Associate's Mind

  I recently got around to reading a whopper of an old law review article that I had been wanting to read for awhile entitled, “Inside the Judicial Mind.” From the introduction: …we conducted an empirical study to determine whether five common cognitive illusions would influence decision making of a sample of 167 federal magistrate [...]

  Remember that party from college? That crazy time where we went and picked up the security guard from our apartment complex on the Strip at 2 am? And instead of picking him up, we ended up going out with him and walking down the Strip barefoot. Then the sorority! And what about when the [...]

Today kicks off Productivity Week here at Associate’s Mind. As July begins, the dog days of summer are here. The oppressive heat means things sometimes slow down a bit. No better time than to review ways to improve your productivity. I’ll be highlighting websites and tools from around the web. Plus,  a couple items from [...]

I was peed on for the first time in my life today. My nearly two-year old son – if anyone was going to do it, I’m glad it was him. It’s probably more of a surprise that I’ve managed to go this long without it happening. It’s just one of those things that comes with [...]

“Boredom is a mask frustration wears.” — Neal Stephenson (Anathem) There will be times as a lawyer where you will wait. You’ll wait on the judge. You’ll waiting on opposing counsel. You’ll wait on the client. You’ll wait on the senior partner of your firm. You’ll wait on your IT guy. You’ll wait on the copier. Throughout [...]

How many advertising messages are you exposed to a day? Take a moment to think about. Billboards, TV ads, radio ads, web ads, branding on any packaged goods, clothing, objects all over your home (that iPhone sitting next to you), iconography, texts ads…it goes on and on. The estimates vary from 247 commercial messages a [...]

The British Psychology Society has recently highlighted an interesting study that measured the effects of facial expression (untrustworthy/neutral/trustworthy) on an opponent’s decision making while playing hundreds of one-shot rounds of a simplified version of Texas Hold’em poker against hundreds of different ‘opponents’. An excerpt: Each round the participants received a two-card hand and their opponent had bet [...]

Arbitration, mediation, trials – any time two parties come together to discuss making a deal, they will engage in negotiation. As the world continues to become more inter-connected and business and law engage across time zones and cultures; it is worth noting that what might seem an effective negotiating tool in one culture, can be [...]