s there is just her wiggling her ass and vamping. Just a lot of “I’m so sexy” “looks,” which might have been something when she was 30(!!!) but at 50 it’s a lot of “what are are we doing here?!”

And last of all it’s about Ben fucking Affleck. The Pap Ho who’s spent most of the summer and fall trying to canoodle with his ex wife while having his current wife try to match out in a pap off and keep failing. I mean she’s the one always doing the grabbing, reaching out but he’s constantly shaking his head “no” when she gets too close and/or enthusiastic or he looks like he wants to die. Look at their recent paps with his stupid cigarettes and beard/hair dye. Nobody wants an album from her about him! Not now!

There’s supposed to be a bigger announcement on Monday. Maybe engagement will pick up then?

Here’s some comments from LSA

[ballplayersxo]

Wow on you’re on a streak, thank you! So Iguadola and Gilbert Arenas were on a podcast talking about the Draymond punch recently. I read about it on LSA/reddit but Iguadola was on there saying that Draymond was already emotional the morning of the punch because his bm was going to take the kids away. Does anyone know if it was his bm or he has another? Jordan saying “he was expensive backpack for 30 (Steph)” was just the icing on the cake

expensive backpack???? those are fighting words omg

[angelvyxen]

Vanessa ole mean self her and sofia stayed cussing out workers at designer stores and Vanessa made her maid dig through dog poo look it up I hope she’s changed by now…

But anyways one thing I will say she knew she was that gworl her 00’s fashions stayed on point even into the late 00’s as well. She probably had to walk in the arena like that tho think about it your husband parents hate you, his teammates probably don’t like you cause your Mexican & cause they think you are too young Phil Jackson despises you. She had one chance with a Dior bag baby Natalia & her husband on the team. LMAO

https://www.instagram.com/p/CeCm53GNrqv/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

https://www.instagram.com/p/COodVQSDOwB/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

https://www.instagram.com/p/CNxaEo0D8sm/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

https://www.instagram.com/p/CNz7zAqDO1z/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

https://www.instagram.com/p/CLsSDAFDjO0/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Especially that hair flip she did SHE KNEW

even at the championship & parades she still had it going on her & Juanita are definitely my top wags.

https://images.app.goo.gl/2QMhq3HjWZCdqWPp8

https://images.app.goo.gl/Sh1zmeiB4huGyYoQ6

I need that yellow dress tho

Vanessa was so evil, the amount of vile things I’ve heard about that woman is uncanny. But she did occasionally put that shit on. I think I read on LSA one time that other basketball wives use to make fun of the way she dressed at one point because she’d put together the ugliest fits. She quickly learned how to dress lmaoo.

[wordacrosstime]

Language

[Language. Journal of the Linguistic Society of America. 2023. ISSN 0097-8507. With reference in part of this overall review to two articles from Volume 99, Number 2, June 2023]

Readers of my many book reviews will have noted that among my intellectual pursuits lies a fascination with all things related to language and linguistics.  I took a glance at my running list of reviews to date: not including this review, I have essayed 13 books in the linguistic field (out of 59 in total).  As I approach retirement age, I am seriously contemplating pursuing a PhD in linguistics.  With that in mind, I finally took the plunge and joined the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), one of the largest, oldest and most well-respected academic peer groups in the linguistic arena.

Linguistics, like so many fields of endeavor, has numerous components to it.  To excel in it, one must generally specialize.  Assuming that I follow through on my threat/promise to pursue a graduate degree in this field, I will probably focus on one or more of three areas:  native languages of North America, language preservation and revitalization, or forensic linguistics.  Membership in the LSA gives me a somewhat broader window into these and all other sub-fields within linguistics.

A capstone of membership in LSA is a subscription to the quarterly journal Language.  This is a peer-reviewed journal that serves as the official organ of the LSA.  To my delight, it turns out that not only do I receive the quarterly journal in the mail, but as an LSA member I also have unfettered access to all prior editions of the journal online.  I have been spending some guilty pleasure time rummaging through past issues, looking not only for nuggets in the form of articles, but also for references to books and monographs that might quench my thirst for knowledge.

This is a pretty weighty journal, which I prefer.  I do so love a challenge.  And since I have no formal training in linguistics, I must concentrate rather harder than a specialist might in order to follow what’s being discussed.  My reward for these efforts is an ever-increasing degree of interest in the subject.

The current edition that I am poring over is Volume 99, Number 2, published ostensibly in June 2023 (it was actually delayed a few weeks due to a technical issue).  So far I have read two of the articles in this edition.  I will summarize them for you, as I think they paint a perfect thumbnail sketch of Language as a journal:

The first article talks about subjecthood and syntactic ergativity in West Circassian (also known as West Cherkessian or Adyghe), a Northwest Caucasian language.  I admit that I was puzzled about the idea of subjecthood even being a question.  After all, in English, the subject of a sentence is usually fairly unambiguous.  However, this is a simplistic perspective on language – there’s no reason that the subject of a sentence needs to be obvious at all, at least not to someone who is not a native speaker.  In most entries in Wikipedia on languages there is a section for the grammar of the language that will identify them as being something like a SVO (Subject Verb Object) language (like English), or perhaps a SOV (Subject Object Verb) language (like Turkish).  All 6 possible permutations of these positional identifiers occur in at least one known language spoken on Earth, although some are far more common than others – for example, VOS is almost unknown, whereas SOV and SVO are both quite common.  However, if one looks at the entry for Adyghe (Adyghe language - Wikipedia) under the Grammar section, one notices that the grammar is described as AOV (Agent Verb Object)  The word Subject, which has a strong typological connotation in English, has been replaced by Agent, which is a more abstract concept.  As the word implies, the Agent in a sentence in Adyghe is the causative element that drives the sentential narrative, but it is a fuzzier distinction than the notion of a Subject in English.  Moreover, the phrase syntactic ergativity alludes to a notionally morphological concept called ergativity which alludes to an action perpetrated by some element of the sentence (the word ergative derives from the Greek word ergos, meaning work).  Morphological ergativity is usually expressed with some sort of suffix (common), prefix (uncommon), or infix (very uncommon) applied to a noun or noun phrase in the sentence.  This is true, for example, in languages like Basque, Pashto and Urdu.  In Adyghe, the ergativity of the Agent in the sentence is expressed more indirectly, eg by the position of the Agent within the sentence. This feature is so rare that there is only one other language reported to have it – Dyirbal, spoken in Queensland, Australia.

The second article discusses the notion of plural formation in Maltese.  Maltese is a Semitic language, most closely related to Arabic but containing significant substrata derived from Italic languages (notably Italian and Sicilian), and more recently, English.  It is also the answer to a fun trivia question:  What is the only Semitic language written in the Latin script and read left-to-right?  Like most languages, Maltese has a number of different strategies for forming the plural of nouns.  Indeed, the authors of the article enumerate no fewer than 24 separate rules for making plural or dual nouns out of singular noun forms.  These rules are broadly split into two categories:  those that exhibit regular suffixation (sometimes modifying the final letter in the word to promote ease in pronunciation and comprehension) and those that exhibit split plurality where the change in word form is less linear.  English has these sorts of plurals as well:  man -> men, woman -> women, mouse -> mice, goose -> geese, etc.  The main thrust of the article is to develop what is called a generative model of Maltese plural production that can take any Maltese noun and correctly create – that is, predict – the plural form.  The authors subjected a large corpus of Maltese noun forms to several computational linguistic models to try and come up with the best protocol for modeling the generation of plural forms.

I hope that gives you, the reader, a good idea of what Language is all about.  If you are a budding linguist or even a practicing one, you will find this journal a fountain of information.  I recommend Language to any linguistics student, scholar, or arm-chair dilletante such as myself (for now).

[Image credit with thanks to : © Linguistic Society of America]

Kevin Gillette

Words Across Time

25 August 2023

wordsacrosstime

[nyfacurrent]

Creative Careers | Tools for Creative Activism from Curatorial Organizer La Tanya S. Autry

“My real talk: Believe in yourself. You have a right to be there.” - La Tanya S. Autry

As a cultural organizer in the visual arts, La Tanya S. Autry focuses on social justice and public memory in her work. In addition to co-creating The Art of Black Dissent, an interactive program that promotes public dialogue about the African-American liberation struggle, she co-founded the #MuseumsAreNotNeutral initiative, which calls for an equity-based transformation of museums, and the Social Justice and Museums Resource List, a crowd-sourced bibliography. Autry can be found online with the project name Artstuffmatters on WordPress, Twitter, and Instagram.

We spoke with Autry about her vision for the future of museums, the power of social media for artists, curators, and organizers, and the ways in which we can all lead and push for change.

NYFA: What prompted you, along with Mike Murawski, to launch the "Museums are Not Neutral" campaign?

La Tanya S. Autry: Our #MuseumsAreNotNeutral initiative grew from a shared concern about the dominance of the neutrality claim in the field. In my own experience, I have encountered art museum professionals, with advanced level degrees, making statements such as “the museum has to be neutral” or “we can’t be political” to deflect calls to address racism. Those assertions are false because they decontextualize the origins and practices of museums. While Murawski and I do not suggest institutions adopt partisan views, we wanted to make a clear stand against the myth of neutrality. We also wanted to encourage more people in the field, as well as visitors, students, educators, and others, to acknowledge the truth. Since August 2017, when we launched our campaign which supports community-centered social progress, hundreds of people in the U.S. and abroad have joined us. As all the profits from sales of our “Museums Are Not Neutral” shirts go to charitable organizations, our global initiative has raised over $13,000, while sparking much needed public discussion about the histories, functions, and possibilities of museums.

NYFA: How do you use social media in your activism and career?

LSA: Years ago I participated in a workshop on public engagement strategies at the University of Delaware, where I am completing my doctorate in art history. Through that program, I started using social media as a means for sharing my research beyond academic spaces. That role is still important to me; however, I quickly found that these digital networks are useful for thinking and planning in public. For me, Twitter, Instagram, and other platforms have been instrumental tools for expanding my knowledge and collaborating with various artists, educators, museum professionals, and others who are committed to the arts, the humanities, and social progress. The Social Justice and Museums Resource List, an open crowd-sourced bibliography of over 40 pages, is one of the collaborative projects that I have developed through engagement with social media. 

For inspiration, I’d like to share some of my favorite initiatives, makers and thinkers, and organizations. You can refer to this Twitter list to find those who are active on that platform. Many of the accounts that inspire me are present on Instagram as well as Twitter, though some are only present on Instagram, like Bisa Butler, Delphine Adama Fawundu, Toyin Ojih Odutola, The Black School, and Erykah Antiy Killmonger. Additionally, you can follow the hashtags #BlkTwitterstorians, #1960Now, #SlaveryArchive, #MuseumsRespondToFerguson, and #MASSActionMIA. 

NYFA: What kind of museum space should the cultural sector work towards?

LSA: There are important measures underway to make museums more welcoming spaces to broader demographics. I’d love to see more of a central focus on equity, which calls for structural change. An equity-based approach would identify and dismantle the power relations that have created inequalities in museums. This focus addresses root causes, not only the symptoms. 

I believe that having more museum board members and executive staff who are committed to anti-racism and anti-oppression could promote deep change and foster caring environments. Here, I'm thinking of hiring practices and training opportunities, as well as functions related to collections, exhibitions, programs, interpretation, conservation, editorial, accessibility, development, and security. Also, the field would experience substantive positive change if more museum professionals and philanthropic organizations recognized and financially supported the longstanding anti-racist, anti-oppression work that many ethnic-specific institutions have done over the years.

NYFA: You’ve said on the podcast Museopunks that if we see ourselves as creative agents for change we can make that change happen in many small ways, and can encourage other people to do that work. What are some ways to make change and mobilize others?

LSA: Yes, I think individual efforts are just as vital as institutional changes. Each of us can educate ourselves by engaging with the histories of the field, reading literature about current practices, social justice histories, theories, and practices. Listening to, citing, and supporting the perspectives of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, Asian, LGBTQ, and disabled communities are important pathways. Collaborating and building solidarity across racial, ethnic, class, gender, and other social forces is necessary for seeing beyond existing frameworks. No matter our status level, we can each be a leader of change, and we can share our experiences with others through public presentations, publishing blog posts and articles, and posting reflections and resources via social media. While “going public” helps us find collaborators, we also learn more about the field and methods for generating social change. It empowers us.

NYFA: What's your advice for those entering the curatorial field, especially if they identify with a group, or groups, widely underrepresented in the field?

LSA: When I started taking classes in museum studies and working in the field, no one mentioned the difficulties I might encounter as a Black woman from a working class background going into the predominately white and economically-privileged world of art museums. So I am always happy to assist others entering this arena. 

I don’t use the word underrepresented as it’s misleading. Instead, I use the term historically excluded as Simone Austin, an MA student in history at the University of Delaware, suggested in a tweet last spring. The problem has not been that people of color and other groups have not shown up. We’ve been excluded from the field for a long time. In addition to being mindful of the language we employ because it shapes our thinking and actions, it’s crucial to study the history of museums. We need to know what came before, what’s happening now, what the visions for museums are, and who’s shaping the field. People who are from groups who have been excluded need to brace themselves for racism and other biases. These things shouldn’t happen, but they do.

My real talk: Believe in yourself. You have a right to be there. Connect with people across the institution in various roles and in the broader community. Analyze biases so you can both deconstruct and address them. Spend time dreaming about what you’d like to create. Strategize the steps needed to actualize your vision. Figure out who can help you get there. Value your relationships with people. Search for respectful and kind mentors who care about your well-being and professional development. Always remember your communities. Find ways to welcome them and others in the museum sphere.  

- Interview conducted by Mirielle Clifford, Program Officer, Online Resources

This post is part of a regular blog series, NYFA Creative Careers. Find new and exciting career and artist opportunities on NYFA Classifieds. To read more articles on building your professional artist career, visit the Business of Art section of NYFA’s website. Sign up for NYFA News and receive artist resources and upcoming events straight to your inbox.

Images: La Tanya S. Autry and Mike Murawski, Museums Are Not Neutral, August 2017, composite Instagram image, August 2018, Courtesy: La Tanya S. Autry; and La Tanya S. Autry and Gabriella Svenningsen, The Art of Black Dissent, 2017, Institute Library, New Haven, CT, featuring works from left to right: Eric Etheridge, 1961 Freedom Riders, 2010, print; Ricardo Levin Morales, Trayvon Martin, digital print, 2013; Ricardo Levin Morales, We Are the Mainstream, digital print, 2014; Photo Courtesy: La Tanya S. Autry.

[riilsports]

RIIL Division I Girls Hockey Championship, presented by Ortho RI: Burrillville/Ponaganset/Bay View Co-op vs. La Salle Academy RESULT, Game 1: B/P/BV 2, LSA 1 Game 2: Sunday, March 6 at 6 p.m. (Schneider Arena) Game 3 (IF): Tuesday, March 8 at TBD (Schneider Arena) (at Schneider Arena) https://www.instagram.com/p/CavZlqILUE1/?utm_medium=tumblr

[theblackguywhotips]

BDS 375: The All Black Ref Game Rod, Justin and Karen discuss listener feedback, drafting Lamelo, NBA trades, Raiders covid fail, Kevin Porter Jr punched woman while defending his sister, Chris Paul traded to Suns, Klay out for the season again, Zeke Nnaji mama at the draft, Kim Ng first woman GM, The Weeknd Super Bowl halftime, Golden Tate apologizes, Adrien Broner still trolling, Deandre Baker has charges dropped, pilots make penis symbol for football star, Antonio Brown breaks camera, NBA wants to have fans in 5 to 10 arenas, LSA ignored sexual assaults, NCAA March Madness, Paulina Gretzky is back on IG, all Black NFL ref staff, no Olympics for NBA players, Cano suspended a year, Bogdan Bogdanovic won't sign and trade, Giants fire OL coach after fight, Cam Newton is fighting the Covid still, NFL teams ordered to intensify Covid restrictions, Jrue Holiday trade, Dillon Brooks baby mama fall out, Bernard Tomic eating ass, Anna Horford gets harassed on Twitter, Reshad Jones arrested, Jim Edmonds rips ex for getting Covid, Goedert looks like he was the aggressor now, Earl Thomas back with wife after she filed for divorce and Rachel Bush wilding on Twitter.

[ericfruits]

Please Please Please

The South Carolina Supreme Court overturned a surviving spouse claim against the James Brown estate

Disputes over the estate of entertainer James Brown (Brown) have persisted in the years since his untimely death on December 25, 2006. In this case, the Court considers an action by Tommie Rae Brown (Respondent) to establish that she is the surviving spouse of Brown under the South Carolina Probate Code. The issue arose in the context of Respondent's claims filed in the Aiken County Probate Court for an elective share or an omitted spouse's share of Brown's estate.

Uncertainty as to Respondent's marital status existed because Respondent did not obtain an annulment of her first recorded marriage until after her marriage ceremony with Brown. Respondent's claims were transferred to the circuit court, which granted Respondent's motion for partial summary judgment and denied a similar motion by the Limited Special Administrator and Trustee (LSA). The circuit court found as a matter of law that Respondent was the surviving spouse of Brown. The court of appeals affirmed. In re Estate of Brown, 424 S.C. 589, 818 S.E.2d 770 (Ct. App. 2018). This Court granted a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by several of Brown's children (Petitioners) to review the decision of the court of appeals. We reverse and remand.

The Hollywood Reporter (a source we rarely cite) reported on the controversy

When James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul," died at the age of 73 in 2006, he left behind quite a legacy — as well as one hell of a mess. The iconic musician behind such hits as "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" was married at the time of his death to Tomi Rae Hynie. Or was he? Together, Brown and Hynie had a child named James Brown II. Or did they?

In the 12 years since Brown's death, such mysteries have haunted a South Carolina probate court tasked with figuring out how to divide Brown's assets. Hynie and James II have thus far been successful in overcoming challenges to their assertion of being the surviving spouse and legitimate son, respectively, which would put them in position to collect a big portion of what Brown left behind — an estate valued as high as $100 million.

But a family feud is hardly over. Earlier this year, nine children and grandchildren from Brown's previous marriages filed a new lawsuit alleging dishonesty on the part of Hynie and the administrators running the estate. This new case deals with progeny of a different sort — Brown's copyrights — and has the potential to shift estate battles involving famous songwriters into a much bigger arena, a federal court, which typically has exclusive jurisdiction over copyright matters. At stake will be the balance of power for heirs of authors (perhaps irrespective of a songwriter's express wishes) as well as future postmortem dealmaking and administration of the most famous songs in American history.

So who is Tomi Rae Hynie?

A former Janis Joplin impersonator in Las Vegas, she became a backup singer for Brown and eventually, in 2001, his fourth wife. But she had a secret: At the time of the nuptials with Brown, Hynie was already married to another man, Javed Ahmed, and had been since 1997. Ahmed, in turn, had his own secret: When he married Hynie, he already was married to at least three other women in Pakistan, according to Hynie. He told her about these wives after the ceremony and disappeared without consummating the marriage. He was only interested in U.S. citizenship.

Hynie, now 49, got her marriage to Ahmed annulled in 2004, but by then her relationship with Brown had become rocky. That year, Hynie and Brown got into a physical altercation. The singer was arrested for domestic assault, which led to a separation. Brown then sought his own annulment, and she countersued for divorce. The question of whether the two were really legally married was not resolved at the time. Months after the separation, Brown and Hynie informed a court of a settlement wherein she would waive any claim of a common law marriage. Hynie says she then reconciled with Brown and they lived together until his death.

But Hynie wasn't in Brown's will, because he never updated it during their relationship. She petitioned to correct this upon his demise.

The issue of bigamy upon bigamy partially explains the longevity of the probate case, which has traveled up the appellate circuit, down again, and up once more as judges in South Carolina wrestled with the implication of marrying someone married to someone else married to yet others. In July, a South Carolina appeals court affirmed a decision that because the state doesn't recognize bigamous marriage, Hynie and Ahmed were never really married. Therefore, Hynie "had no impediment to her valid marriage to Brown," the court ruled.

Meanwhile, there is the son, James II, who, like his mother, wasn't included in Brown's will. The doubts regarding his lineage stem from word that in the 1980s Brown had a vasectomy specifically to avoid paternity suits — and James II was Brown's only child born in the aftermath.

James II proved himself the son after undergoing a DNA test — twice. There are lingering bad feelings about making him go so far. In a court brief on Sept. 11, a lawyer for the administrator of the James Brown Estate noted that several of Brown's other children "have failed to submit to the probate DNA protocol."

But, of course, the fight isn't over. There's continued appealing wherein Brown's other children are arguing that the story of Ahmed's Pakistani wives relies on inadmissible hearsay without any discovery on the true facts. "We are extremely optimistic that Tomi Rae's spousal status will be swiftly reversed by the South Carolina Supreme Court as it is contrary to law on so many levels," says Marc Toberoff, the attorney now representing nine heirs of James Brown.

In January, these heirs — Deanna Brown-Thomas, Yamma Brown, Kenisha Brown, Michael D. Brown, Nicole C. Brown, Jeanette Bellinger, Sara Fegan, Ciara Pettit, and Cherquarius Williams — filed a separate complaint in California. The lawsuit has since been moved to South Carolina federal court (Brown was born in Barnwell, South Carolina). Hynie is accused in the suit of having "embarked on a series of duplicitous business machinations calculated to deprive Brown's children of their rightful interests in Brown's music under the Copyright Act."

To understand the basis and import of the lawsuit, one must first know a little something about an increasingly important realm of copyright law known as termination rights. In the 1970s, Congress extended the copyright term. In doing so, lawmakers chose to recognize that many who had created works at the early stage of their careers had assigned rights to publishers without much bargaining power. So authors — or their heirs — were allowed to terminate those deals 35 years after their work was published and reclaim rights during the later years of the copyright term. Many songwriters including Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Prince and David Byrne have either done so or threatened to do so as they renegotiated royalty deals. Given the year (1978) when the law went into effect and the 35-year wait period, these termination rights are just beginning to make a big impact in probate cases and elsewhere (like celebrity divorces).

As a surviving spouse, Hynie would be entitled to 50 percent of the termination interest, with the other 50 percent shared by the surviving children (or grandchildren if the child is deceased). Importantly, because of her huge stake, Hynie is in position to veto any move to reclaim song rights. And, of course, if there's no termination, then under existing song publishing agreements, royalties flow to the estate, which distributes the money in accordance with Brown's will and any court-ordered alterations. Before he died, Brown earmarked some of his estate to go to charitable endeavors. According to the estate, although the intention has been to donate money for scholarships to needy children, "to date not one penny has been available for those scholarships because the probate litigation has continued."

In the new lawsuit, Brown's children (other than James II) recount the battle over marriage and paternity, although they say they are not seeking to "re-litigate" Hynie's and James II's status as surviving spouse and child at least in the federal action. The latest case focuses most heavily on "back-room agreements." 

Beginning in 2013, according to the complaint, a consultant for the estate attempted to get the children to sign away their copyright termination interests in return for cash payments. States the complaint: "Defendants deliberately concealed the underhanded nature of these proposals by orchestrating their pressure campaign through go-betweens who falsely professed to be working in Plaintiffs’ best interests."

As the administrators of the estate were allegedly orchestrating a plan to rob the children of their termination interests, Hynie and James II served notice on Warner/Chappell Music, the publisher and rights holder of James Brown's back catalog, that they were exercising termination rights on 138 of Brown's compositions. The two didn't tell the other heirs.

Then, in 2015, continues the complaint, Hynie came to a $1.875 million deal with Warner/Chappell to transfer back rights to five of the songs. The suing children claim that the deal was written in a manner that leaves intact a royalty structure that favored the estate to the disadvantage of Brown's children. Hynie, whose status as surviving spouse is no longer being challenged by the estate thanks to a settlement, is essentially accused of trading away the family's copyright termination powers. The children and grandchildren, sensing they've been largely cut out, think the back-room dealing stinks to high heavens.

How might this all end?

Hynie and the estate administrators are seeking dismissal with the argument that the children really do wish to rehash a lot of the issues already dealt with in probate court and on appeal. They say the children have "failed to achieve their goals" in prior proceedings and are using this as a "backup." They argue that the litigation doesn't belong in federal court, and that copyright law provides no remedy to invalidate the types of agreements at issue. 

This case has the potential of upending family dynamics and the typical division of assets for deceased musicians (and other authors). If copyright law prevents pre-assigning termination rights, can a surviving spouse make deals pre-assigning the proceeds from a family's termination interests? Can a surviving spouse cut out other heirs by making deals with third parties not to exercise termination rights? Must the estates of authors now be settled in a different legal forum than everyone else in the country because of these strange legal mysteries? How will those currently planning estates for authors, especially those with large families, possibly navigate the madness at hand to prevent more decade-long legal wars? 

"[Termination] is becoming a bigger deal," says Zia Modabber, a managing partner at the Katten law firm who a few years ago handled a copyright termination dispute involving Smokey Robinson and his ex-wife. "A lot of the music has now been out long enough that copyright termination is coming up for the first time. We're going to see more of that. And the rules and facts are so complicated, it's getting to be very messy."

(Mike Frisch)

https://ift.tt/2BbMzt7

https://ift.tt/2BbMzt7

[laputaskies]

Everything I believe and fought for... Are they wrong?

[delhi-architect2]

ArchDaily - The Largest Open-Air Venue for Events and Concerts in Europe is Under Construction in Italy

© Iotti+Pavarani, Tassoni, LSA

Designed by Iotti + Pavarani Architetti, Tassoni & Partners, Lauro Sacchetti Associati, the RCF Arena, currently under construction, is set to become Europe’s largest events and concerts venue. Located in the Italian region of Emilia Romagna, the structure can host up to 100 000 people.

Read more »

from ArchDaily https://www.archdaily.com/935206/the-largest-open-air-venue-for-events-and-concerts-in-europe-is-under-construction-in-italy Originally published on ARCHDAILY RSS Feed: https://www.archdaily.com/

[maritimechandlingcapetown]

Everything You Need To Know About Lifeboats

Welcome back to another informative article that delves into something in the maritime and marine suppliers arena.

Lifeboats have always been an integral part of marine safety procedures. It is mandatory for every ship to have multiple lifeboats on board that can be easily accessed and used if the situation arises. Whether it is a commercial cargo ship or a boat, it is important for the vessel to have a mandated number of lifeboats in cases of emergency.

Lifeboats are small boats that are kept aboard a ship to carry out emergency abandonment, in case mishaps such as man overboard, ship accidents, etc. occur. These lifeboats primarily function as a device for the evacuation of people in distress from the ship and then aid in taking them to a safe location.  

Lifeboats are quickly deployed from ships with the help of a launching system which is fixed on the side of the ship. They include a motor, unlike inflatable rafts and boats which are smaller and slower. There are also inflatable lifeboats which consist of an auto-inflation system, that is quicker and more convenient for the people in distress.

In this article, we try to cover everything you need to know about lifeboats – types, release mechanisms, SOLAS requirements, safety equipment, and lifeboat maintenance, to make an informed decision. Read on!

Types of Lifeboats

Due to the unpredictability of circumstances, it is required for a ship to carry at least one rescue boat, in addition to a number of lifeboats. Lifeboats are of three types, depending on their application:

Open Lifeboats

These types of lifeboats, as their name suggests, are open and have no roof. They are mainly manually propelled by the means of oars. Some of them may also include a compression ignition engine which allows the lifeboats to be propelled forward.

However, due to the strict safety norms currently, open lifeboats have become obsolete. They might be seen very rarely in older ships.

 Closed Lifeboats

As the name suggests, closed lifeboats are covered by enclosures that shelter the people in it from rain, seawater currents, and strong winds. These boats, if toppled, stay upright on their own. There are two types of closed lifeboats – Fully Enclosed Lifeboats and Partially Enclosed Lifeboats.

Free Fall Lifeboats

Free Fall lifeboats are stored and launched from a downward sloping slipway for maximum clearance. They are heavier and stronger, made to sustain their impact with water when they drop directly once released from the vessel. 

Other than these three common types, there are two additional more advanced types of lifeboats – Fireproof Lifeboats which are used during oil spills and can withstand flaming substances due to heavy insulation; and Hyperbaric Lifeboats which help divers escape without undergoing decompression.

Now that we’ve seen the types of lifeboats, let’s see how their releasing mechanism works. 

Lifeboat Release Mechanism 

No matter the type of lifeboat, the most important consideration is to make sure it releases quickly and perfectly, so as to aid the people in distress as fast as possible. Hence, there are three different types of boat release mechanisms. 

On Load Mechanism

This type of mechanism focuses on releasing lifeboats from the wire, with crew members inside the boat. It is operated when the boat is about to touch the water, to ensure a smooth landing of the lifeboat without causing damage to the boat or harming the crew inside.

Off-Load Mechanism

This type of mechanism releases lifeboats after the boat is fully on the sea. It includes a hydrostatic piston unit at its bottom which is connected to the operating lever. Once waterborne, the water pressure moves the lever up which will release the fall wire.

Free Fall Lifeboat Release Mechanism

The Free Fall Lifeboat has a release mechanism where the lifeboat is launched from its stowed position by the operation of a lever inside the boat that releases it. It causes the boat to slide through the titled ramp and on to the surface of the water.

There are several other design ideas coming up for lifeboats and release mechanisms, however, there are some specific standards set by the SOLAS regulations which they have to adhere to. Let’s take a look at the SOLAS requirements for lifeboats.

SOLAS Requirements for Lifeboats

According to the LSA codes and SOLAS, there is a set of requirements that ensure the safety on a lifeboat. These requirements are:

The ship’s crew will decide the capacity of the lifeboat for a vessel. The number of lifeboats and liferafts should be enough to house at least 125% of the number of passengers and crew. The lifeboat should not be less than 7.3 m in length. Per ship, at least two lifeboats should be provided on either side of the ships; i.e., the port and the starboard.

The lifeboat of a cargo ship with 20,000 GT must be capable of launching when the ship’s speed is at 5 knots.

All the equipment described under SOLAS must be carried in a lifeboat to ensure survival at sea. The equipment includes freshwater, compass, distress signalling equipment, food and rations, and first aid.

The ship must carry a minimum of one rescue boat for rescue purposes in addition to a number of lifeboats. If more than one lifeboat is present onboard the ship, one of them can be designated as a rescue boat.

The gravity davits must be held and slide down the lifeboat even when the ship is heeled to an angle of 15 degrees on either side. Ropes called gripes are used to hold the lifeboat with the cradle in the stowed position.

Falls are the wires which lift and lower the lifeboat. A lifeboat should not descend at more than a speed of 36m/min, with the speed being controlled by centrifugal brakes.

With the boat loaded to its full capacity, the hoisting time for the boat to launch its launching appliance should not be less than 0.3 m/sec

The Lifeboats are to be painted with an internationally-approved bright orange colour and the ship’s call sign is to be printed on it.

The lifeboat station, where safety awareness posters and launching procedures are posted must be easily accessible for all the crew members in at all times and under all circumstances.

To ensure that the ship’s crew members are capable of launching the boat in minimum time in case of an emergency, regular drills must be taken as practice.

Apart from these requirements, lifeboats are required to have the necessary safety and survival equipment onboard as well.

Lifeboat Safety Equipment

This is a list of the basic life-safety equipment that is required on lifeboats. 

Compass

A lifeboat should contain a portable compass in order to check the direction in which it is to be steered. Having a compass is mandatory as it is a crucial component required to stay on course during rescue operations.

Signaling Mirror

A signalling mirror is a device that reflects light to grab the attention of a vessel passing by or a rescue plane.

Embarkation Ladder

An embarkation ladder has two ropes fixed with wooden or metal steps and is used either to ascend or descend from one ship to another during an evacuation procedure.

Dipper

When stranded on a lifeboat, potable water is a very precious commodity which needs to be used sparingly to last longer. However, there are great chances of the water being spilt while pouring due to the swaying motion of the sea. A dipper is a device that minimizes the spillage of lifeboat water.

First Aid Kit

A medical kit comprising of basic medicines, bandages, and first aid required to treat minor injuries must be included aboard every lifeboat.

Food Rations

The emergency ration is food stored in lifeboats and rescue boats in case the people on it have to stay for multiple days. The stored food ration includes wheat flour, glucose, soya fat, vitamins, and freshwater.

in addition to stocking the lifeboat completely, it also needs to be checked periodically and maintained properly in order to ensure its continued efficiency.

Maintenance Required in Lifeboats

Lifeboats can make the difference between life and death on the open sea and hence need to be functioning perfectly at all times. Here are some tips for seafarers and engineers regarding proper lifeboat maintenance.

To avoid rupture and damage, lifeboat maintenance must be done every 3 months by the ship staff to check for damages.

The lifeboat hull must be checked regularly for any cracks and drills.

The air support system in lifeboats should be checked. The pressure of air bottles must be verified so as to avoid the passage of toxic gases in it.

There is a sprinkler system installed in lifeboats. It should be checked regularly to see if the valve functions properly and that it is not frozen or damaged.

The engine of a lifeboat must be tested at least for 3 minutes every week as per the SOLAS regulations.

The lifeboat battery which is responsible for providing lighting to the lifeboat, as well as for starting the engine should be checked regularly. The battery should be renewed every 2-3 years.  

Endnote

Lifeboats play an important role in rescuing passengers, crew, and the other people on a ship who are in distress. Not only are they an integral part of marine safety culture, but are also important from the perspective of ensuring the mental well-being of seafarers as well. Lifeboats are the reliable backups a ship needs, in case things go south, literally! 

Make sure your boat or ship is always prepared, stocked and ready to leave the port/ harbour, with marine supplies from Link Ship Chandlers.

Article source: shmgroup.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-lifeboats/

[thehooliganhangoutspot]

Nerd here: The only reason LSA is being fake mad and fake woke is because Bruno is successful. If Bruno was a flop and not selling out arenas all over the world, they would be silent. They could talk all they want but it's not gonna stop Bruno at all. He's slowly on his way to becoming a legend, and 20 years down the line, he'll been known as one of the greats. LSA could huff and puff all they want. Meanwhile, Bruno is just chillin, minding his business and quietly collecting his coins. 😎

[allthingslinguistic]

Highlights from LSA panels: conlangs, high school outreach, data management & educational justice

A couple particularly interesting panels from this year’s LSA with links to more information. 

Teaching linguistics via invented languages

Purposefully invented languages (‘constructed languages’ or ‘conlangs’) have been the sources of broad interest for many years – both in the political arena (i.e. Esperanto) and in the world of literature and science fiction media (i.e. Tolkien’s Quenya and Sindarin, Okrand’s Klingon, Peterson’s Dothraki). 

In this session we show that by bringing conlangs and language invention into the classroom we can reach student populations who may not be otherwise inclined to study linguistics, and effectively develop in these students the fundamental core skills of linguistics and language analysis. As Sanders (2016: e203) notes: “A properly constructed language is not just a work of art, but a demonstration of understanding how language works”. 

We bring together a group of linguists who bring language invention and conlangs into the university classroom in a variety of ways, to serve a variety of pedagogical goals and objectives. In some approaches, conlangs provide data for analysis. In others, students create conlangs based on the natural language structures and uses they are exposed to in class. Still others integrate both approaches. 

Read all the abstracts from this panel for many course ideas and also check out my livetweet of David J. Peterson’s book, The Art of Language Invention.

Linguistics outreach to high school students

This panel that I co-organized with @thelingspace now has all its slides online. Check them out to learn more about running a linguistics summer camp, teaching linguistics as a high school class, creating linguistics olympiad puzzles, making linguistics youtube videos, stumbling into linguistics on blogs and Wikipedia, and more. 

Data citation and attribution in Linguistics

Linguistics, as a data-driven social science in which inferences about human cognition and social structure are drawn from observations of behavior, is well positioned to benefit from principles of reproducible research. Subsequent researchers are unlikely to have access to the same speakers or speech situations from which the original data set was collected. However, given access to the original data set referenced in a publication, subsequent researchers can attempt to reproduce the original research. Crucially, reproducibility requires access to underlying data sets, not merely the examples contained in the body of a scholarly paper. This means that data need to be prepared, preserved, and cited in a manner that allows discovery of the entire set, as well as an individual datum within it.

Within linguistics, much of the investigation into possibilities for reproducible research has been in the context of language documentation and description, in which documentary fieldwork methodology has been noted for its potential to provide substantiation of scientific claims by promoting attention to the care and structuring of language data. However, linguistics more broadly has not generally fostered a culture of creating and preserving data sets, citing underlying data in publications, or providing academic rewards to people who do so. 

Check out all the abstracts from this panel to learn more about the data management life cycle, where we are now with data citation practices, archives, metrics, and more. See also this excellently nerdy promotional video about the Tromsø Repository Of Language and Linguistics (TROLLing).

Language and educational justice: A dialogue between linguistics and linguistic anthropology

While linguists tend to focus on linguistic structure and anthropologists often emphasize the sociocultural and political dimensions of language, both approaches share a concern with the unrecognized or misinterpreted linguistic abilities of members of sociopolitically subordinated groups. Another important counterweight to dominant views of minoritized linguistic groups is found in community members’ own efforts, sometimes in collaboration with scholars (including scholars who are themselves community members), to assert their right to educational and linguistic self-determination (e.g., Cruz & Woodbury 2014; Gutiérrez et al. 1999). 

Yet despite these ongoing efforts, educational systems habitually fail to adequately serve students from nondominant linguistic backgrounds. Deficit perspectives circulate in the academy and in public discourse in the face of longstanding and renewed critiques (Avineri et al. 2015), and linguistically damaging educational policies are firmly in place in many parts of the world (e.g., Crawford 2000; Tollefson 2013). This session, jointly sponsored by the Linguistic Society of America and the Society for Linguistic Anthropology, brings together linguists, linguistic anthropologists, and researchers who work at the intersection of both fields to examine the central role of language in achieving educational justice, as part of the larger task of advancing social justice within linguistics and related fields.

Check out all the abstracts from this panel for talks on Spanglish, prescriptivism, Haitian Creole (“Kreyòl”), working with K-12 educators, Chatino, sign languages, and more.

[eliaandponto1]

Women of Legal Tech: Kim Craig

The Legal Technology Resource Center’s Women of Legal Tech initiative is intended to encourage diversity and celebrate women in legal technology. This initiative launched in 2015 with a list of innovators and leaders in legal technology and with this year’s additions, that list now includes 100 talented and influential women leaders. Every Monday, we will be featuring a woman from our class of 2019. This week we have Kim Craig!

Kim Craig is the Co-Founder and Experience Designer at Bold Duck Studio. Find her on Twitter @kim_craig.

      How did you become involved in legal tech?

I have to blame it on being deeply involved in my firm’s Word Perfect to Word conversion project; that was the tipping point and probably gives away my age! But it truly brought out some problem-solving skills I didn’t even know I had. This was at a time when roundtripping of Word documents became so corrupt they were blowing up on clients and causing huge frustration and embarrassment for the firm. I loooooved the challenge of stabilizing Word documents. The more corrupt, the better!

Eventually, I found myself standing at the front of a classroom filled with our lawyers trying to convince them why Word, doc automation, and other Word add ons would change their lives. Very challenging to say the least. Fast forward a few years and I found myself geeking out in the world of records management and conflicts. Seriously? Yes. My job was to modernize and centralize these paper-laden areas. It taught me early on the challenges of change management. Not everyone was thrilled to step away from their typewriters and put a mouse in their hand. But it wasn’t just about implementing shiny new tech. It required meeting them where they were, developing a sense of trust, and showing them the bigger picture so that I could bring them along on the journey. It was one of my earliest forays in leading organizational change and I loved it!

What projects have you been focused on recently?

Bold Duck Studio just completed a very cool project for a massive global firm. It entailed the creation of a digital maturity model for legal. Outside of legal, these types of efforts may not be so novel, but inside legal, wow, so many people get digital transformation and maturity wrong. It’s not just a “tech thing.” It’s not exclusively about upgrading your platforms for seamless integration. It requires a holistic analysis of not only digital but also analog interactions across your entire ecosystem and their interplay. Evolving an organization’s digital fluency requires analysis of the culture, people/talent, processes/workflow, and technology which creates the overall digital experience for both your clients and within the organization itself. I’m enthralled with these efforts and am still uncovering how emerging tech, process reengineering, designing thinking, and change management all play a significant role in digital transformation.

Is there a legal tech resource of any kind that you find yourself returning to or that was particularly formative for you?

While at Seyfarth, I led what was then the world’s largest and most mature legal project management team. We had an extranet like many other BigLaw firms, and on my early LPM projects I tested out the flexibility and nuances of its functionality. Eventually, my LPM team stretched our off-the-shelf product as far as was possible and found it constraining for our needs. Thus, almost a decade ago, we built our own proprietary client collaboration platform called SeyfarthLink. The LPMs, along with a team of legal solutions architects and developers, led by my former partner Andrew Baker, designed our new platform and it was unlike any other in the industry at that time. Through our efforts, this client-facing team increased adoption and use of technology by the legal practitioners, making it more practical and accessible to them. This effort and this team changed how legal extranets were imagined and utilized within the legal industry. But more importantly, it elevated the “business of law” professionals’ hierarchy, not only within our firm but as a recognized game changer and competitive advantage for our competitors as well.

Our expertise with the platform and understanding of business needs earned us a seat at the table side-by-side with partners at client pitches and meetings. Clients readily accepted and welcomed us into those discussions. It forever changed the dialogue between a service provider and consumer. We were able to shift the conversation away from “legal expertise” (which is table stakes) to how we were going to do the work—not just the substantive legal work but also how our LPMs and LSAs were going to help solve client challenges and needs. While some challenged us (internally and externally) saying, “It’s just an extranet and nothing more; get over it,” they weren’t in the room to see the impact on the profession and how client relationships were transformed. But I knew because I sat at that table hundreds of times. When I left Seyfarth in 2018, we had client portfolio sites for most of our client base with hundreds of unique client interactions per day. It was our way of doing business and engaging clients who expressed great delight at having access to such a platform and team.

Today there are similar platforms like SeyfarthLink, such as HighQ, that many law firms have licensed. But, many have not invested in the client-facing business talent to help bring forward these platforms, thus many sit on the shelf behind the walls of IT. I see many firms’ investment in these platforms barely being utilized for anything more than a document sharing repository. It’s maddening, but they don’t know what they don’t know, and we are trying to close the gap between the necessary talent that firms need to invest in to fully utilize the platform along with integrated features to meet client needs such as doc auto, data visualization, workflow, and so on. There’s a long way to go but for those firms that make the necessary people and tech investments, it can be a game changer.

What technology do you think lawyers could look at in a different way that would benefit society?

I have a bit of a spin on this response: process mapping! If lawyers would accept the fact that legal work is a process, albeit sometimes a very complex process with high variability, they would have the ability to reimagine their services. It can start by dissecting their work to make it more efficient; looking for waste to remove and efficiencies to be gained by making sure the right people are doing the right work—which can also mean replacing manual steps with technology solutions. It is also a great opportunity to improve quality and minimize risk by embedding templates, checklists, and guidelines into the process. But it’s not just about efficiency and streamlining. It’s about the effectiveness and ensuring that the outcomes and the client experience are what you intended.

I’ve led over 200 process mapping sessions in the legal arena and pulling together the people responsible for providing common services to a client has so many benefits. It becomes a knowledge sharing forum to develop best practices; it creates a common understanding of the interplay between the team; it reveals the friction points and negative experiences for the client and the service provider, and at the end of the day, if done expertly, it is a forum for authentic introspection, unfettered ideation, and immense pride in creating something together which drives adoption of the new approach and improvements. I’ve seen these process reengineering sessions break down legacy hierarchical systems and accelerate the adoption of technology solutions because we were singularly focused on improving the human experience of the client and the team.

What’s really cool is that I’ve led these types of sessions with several groups from legal aid organizations who don’t have unlimited resources (both people or tech), but by using what they had at their disposal, they tackled very emotionally challenging days to serve even more clients in need of their services. I’ve also had the privilege of teaching law school students the power of approaching legal services as a process to be scrutinized and improved upon. Exposing our future lawyers to this thinking and making them comfortable with this tool provides them with a mindset and skill that they can bring forward as they enter the workforce. Of course, we also taught them how to be a strong facilitator and overcome barriers which will be vital as they are met with confusion and resistance from the rank and file they join, but I am thrilled that we have empowered them and believe they will persevere and be the much-needed change.

What advice would you give to other women who want to get involved in legal tech?

Know your sh*t!  There hasn’t been a tech class I taught, or a methodology that I preached, where I didn’t have the battle scars of wrestling with the application or core tenets of the methodology and techniques to show. I always make sure I have dealt with as many trials and tribulations of testing and applying how these approaches will work in the legal space before I stand up in front of anyone to lead or preach—whether it is project management, lean six sigma, scrum, and so on. Before adapting any of these for the legal industry, I made sure I learned, achieved certification, and then practiced them so that I could then translate and adopt what would resonate in legal. I think that has been extremely important because you will get challenged. And while there are going to be people that are more experienced and smarter, I know that I have invested the hard hours to develop the use cases and expertise that allow me to take these approaches and tools to drive adoption of technology or methods and lead change.

Plus, remember to always display confidence while also being humble and never ever lose your passion and curiosity.

Give a shout-out to another woman in legal tech who you admire or have learned something from!

So I’m going to go off-script on this response, too. As we’ve seen, there are more and more women planting flags in legal tech innovation and leadership. It is impressive to hear about all of the legal tech startups led by women. There really is a movement that is a force to be reckoned with. But I want to take this opportunity and give a shout out to a couple of individuals who I have seen firsthand have a direct impact on women in legal—my current business partner, Josh Kubicki, and former colleague, Andrew Baker. These two have worked tirelessly to introduce new ideas and concepts to the legal industry and through their efforts, they have encouraged and supported many women.

When Andrew and I led the Client Solutions Group at Seyfarth, we identified many women who we believed would provide immense value to the team and the firm. Andrew was quick to provide every opportunity for their professional development, nurturing and positioning them directly with clients and firm leadership as hardcore application developers, data analysts, legal project managers, or legal solution architects. He was vocal and active in helping break down barriers and perceptions regarding their abilities. While I don’t have the tech chops that he does, he was also a huge advocate for me as a partner and leader within the firm regarding my role and involvement in the design and adoption of our technology solutions. He ensured that I received recognition for my efforts and contributions when he could have solely reaped accolades bestowed on him by leadership who were sometimes oblivious to my behind the scenes efforts on these fronts. Andrew also spent countless hours exposing me to knowledge areas and best practices like good UI/UX, Tufte, A/B testing, and other topics that enriched my own understanding and capabilities in tech. Little did he know that he had created a worthy opponent. We would debate for hours, sometimes heatedly and with much passion, over the design, priorities, and strategy of our initiatives but never with malice, as we designed and drove our firm’s brand differentiation, leading some of the industry’s most progressive undertakings at that time. The legal arena should join me in applauding Andrew’s investment in his female colleagues and the talent that he inspires. I know he made me a better version of myself and what I bring to the table.

Second, I want to recognize my partner, Josh Kubicki for his ability and willingness to maintain an unbiased and pragmatic perspective when he engages with colleagues, peers, and direct reports of any gender. But, to the point of this response, I have seen firsthand the impact Josh has had on women in legal—tech and otherwise. His patience and selfless investment in the women of a large team we were both on was remarkable. Although he is a licensed lawyer, his demeanor and actions completely obliterate stereotypes of arrogance and egotism. As women, we so often let our insecurities and self-doubt get the best of us in this male-dominated industry, but Josh is able to see past that and instill certainty and conviction when others would perceive our behavior as weak and frail. He truly brings out the best in everyone he works with but has especially provided both professional and personal growth opportunities to the women he has mentored and partnered with throughout his career. Josh has some of the strongest core values that I have witnessed. His vast and successful experiences from working in law departments, law firms, advising legal startups, and being his own entrepreneur have provided opportunities so many and I am always impressed by the statements made when I encounter another woman on which he has made his impact. They never fail to expound his virtues and the deep impression he made on them which helped to foster their continuous growth and successes. I am extremely fortunate that Josh recognized my talents and skills and chose me as a business partner on this journey. He believes in me even when I sometimes doubt myself. His strength and confidence in my expertise and capabilities have given me a new level of self-assuredness that I would not otherwise possess. For that, I will always be grateful.

So I want to close by applauding Andrew and Josh for what they have done to encourage and promote women in legal tech and generally in their professions. We need more men like them who don’t judge, who don’t bend the rules and make it easier just because we’re women, and who will defend and sponsor our efforts because we have earned them. They have made a significant impact and difference to this humbled and proud 2019 Women of Legal Tech Honoree and for that, I thank them from the bottom of my heart, as I wouldn’t be where I am without them and I eagerly look forward to their continued efforts as allies to women in the legal profession.

The post Women of Legal Tech: Kim Craig appeared first on Law Technology Today.

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