I wonder whether the most senior members of the bar «back in the day» really understood the practices
of ordinary lawyers.
What's fascinating about Russeth's story about his work at Pillsbury — and why it's worth revisiting and expounding on here — is that Stringer, Lund, and Schneider were
n't ordinary lawyers: After Pillsbury, Stringer became general counsel for the Department of Education under President George H.W. Bush, and later served as an associate justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court; Lund went on to become general counsel for Medtronic; and Schneider became general counsel for Hormel Foods.
But this is
no ordinary lawyer - it's Breaking Bad's Saul Goodman, under a different name, in the town where Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul is filming.
Dealing with foreign and international law no longer remains the specialty of a select few practitioners but is becoming the norm for
the ordinary lawyer.
Thirty years ago
the ordinary lawyer did not need to know about copyright save perhaps in the trite phrase «Copyright protects the form in which an idea is presented but not the idea itself».
(Remember, not did a saint reasonably believe, not did YOU reasonably believe, not would
an ordinary lawyer reasonably believe, it's did THIS lawyer reasonably believe.)
Ordinary lawyers should get with knowledge management.