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Law.com has an article about a firm of lawyers going through a typical name change as a new "name partner" joins the law firm Warshauer Poe & Thornton. What's not so typical is that the firm's new business cards will identify its lawyers as "civil justice attorneys" instead of "trial lawyers," following the Association of Trial Lawyers of America's
recent renaming as the American Association for Justice.
"Civil justice attorney better defines what we do. Our goal is not to get to trial. It is to obtain full, fair and just compensation for injured people and their families," said Warshauer, who added that if other plaintiffs lawyers followed suit, he thought it would make a difference in the public perception of the profession. He explained that in the past, when he's told people he's a trial lawyer, "they would step back and lean out of the conversation. The phrase has been stolen from lawyers. I'm not going to let them steal civil justice from us."
"I'm doing the same thing -- helping people who've been wronged. I'm not embarrassed to say I'm a trial lawyer. ... But we're not going to let giant insurance companies define what we do -- or the chamber of commerce -- as some sort of evil activity."
"
Their names are legendary. When the world needs heroes, no one else is in their league." Is this a quote from the tagline of the new law firm, or from the trailer for Justice League Heroes?
A very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.
Let's hope it's a good one, without any fear.
Zoon is toon with a Z.Happy Holidays, from the crazy folks at Wordlab.
Festivus, the holiday for the rest of us, is celebrated on December 23.
According to
Ben & Jerry's timeline, ice cream named Festivus was introduced in the year 2000 to celebrate the holiday made popular by a 1997 episode of Seinfeld. But the flavor was retired to the
Ben & Jerry's Flavor Graveyard and ice cream lovers and Festivus followers
petitioned to bring it back. Well, it looks like another Festivus miracle.
Ben & Jerry's Festivus ice cream is baaaack!That's right, first coined on the TV comedy, Seinfeld, the term "Festivus" is the holiday for "the rest of us". Need something to bring to those endless holiday parties? How about six pints of this sassy batch of brown sugar cinnamon ice cream loaded with gingerbread cookies & a ginger caramel swirl! Happy Festivus from all of us at Ben & Jerry's!
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Wordlab's
database of original content has reached its 25,000th entry; that of
Hester Praline Pecan, an
Ice Cream Flavor. The 43-category list (accessed from the pull-down menu on the left) is the effort of myself and Snark, Wordlab's creators, and does not contain material from the
Wordboard; except when posted by Q or S.
The list really began in 1980, when my family cat had a litter of kittens and Snark and I wrote-up about 150 possible names for the little snappers; names like Riboflavin, Stucco, Sternocleidomastoid, Stavrogin, etc. Names of racehorses soon followed (well, 10-years later) and eventually the website launched in 1998; after Al Gore invented the Internet.
Today Wordlab is the
leading free naming and branding destination, which is largely due to the success of the
Wordboard community think-tank and not so much the 25,000 original
Gems for Jesus (BTW, someone ask Snark where he's been the last 7,500 entries). Yep, we're
better than the average bland, and last
longer than the leading donut - and it is largely due to the contributors over on the Wordboard. So many thanks to abnu, Quipping Queen, chris, Nosila, blindweezy (now bw), Sister Rye, Sigi, jdmbamd, revpeter, Alltalk and all the others who are
giving it away every day;
A Plaster Cast of Characters.Cheers!
The following holiday post is branding and naming free. Every few years you get lucky.
As a former Upstate New Yorker and recovering Buffalo Bills fan, I still get an atavistic chill the moment the “snowball in hell” playoff scenarios are laid bare, signaling the arrival of the holidays.
Bills fans have a lot to think about right now, but anyone who can keep these thoughts in their heads is probably not a real Bills fan, scientifically speaking. It’s a bit of a Zen koan (don’t bother to look that up Bills fans, it just leads to more questions) in that passing the test eliminates you from real fandom. I’m especially filled with the spirit this year by columnist Chris Brown’s irony-free opening statement:
“By now virtually everyone knows what the Bills need this week concerning help for the playoffs.”
He then proceeds with the list of convolutions as if it were common knowledge (I’m convinced that it is) in Buffalo. From the Bill’s website:
I was under the assumption that if Denver and the Jets win this weekend that the Bills would be eliminated from playoff contention even if Buffalo beats Tennessee. However, that’s not necessarily true.
By now virtually everyone knows what the Bills need this week concerning help for the playoffs.
Bills beat Tennessee
Denver beats Cincinnati
Miami beats Jets
New England beats Jacksonville
Under this scenario the Bills would control their own destiny and basically concede one of the Wild Card spots to Denver who beat the Bills in a 9-7 tiebreaker.
Now if the worst happens and the Jets win this weekend along with Denver, Buffalo, with a win, still would not be out of the playoff race provided Kansas City wins.
If Kansas City wins Saturday night over Oakland (likely) they would keep the Bills alive even if Denver and the Jets win. The reason why is Kansas City would hold the tiebreaker edge on Denver (division record) should there be a three-way tie with Buffalo, Kansas City and Denver at the end of the season.
In that case the tie between the AFC West teams would be done first. Kansas City would eliminate Denver, leaving Buffalo and KC. Buffalo beats KC on conference record tiebreaker and could get the 6th and final playoff spot.
However, if there is a four way tie at 9-7 with KC, Denver, Bills and Jets, and the Jets 9th win came against Miami, the Bills would be out. Because again matching the division teams against one another first the Jets would eliminate Buffalo due to a better division record (4-2 to 3-3).
So if Denver and the Jets win this weekend along with the Bills, you’ve got to hope that Kansas City won on Saturday night.
Then the final week the best thing to hope for is for the Jets to win (vs. Oakland) and finish 10-6 and take the fifth playoff spot. Then have Denver lose (to SF) and KC win (over Jax) and with a Bills win they could take that last playoff spot on three-way tiebreaker.
If Kansas City loses Saturday night and the Jets and Denver win this weekend, Buffalo will be eliminated from playoff contention no matter what.
IT MIGHT BE BETTER IF BALTIMORE LOSES SUNDAY: A loss by Baltimore to Pittsburgh might ultimately better for the Bills too. If Baltimore loses Sunday and Indianapolis beats Houston (likely) and San Diego wins at Seattle (possible) then Baltimore has nothing to play for. They will be locked in as the third or fourth seed and will have to play one of the Wild Card teams.
I understand Baltimore could get a first round bye with a win and an Indy loss to Houston this weekend, but that seems more unlikely. No matter what Baltimore does, it’s not a huge deal, like that Miami-Jets game is Monday night.
And if you’re worried about Pittsburgh finishing 9-7 don’t be. The Steelers conference record at best can be 6-6 if they win out. Buffalo would beat them with a 7-5 conference record.
Though Upstaters are well practiced in the outlined logic stream, the ability to grasp it generally coincides with a spiritual readiness to leave the area. From everyone at Igor in San Francisco, have a good holiday.
A few weeks ago we posted a
video of a Daily Show interview with James Kirby, the founder of Redux Beverages, who is currently marketing a high-energy drink named
Cocaine.
The post from Wordlab was picked up on Igor's naming and branding meta blog, where
Jamey Kirby himself commented after some "sleaze-ball" he says is riding on the back of his good name. Kirby says he's gonna sue.
In related trademark news this month,
The TTABlog notes that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has granted the request of Examining Attorney Michael Engel for remand of James T. Kirby's application for registration of the mark COCAINE for "carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks and energy drinks." At issue in reconsidering the trademark application is whether the name Cocaine for an energy drink is "immoral and scandalous" or, depending on whether the drink has or has not cocaine as an ingredient, the mark is either "merely descriptive or deceptively misdescriptive."
It's enough to give a cola warrior
dyspepsia.
Steven Bradley, who authors the
TheVanBlog, has written an excellent article on perception and value in brand names for
Webpronews.com.
Why do people buy your products? Why do they purchase any product or service? One thing's for certain, it's not about the price....more
Unveiled at the 2012 Paris Motor
Show, Citroën is reinventing the timeless DS, which went out of production 38 years ago.
And while it looked very unusual in 1955, public tastes appear to have finally caught up with the DS. Well get ready for the...
D5.
Citroën to the Boën? That's a freebie for France from the WL
Cars category.
Don't know what made me think of
Crabby Bill's Seafood Restaurants in Florida. Probably not slogans like, "We Don't Just Serve Crabs. We Serve Anyone." and "Sometimes I Wake Up Crabby. Sometimes I Let Her Sleep!" and the local favorite, "Don't Worry, Be Crabby!" It's more likely the name that stuck in my mind all these years.
From November through June,
Dungeness crab is a popular item on the menus of many of San Francisco's better restaurants. This information on the naming of Dungeness crab, courtesy of
Dungeness Communications:
The Dungeness Crab or Cancer magister gets its common name from the town of Dungeness, Washington, now called Old Town Dungeness, where the first commercial harvesting of the crab was done. The Dungeness Crab is the only commercially important crab in the state of Washington's territorial waters and was the first shellfish harvested commercially on the North Pacific Coast.
Here's a little
Crab 101, for those who are unfamiliar with this brand of crustaceans.
Marty Schwimmer at
The Trademark Blog also has some interesting stories for crabby trademark lawyers in a post he creatively titled, "
I Can't Believe It's Not Crustacean".
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