Archive for the ‘News and Views’ Category

SXSW – Recap

SXSW lived up to my expectations. Sure, it took time to figure out the best strategies for getting around the convention venues, for getting in to the most interesting sessions, and most of all, for avoiding lines (it felt like the former Soviet Union at times). But I learned a great deal about trends in […]

SXSW March 13 – Teen chefs, quantum particles, airborne transit, and wasted food

How can you go to SXSW and not attend some films (or what people outside of film festivals call “movies”)? Chef Flynn After visiting WeWork Austin to catch up on client work, I headed over to the Stateside Theatre on Austin’s main strip, Congress Avenue, to view Chef Flynn. It’s a wonderful documentary about a […]

SXSW March 11 – Optimistic professors, disruptive mayors, and $330,000 hamburgers

Enlightenment now In “Enlightenment Now,” a presentation packed with graphs showing data from the Middle Ages to the present day, Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker persuasively argued that the world is doing better than ever before by every important measure: decreases in disease, poverty, pollution, inequality, infant mortality, war and wartime fatalities, authoritarianism; and increases […]

goodcounsel @SXSW

If you don’t know what SXSW stands for, don’t worry. (I wouldn’t have known a few years ago either.) SXSW – South by Southwest – started in Austin, Texas in the late 1980s as a small get-together that, to the surprise of its organizers, attracted 700 people in its first year.

goodcounsel’s Ken Obel part of Select Counsel network launch

It’s crucially important for a boutique corporate and startup law firm like ours to have access to a network of high-caliber practitioners in different geographies or with specialized knowledge our clients need. Consequently, I am pleased to be a member of Select Counsel, a nationwide network of solo and small-firm attorneys with top-notch credentials and […]

goodcounsel named Chicago’s “Best Firm For Startups”

We awoke recently to congratulatory email messages from colleagues and friends. “Above the Law,” a notable online publication that covers the legal scene, published an article entitled “The Loop Elite: The Go-To Law Firms of Chicago,” identifying the top law firms in Chicago across 21 different categories, and there we were – named the “Best […]

Bike messenger or angel investor?

As some of you know, my preferred mode of transportation is my Brompton (best bike ever, hands down), and that’s generally how I arrive at my appointments. I am amused by the fact that people here in Chicago consistently assume that I am a bicycle messenger. I have a feeling that if I were in […]

Taking green legal practice to the next level

I deal with as little paper as possible, but as everyone knows, the “paperless office” is still a far-off land. However, I am making the most of my waste paper. It gives me tremendous satisfaction to turn verbose or contentious legal documents into … compost. Yes, after shredding documents, I feed them to goodcounsel’s cracker-jack […]