Setting the Right Foundation for Your Witness Testimony

While every witness preparation session I conduct is different depending on the needs, communicative issues and messages of a particular witness, there is one thing that I do with just about every witness. I ask the following question: "If I were a juror in your case, what are the three main things I need to learn from you and your testimony." The answers are often astonishing.

Making the Effort to Network the Right Way

Networking is not something that is accomplished at an event; it?s a process. Many attorneys tell us that they?ve tried to network and it hasn?t worked for them. When we ask what they?ve done, they usually tell us that they went to a few events, got nothing out of them and then stopped going. This is not how the process works. It can take years to build up your network to a level that translates into new business. There are no shortcuts to building relationships. Like most things that are worth doing, the process of networking takes time, effort and dedication.

District Judge Upholds Government’s Right to Search Electronics at Border

In his opinion, Judge Edward R. Korman of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York found that the plaintiffs did not have standing for their lawsuit because such searches occur so rarely that “there is not a substantial risk that their electronic devices will be subject to a search or seizure without reasonable suspicion.”

Even if the plaintiffs did have standing, Judge Korman found that they would lose on the merits of the case, ruling that the government does not need reasonable suspicion to examine or confiscate a traveler’s laptop, cellphone or other device at the border.

“There’s no silver lining to this decision,” said Catherine Crump, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the plaintiffs. “It’s not just that we lost the case. It’s that the judge decided against us on multiple alternative grounds.”

The lawsuit was filed in 2010 by Pascal Abidor, a graduate student in Islamic studies, who sued the government after American border agents removed him from an Amtrak train crossing from Canada to New York. He was handcuffed, placed in a cell and questioned for several hours, then his laptop was seized and kept for 11 days.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the National Press Photographers Association were also plaintiffs in the case, arguing that their members travel with confidential information that should be protected from government scrutiny.

In rejecting this argument, Judge Korman cited the rarity of electronic device searches and questioned whether travelers need to carry computers containing sensitive data when they travel abroad.

“While it is true that laptops may make overseas work more convenient,” he wrote, “the precautions plaintiffs may choose to take to ‘mitigate’ the alleged harm associated with the remote possibility of a border search are simply among the many inconveniences associated with international travel.”

Mr. Abidor said he was disappointed but not entirely surprised by the ruling.

“I can’t say it wasn’t foreseeable based on the line of questioning by the judge during the initial hearing,” Mr. Abidor said. “He just seemed so skeptical of the basic premise that people need to travel with devices.”

“These checks are essential to enforcing the law, and protecting national security and public safety,” Peter Boogaard, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement, “always with the shared goals of protecting the American people while respecting civil rights and civil liberties.”

In his opinion, Judge Korman emphasized how infrequently border agents search or detain electronic devices, but it is unclear how accurately the government tracks these statistics.

According to Customs and Border Protection, the agency conducts about 15 device searches a day at American entry points. But a 2011 assessment of this practice by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the border agency, cited problems with how these incidents are counted.

The report noted: “C.B.P.’s system for entering the results of electronic device searches did not allow analysts to accurately identify incidents and seizures related to electronic device search activity, thus hindering C.B.P.’s ability to monitor and evaluate performance and making it difficult to provide accurate operational data concerning searches of electronic devices.”

While the courts have generally supported the government’s authority to search travelers at the border, based on the government’s interest in combating crime and terrorism, a decision last year placed some limits on more intrusive device searches.

In March, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in California ruled in United States v. Cotterman that reasonable suspicion of criminal activity was required for a forensic search of a device confiscated at the border — a more extensive exam, as opposed to a cursory look at photos or other files.

That decision applies to states covered by the Ninth Circuit, including California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii. Judge Korman’s ruling will not have as much legal impact, since it comes from a district court rather than a circuit court.

“It maintains the status quo, which is that the government is free everywhere except in the Ninth Circuit to conduct all types of electronic device searches without reasonable suspicion,” Ms. Crump from the A.C.L.U. said. “We are considering an appeal, but we haven’t made a decision one way or the other yet.”

Economic Scene: Business Losing Clout in a G.O.P. Moving Right

How did corporate America lose control of the Republican Party?

From overhauling immigration laws to increasing spending on the nation’s aging infrastructure, big business leaders have seemed relatively powerless lately as the uncompromising Republicans they helped elect have steadfastly opposed some of their core legislative priorities.

The rift is not only unusual in light of the tight historical alignment between the business community and the G.O.P., but it is also outright incomprehensible after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which allowed companies to spend unlimited amounts from their corporate treasuries on the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Scholars have proposed many reasons for the rise of the anti-government activists that are pulling the G.O.P. to the right, leaving it at odds with a business community used to compromising and seeking favors from government.

But what may be most surprising is how reluctant big business has been to put its money on the line. To put it mildly, if companies could purchase the Congress of their choice, it’s unlikely they would buy the gridlocked Congress we have. The seemingly inexorable rise of political partisans — mainly on the right, but on the left, too — suggests that corporate money may be playing a much smaller role in the political process than expected.

Concern about the potential consequences of Citizens United stem from a not unreasonable belief that businesses will do anything on this side of the law — and sometimes beyond it — to produce legislation that serves their corporate interests.

So when the Supreme Court opened the sluice gate in 2010 allowing unlimited campaign contributions, pretty much every liberal voice in the country believed that a flood of corporate cash was about to deliver the political system to the Republican Party.

It was, President Obama said, “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

Three years later, however, these fears have not quite materialized. Money is flowing to elections like never before. The 2012 elections cost some $6.3 billion, $1 billion more than the 2008 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group that researches money and politics. Independent spending by outside groups on campaign advertisements and the like topped $1 billion last year.

Corporate America, however, accounted for a comparative trickle. Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford University, points out in a recent working paper that companies openly spent about $75 million from their treasuries on federal elections last year.

Even if all the hidden money funneled into campaigns through private 501(c) organizations had come from businesses — unlikely given the contributions by noncorporate groups like Planned Parenthood and the N.R.A. — corporate spending would not reach $400 million, still a small share of the total.

Perhaps this should not be surprising. For companies, spending on elections can be risky. Business executives might prefer lobbying, where they spend far more than on campaign contributions, not because the limits are more relaxed but because swaying legislators on both sides of the aisle is more effective at getting what they want. And such lobbying is less likely to kindle anger among consumers, shareholders and other constituents than spending to change the outcome of elections.

“While Citizens alters the ability of corporations to contribute to campaigns, it does not alter their substantial risk in doing so,” the political scientists Wendy L. Hansen, Michael Rocca and Brittany Ortiz of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, argued in a recent study.

Still, corporations’ reluctance to open their checkbooks suggests an intriguing alternative explanation for the rise of Republicans who are willing to defy their will: companies may have spent too little. Their money was swamped by that of big individual donors who are more ideologically extreme. In 2012, the top 0.1 percent of donors contributed more than 44 percent of all campaign contributions. In 1980 their share of contributions was less than 10 percent.

Corporations have a pro-Republican bias, of course. But it is not quite as extreme as pop culture would have it, and is certainly less pronounced than organized labor’s pro-Democrat leanings.

Effective lobbying requires both Republican and Democratic friends. Political action committees run by businesses are known for spreading money on both sides of the partisan divide. They give to incumbents. They choose winners. They show little partisan loyalty.

In the 2006 elections, when the G.O.P. controlled Congress, corporate PACs gave 65 percent of their money to Republicans. In 2008 and 2010, after the Democrats had swept both the House and Senate, they split their contributions roughly fifty-fifty.

By contrast, substantial research in political science suggests that individual donors favor more ideological candidates and are less strategic in their giving. Big, frequent donors are particularly extreme.

E-mail: eporter@nytimes.com; Twitter: @portereduardo

The Haggler: A Right Way to Be Wrong

Nonetheless, the Haggler is about to make the point again, this time — a first — courtesy of an institution of higher learning.

Q. In 2011, I transferred from LaGuardia Community College into Baruch College in Manhattan. Even though I have been a New York City resident my entire life, Baruch classified me as an out-of-stater and for the past two years has been charging me about 50 percent more for tuition than it should.

To its credit, the school caught the mistake and sent a letter telling me so. Officials explained that I’d be charged in-state rates going forward, but said nothing about a refund for the more than $7,000 in overcharges. So I visited the admissions office.

Why this was necessary is a mystery. The school had already concluded that I’m a longtime New Yorker, and it had proof in the form of my transcript from the Kew-Forest School in Queens. But I visited anyway, with my driver’s license and a car insurance document. A woman behind the counter expressed some doubt about whether I’d get a refund — something like, “Normally, if you paid, you don’t get the money back.”

Then I was instructed to file an appeal, with photocopies of my driver’s license and my voter registration card. I dutifully mailed that in recently, but I have the distinct impression that the school is using everything in its bureaucratic toolbox to hold on to my money.

Maybe the Haggler can expedite this process, if it is a process, as opposed to a dead end that only looks like a process.

MATTHEW LEVY

Manhattan

A. Let us say at the outset that it’s possible that Baruch College would eventually have sent Mr. Levy a refund. It’s even possible that the school was going to send that refund soon. We’ll never know. Mr. Levy wrote to the Haggler the same day he mailed in his appeal.

But one can understand why he concluded that the school was, at minimum, reluctant to part with his $7,000. It had all the proof it needed to know that charging him out-of-state rates was wrong, and that proof — his high school transcript — seems more compelling than either a driver’s license or a voter registration card. Either of those can be obtained by just about anyone who has moved to New York State.

All right, not everyone. The state’s Board of Elections says that to qualify for a voter registration card, you must live at your present New York address for 30 days, not be in prison, or on parole for a felony conviction and not be adjudged mentally incompetent by a court. Given that Mr. Levy has a voter registration card, we can probably assume that he is not criminally insane. Or rather, that he is neither an ex-con nor insane.

But big deal. Many people are neither nuts, nor onetime criminals. In fact, some of the Haggler’s best friends are neither nuts, nor onetime criminals. The compelling proof of residency here is not Mr. Levy’s sanity or lack of a felony past. It’s his attendance at Kew-Forest, and one presumes that his performance at that institution helped persuade the admissions office at Baruch to admit him.

So why was Baruch hassling Mr. Levy for documentation that he really didn’t need to produce? The school’s position seems a classic example of “We screwed up. What are you going to do about it?” Highly annoying.

The Haggler contacted Christina Latouf, a spokeswoman for the college. She needed a day or two to figure out what had happened, and then she wrote something rather remarkable. In an e-mail, she said that the school not only took responsibility for stumbling blocks inserted between Mr. Levy and his refund, but also that changes would be made so that such errors don’t happen again. Those changes include working with the City University of New York — of which Baruch is part — to review out-of-state designations.

“Further, if a student’s initial documentation indicates they have always been a New York State resident, we will no longer request additional documentation,” Ms. Latouf wrote.

Do you hear that, dear readers? It is the sweet sound of modest reform, a noise as rare as the quack of the Scaly Sided Merganser. (It’s a very scarce duck, according to the Internet, and the Haggler has no idea if it quacks. But you get the point.) The pleasures of consumer interventions in this space usually come in single servings — like those pudding containers that you ate in grade school. But Baruch is actually going to change its system.

“At the heart of this case was an incorrect coding designation,” Ms. Latouf wrote, in conclusion. “While we have put some measures in place (such as the one that triggered our initial outreach to Matthew), we will build and utilize new technologies to put more safeguards in place, and train staff to assure coding is accurate.”

True, soothing and conciliatory words are cheap. But Baruch is off to a good start. Two days after the Haggler called, the school contacted Mr. Levy, and that same afternoon he e-mailed the Haggler a photograph of a document waiting for him at the bursar’s office: a check for $7,245.

E-mail: haggler@nytimes.com. Keep it brief and family-friendly, include your hometown and go easy on the caps-lock key. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

Advertising: To Put Puerto Rico Onscreen, the Right Brands

The story, a family-friendly romantic comedy, follows Mr. Miranda’s character, Raúl, and a small group of friends who come together to help him on his mission to send letters to all 200 of the women named María Sanchez who live in Puerto Rico. His hope is that one of the letters will reach his beloved. The film also stars Jaime Camil, Mayra Matos, Monica Steuer and Dayanara Torres.

The film, which made its debut in New York in June and will have its theatrical release in Puerto Rico on Sept. 12, was financed in part through product placement and brand partnerships, said Roberto Alcazar, an executive producer. “It’s not only the brands in the film,” Mr. Alcazar said. “It’s the whole plan of creating a marketing strategy so they can use themselves in the film’s assets.”

Many of the products seen in the film are from Puerto Rican brands like Banco Popular and Bacardi. Bruno Irizarry, who wrote and directed the film, said he wanted to incorporate brands that were “everyday products that everybody uses.”

“That was one of the first things that I was very specific about,” he said. “How to bring in partners that support the arts and what we wanted to do, but make it not in your face.”

The product placement is subtle. In one scene, the group eats lunch prepared by a roadside vendor who uses Goya seasoning when he cooks. In another scene, which takes place in a bar in New York, the characters drink alcohol from Diageo. Raúl and his friend Juan, played by Mr. Camil, work at Banco Popular.

Mr. Alcazar said the film was made for about $1.2 million, which included money from private investors and advertisers and the Puerto Rico Film Commission.

“My goal was not just to get money, but to create a platform where we were going to get sponsors to be part of the marketing team,” Mr. Irizarry said. To that end, some of the brands will also help market the film. A.T.M.’s for Banco Popular will feature ads promoting the film, and the bank will give away tickets to customers named María Sanchez. Banco Popular also provided the filmmakers with billboard space and a float in the National Puerto Rican Day parade in New York in June. Mr. Alcazar described the parade as the “biggest platform to promote a Puerto Rican film in New York.”

Digital banner ads, film trailers and behind-the-scenes videos will be displayed on advertisers’ social media channels. Advertisers including Target Rent a Car and Bacardi will host private screenings of the film. Goya will have promotional materials for the film on supermarket shelves where its products are sold.

Mr. Irizarry said he estimated the total value of these brand partnerships was about $300,000 in cash and related marketing. Additional brands featured in the film include the newspaper El Nuevo Día, Toro Verde Nature Adventure Park and the Villas del Mar Hau hotel. With the exception of El Nuevo Día, which was both an editorial and brand partnership, all of the featured brands paid for their inclusion in the film.

Manuel Chinea, chief operating officer for Popular Community Bank, the name for Banco Popular in the United States, said the film was “one of those projects that connects the island to the mainland.”

“We felt that the appeal of the movie was going to be to a wider audience in the U.S., not just to Puerto Rico,” Mr. Chinea said. “The bank has always been committed to supporting entrepreneurs and individuals who are doing things in creative ways.”

Being a part of the film could also help the bank extend the awareness of its brand to new customers in the United States, Mr. Chinea said. “As we look to be more efficient and effective with our marketing dollars as traditional media loses effectiveness, we certainly need to find new ways of connecting with our audience,” he said.

Luis Álvarez, a vice president at Méndez & Company, a distributor for Diageo products, agreed. “Marketing and communications have become so exploited and so badly used that one has to find a way to do it honestly and sincerely,” he said.

Gabriel Reyes, the press director for the New York International Latino Film Festival and the president of Reyes Entertainment, said filmmakers were increasingly using brand partnerships to secure funding for their films. “I think independent producers now that really go out and raise money are becoming a lot more savvy about how they can go and take advantage of these opportunities,” Mr. Reyes said.

Finding organic ways to put advertisers into a script is critical to making the product integration seem natural, he said.

“We know people cook with Goya,” Mr. Reyes said. “It’s not some foreign brand that no one has seen.” But perhaps the best way, he added, to get an advertiser to sign on for a brand partnership is to have a well-known actor in the film: “In this case it was Lin-Manuel Miranda. It’s easier to get that deal than if it was somebody out of the blue.”

You're the Boss Blog: When the Customer Is Not Right

An owner’s dispatches from the front lines.

I have a friend who has an 18-year-old son. He is a big kid, with a friendly disposition and a kind and respectful demeanor. He has a very good part-time job at a respected restaurant in an affluent suburb of Chicago. He works at the carryout counter where he reviews customer orders, asks the customers if there is anything else he can get for them, and then asks if they need help carrying their food to their cars. He has worked there for more than a year, and I’m sure the training and support he has received will serve him well in future jobs.

Recently, I happened to ask his mother how the job was going, and she gave me a disappointing report. Last week, she said, a customer came in to pick up an order, looked at her son and asked him to say, “What’s happening!”

Did I mention that the young man is African-American? And for those too young to remember, there was a well known character on a 1970s sitcom called “What’s happening,” who was black and obese, wore a red beret and suspenders, and would go around saying, “What’s happening!” His name was Rerun, and he was played by an actor named Fred Berry.

Now some of you may think, “What’s the big deal?” — but I hope not many. To most people, this is offensive, and whether you consider it stereotyping, ignorance or racism doesn’t matter. What does matter is that this teenager went home, related the story to his mother and cried. He doesn’t understand why someone would ask him to do that, as if he is there for their amusement.

But here is the worst part, the part that makes me sick as a boss, as a father and as a friend. He felt obligated to say the line, because he was trained to take care of customers, to do whatever he has to do. His mother told him that he should have said, “I’m not really comfortable with that.” And that is certainly a better answer than I came up with. But her son is not sure what the company would think of that response.

And I understand why he feels that way — even though I happen to know the owner of the company, and I am pretty sure he would be horrified to hear the story. I believe the owner would give him advice similar to his mother’s.

This is not the only uncomfortable situation he encounters. His mother tells me that about once a week, after he reviews an order with a customer in his charming and pleasant manner, and leaves the room (but remains within earshot), a white customer will say to the white cashier something like, “He’s so nice! I didn’t expect that.”

I’m not sure what’s worse, thinking it or saying it. But I’m very sure the cashier is uncomfortable, and I’m pretty sure these customers are clueless about what they are doing. Granted, no one is getting shot, pulled over or accused of a crime, but there is damage done. I asked his mother what she says to him when this happens? She said she tells him that there is racism in the world and that it will always be there. I cringed. I asked if she was sure it was racism and not ignorance. She said it really didn’t matter — it hurts either way. She said that for the first 14 years she did say it was ignorance, but at some point she got tired of defending ignorance and painting a rosy view of her world. It gave me a different perspective.

As a boss, I believe I have a responsibility to make sure my employees understand the difference between dealing with an angry customer and dealing with abusive behavior — or perhaps in this case, ignorant and rude customers. The white cashier could ask “Why would you be surprised?” This might actually do the customer a favor. As for the “what’s happening?” customer, I’m sure that he’ll be back, and I’m sure he will do it again — because he probably thinks he’s being funny and friendly. I am hoping my friend’s son will muster the nerve to say, “No, I’d rather not.” I think he needs to speak with his boss.

What would you tell your employee?

Jay Goltz owns five small businesses in Chicago.

Making the Effort to Network the Right Way

Networking is not something that is accomplished at an event; it?s a process. Many attorneys tell us that they?ve tried to network and it hasn?t worked for them. When we ask what they?ve done, they usually tell us that they went to a few events, got nothing out of them and then stopped going. This is not how the process works. It can take years to build up your network to a level that translates into new business. There are no shortcuts to building relationships. Like most things that are worth doing, the process of networking takes time, effort and dedication.

Economic View: To Fix Social Security, Use the Right Wrench

Congress seems to want a ruse to disguise a cut in benefits as something else — like the discovery of a technical error that, once corrected, would let the government write smaller checks without taking the blame for cutting benefits.

In a spirit of compromise, President Obama has proposed changing how inflation is measured in benefit calculations. In his 2014 budget proposal released in April, he proposed that retirees’ Social Security benefits be indexed to something called the Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers or C-CPI-U, rather than the current benchmark, the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W.

This seems to correct a real technical error. Economists have argued that the current index overstates the actual inflation rate, and that a switch to the C-CPI-U would make the inflation indexing more accurate, seemingly justifying the resulting gradual reduction in benefits. (And it would be a reduction, to the point that someone retiring today would be receiving about 5 percent less in 20 years.)

But here is the rub: the proposal solves the wrong problem and, in doing so, undermines the integrity of the Social Security system.

The purpose of Social Security is to help families. It reinforces the intergenerational sharing that families already — though imperfectly — provide. It helps retirees by stabilizing their income, and it helps their grown children, who are relieved of any excessive burden of supporting them. This purpose strongly suggests that the Social Security benefits should be indexed to some measure of the available, aggregate economic pie. That means a formula that looks completely different from the ones being discussed today.

Clearly, something needs to be done: if nothing changes, and the trust fund runs out in 2033, the system would be able to pay only about 75 percent of promised benefits.

The issues are complex, as economic theorists like Henning Bohn at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have shown. But now that an index change is on the table, we should take this opportunity to get it right.

One alternative that we should consider is a different kind of index switch, linking retirees’ benefits to gross domestic product per capita, in current dollars. This measure responds to inflation just as the C-CPI-U does, but, in contrast, it also responds to changes in the nation’s resources, as measured by real G.D.P. There could also be corrections for other factors, like the dependency ratio, which compares the number of “dependents” (retired people and children) to the number of working adults.

Such an index switch, however, has received hardly any public discussion, and that fact alone will make some people think that something is wrong with it. But political talk is limited; it is too focused on the identified problem of somehow fixing the projected Social Security insolvency. While this new idea won’t solve insolvency — we may need to raise Social Security contributions to do that — it would support the principle that one generation shouldn’t be more burdened than another.

Before 1972, Social Security wasn’t indexed at all, and there was little public talk about tying it to inflation despite periodic, inflation-induced disasters for retirees. Congress simply made occasional, ad hoc, upward adjustments in the benefit formula. Proponents of these adjustments often justified the increases as offsetting the rising cost of living. But at the same time, they also described retirees as needy, suffering hardships and deserving dignity. While there were no explicit references to G.D.P., it’s plausible that their sense of “needy” was influenced by comparison with the rising American standard of living for working adults. As a matter of fact, total Social Security benefits more than kept up with the rapid G.D.P. growth in the couple of decades before they were indexed to inflation.

Now that inflation indexing has been in place, some people see the formula as always providing the scientifically “right” amount of benefits. They don’t think much about other factors that might enter into the determination of benefits. And, in fact, since 1982, Social Security benefits as a fraction of G.D.P. have generally been falling, at least until the latest recession.

The fact is that per capita G.D.P., in current dollars, has grown 1.2 percent faster a year, on average, than the CPI-W in the last 20 years, despite the Great Recession. If we indexed Social Security benefits to G.D.P. per capita, and not to the C-CPI-U, people who retire today and live 20 additional years would get a third more in real, inflation-corrected benefits — provided, of course, that the next 20 years are like the last.

If the economy grew unusually rapidly, however, they might get 50 or 60 percent more, in real terms. But even that wouldn’t break the budget of the Social Security system, because contributions would be higher, too, in response to the greater economic growth. And if the economy stagnated in a deep depression in the next 20 years, retirees might see no growth at all, or conceivably even a decline, in real terms. That’s O.K., too, because everyone else would be suffering as well. We have other programs, like Medicare, that deal with any extreme hardships that some older Americans with special conditions might encounter.

THE point of G.D.P. indexing is to align the interests of the retired with society as a whole. Older Americans should share both the windfalls and the losses with other generations — with working adults, and with children. It shouldn’t be otherwise. If the system’s rules force us to maintain the real benefits of retirees at all costs, we may find ourselves, in difficult times, taking excessively from our children via cuts in education, or from our working adults. Why should retired people feel no effect at all from the recession while younger people are left suffering? They should be sharing the hardships, if we have familial feelings for one another.

The issue is especially salient today because the demographics have shifted: the aging of the baby boomers will create many retirees relative to adults who are still working. This huge shift could not have been foreseen by Social Security’s designers.

Achieving the right benefit formula while fixing Social Security’s solvency problem might require increasing the contribution rate — now in the form of 6.2 percent taxes on employees and employers. But so be it. We need to say what is right, keeping our eyes on the integrity of Social Security, which is crucial to our identity as a civil society.

Robert J. Shiller is Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale.

Setting the Right Foundation for Your Witness Testimony

While every witness preparation session I conduct is different depending on the needs, communicative issues and messages of a particular witness, there is one thing that I do with just about every witness. I ask the following question: "If I were a juror in your case, what are the three main things I need to learn from you and your testimony." The answers are often astonishing.

Setting the Right Foundation for Your Witness Testimony

While every witness preparation session I conduct is different depending on the needs, communicative issues and messages of a particular witness, there is one thing that I do with just about every witness. I ask the following question: "If I were a juror in your case, what are the three main things I need to learn from you and your testimony." The answers are often astonishing.

Letters: The Right Corporate Directors

Archives at the New York Public Library cross-referenced with long-awaited 1940 data provide eye-opening results.

Stuck without a lyric in sight, a songwriter ponders the intricacies of a little bird’s brain.

Civil Behavior: What Is the Right Way to Come Out as Bisexual at Work?

Q. Dear Civil Behavior: I’m bisexual (female), and I want to be out at work. I just don’t quite know how to slip it into conversation. It never seems appropriate to say the word “sexual” in a work environment, and it’s simply awkward. If I come out to a straight man, for example, he always seems to take it in a sexual way. Coming out to women I just get scared that they will be uncomfortable or think I’m coming on to them. Also it gets really wordy! I have to spend sentences explaining who I am while someone that is gay can use a single word or two. But, bisexual visibility can only get better if people like me don’t cop out and say we are gay when that’s not true. Any advice on how to make “out bisexual” a little easier? — Erica, East Brunswick, N.J.

A: Over the years I’ve frequently heard from my bi friends that it’s harder for them to come out than it is for those of us who are gay or lesbian because of the enduring myths about being bisexual. Stereotypes persist, and many people think that identifying as bi means 1) you’re going through a phase, 2) you’re promiscuous or 3) you’re really gay but not telling the truth. In fact, many of those in our generation of L.G.B.T. people did claim to be bisexual, when we were gay or lesbian all along but not yet ready to acknowledge it even to ourselves. That’s not deceitful; it’s part of coming to terms with your sexuality.

For those who are bi, though, I can certainly understand the difficulty in establishing your identity in a simple and honest way. “Bisexuality, arguably, is the least understood sexual orientation,” said Bob Witeck, a founder of one of America’s pioneering L.G.B.T. communications and marketing companies. “And invisible too, given their closets, and the sometimes harsh attitudes of gay and straight counterparts.”

After all, people our age are likely to associate being bi with either Sharon Stone as the murderous bisexual seductress Catherine Tramell in the 1992 film “Basic Instinct” or the flippant Woody Allen joke about how being bi “doubles your chance for a date on Saturday night.” These old stereotypes don’t die easily.

They are so alive and well, in fact, that when I posed your question on my Facebook page I was shocked by some of the venomous responses. It was the first time any topic has caused the Facebook algorithm to hide posts because of the language, and I’ve had to edit the remarks heavily to let even these few appear here:

¶"Life must be so tough on you wishy-washy [expletive deleted]”

¶"I’ve seen more damage done by ‘bisexuals’ that I care to count”

¶"Probably married and sleeping around”

I’d have a hard time coming out, too, if I thought seemingly reasonable people harbored opinions like these.

Still, you’re absolutely correct: If more bi folks come out of course visibility increases. But is work the right place to do this? I can hear the chorus from those who argue that one’s sexual identity (whether straight, gay or bi) is not relevant in a work context. “Why make a declaration,” one Facebooker posted. Another, “It’s nobody’s business in business.”

Point taken, but without making a “declaration,” don’t our straight colleagues routinely discuss how they spent the weekend with their opposite-sex partner, which is a nonchalant way of proclaiming their sexual identity. In recent years, gays and lesbians have joined in, too, acknowledging a same-sex boyfriend or girlfriend by showcasing a desktop photo of the happy couple or dropping a casual reference.

I do think context is key here. If you are in a relationship with a woman and talk with colleagues about your weekend plans with her, then the assumption is that you’re lesbian. If your current partner is a man, they’ll assume you’re straight. In that case, to clarify things with a friendly colleague you could mention a past love, working a simple “I’m bi” or a humorous “I play for both teams” into the conversation (although a friend of mine notes that someone might want to add, “I only play for one team at a time.”)

Two bisexual activists, A.J. Walkley and Lauren Michelle Kinsey, also recommended casual “water cooler” ways of bringing up your sexual identity through current events. “I was thrilled to hear that Clive Davis came out as bisexual, being bisexual myself,” or “Did you hear that same-sex couples will soon be able to marry in Delaware? It means a lot to me since I’m bisexual.”

Context isn’t the only thing that matters here – consider your company and its commitment to diversity and inclusion as well. Many corporations now have L.G.B.T. employee groups; think about getting involved as an out bi person and use that public role to reduce the invisibility of bisexuals in the workplace.

But what’s true for boomers is much less so for millennials, who have grown up with less antipathy toward bi people and are more likely to have been influenced by the well-respected and much-loved bisexual character Dr. Calliope Torres on “Grey’s Anatomy” (who’s had monogamous relationships with male and female characters) than “Basic Instinct.” This younger generation is also generally more accepting of the concept of fluid or pan sexuality, and less likely to use traditional labels to define themselves. Just this week I was told that college-age students are eschewing “lesbian” as “old school” and that the day is fast approaching when “bisexual” will also be considered obsolete. As one young man, who has had intimate relationships with men and women, e-mailed me: “I don’t need to identify. I just am. Me.”

Finally, whether you call yourself bi, fluid, queer or something else, don’t get bogged down in the verbiage; choose instead to embrace your life as it is. I’ve always liked this quote from James Dean who, when asked about his rumored bisexuality, responded: “I’m not willing to go through life with one hand tied behind my back.”

Do you think there’s more antipathy toward bisexual people than gays or lesbians? Why?

Previous “Civil Behavior” columns can be found here. Steven Petrow can be contacted at Facebook.com/gaymanners and @stevenpetrow or his Web site www.gaymanners.com. If you need advice about gay/straight situations or issues (geared to a boomer-aged audience), send them to Mr. Petrow at stevenpetrow@earthlink.net. (Unfortunately, not all questions can be answered.)

Booming: Living Through the Middle Ages offers news and commentary about baby boomers, anchored by Michael Winerip. You can follow Booming via RSS here or visit nytimes.com/booming. You can reach us by e-mail at booming@nytimes.com.

Setting the Right Foundation for Your Witness Testimony

While every witness preparation session I conduct is different depending on the needs, communicative issues and messages of a particular witness, there is one thing that I do with just about every witness. I ask the following question: "If I were a juror in your case, what are the three main things I need to learn from you and your testimony." The answers are often astonishing.

The Haggler: Companies That Get Customer Service Right

EVERY few weeks, the Haggler receives e-mail from happy customers eager to praise companies that have treated them well. Given the howls of dismay and fury that typically fill the Haggler’s in-box, these letters are startling and exotic — like finding a yogi in a mosh pit. When enough unsolicited huzzahs pile up, the Haggler likes to present them in a column.

Why? Because the Haggler’s never-ending quest for an improved, more responsive service economy includes the occasional round of applause for companies that get it right.

And further, if all you knew about the consumer experience in this country was learned from this column, you’d never leave the house. Or answer the phone, or order anything online. Which is a highly skewed portrait.

So with that preamble, the Haggler steps aside and hands the microphone to a species that is rarely spotted in this space: the satisfied customer.

Recently, our three-year-old Cuisinart coffee maker started making noises akin to a strangled parrot, and then ended its life with a theatrical puff of smoke, like a magician’s finale. When contacted about this, Cuisinart — which is owned by the Conair Corporation — immediately shipped us a newer and better machine, even though ours was long out of warranty. The company also provided a box to ship the old one back, presumably for an autopsy.

The whole process took less than five days. Well done, Conair. You have a customer for life.

CRAIG STUART-PAUL, Catonsville, Md.

•

Several months ago I bought one of those LED light bulbs that are supposed to last a couple of decades. It was a Philips that cost nearly $40 and I expected it to outlast me.

It died after five months. To my surprise, when I called to complain, Philips offered to refund the purchase price plus the sales tax. They asked only that I return the dead bulb, presumably so they could determine why it failed. A couple weeks later, a check for $40 came in the mail, along with a prepaid label for me to return the bulb.

Very impressive.

BILL FARREN, Monroe, Conn.

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You are sort of the Miss Lonelyhearts of the retail world. So, I thought you might like to know that I just bought a ton of stuff from West Elm and it all went flawlessly. I talked to human beings — not answering machines — several of whom called me to arrange delivery times and inform me that back-ordered items had arrived. I thought this might brighten your day a bit.

NANCY LEROY, Montclair, N.J.

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After about five years of faithful service, my TiVo digital video recorder died. The company offered a good price on a replacement if I sent back the dead unit, which I did. However, I neglected to remove the cable card before I shipped the unit. I didn’t realize my error until the new unit arrived.

I sent an e-mail to TiVo, asking if there was any way they might be able to locate my cable card and send it back. They wrote right away and said they would contact the warehouse, but that it might be difficult.

Lo and behold, a week later a package arrived with my cable card, saving me $75 to replace it and earning TiVo my everlasting customer loyalty. This is the way to run a business and retain customers.

PAUL C. MENDELOWITZ, Park Ridge, N.J.

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My husband recently took a flight from Appleton, Wis., to Eugene, Ore., a trip that included a stop in Portland. The Portland-to-Eugene leg was canceled, so he rented a car in Portland and drove to the Eugene airport. He arrived right around 3:30, which was great because that is when I was supposed to pick him up.

We contacted Delta Air Lines and it responded promptly, politely and apologetically and agreed to refund the unused Portland-Eugene ticket. It would not refund the $100 for the rental car and gas, but offered a $100 gift card from a small selection of companies. My husband went with L. L. Bean.

Given what I read in your column, this all seemed amazing.

ELLEN JOHNSON, North Bend, Ore.

•

A U.P.S. driver came to my door with a prepaid label to pick up a baby monitor being returned to Amazon. He accidentally took the wrong box, which contained a rather expensive espresso machine, on its way back to Nespresso for repair, sending it to Amazon instead.

One call to customer service and Amazon found a quick way to handle the problem. The company let me pick a new espresso machine from its inventory, and sent it to me, at no cost.

I’ve always loved Amazon. Now I love it even more.

MORRIS TABUSH, Brooklyn

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I bought a General Electric microwave last summer and upon opening the box found that the clear plastic overlay on the control panel was wrinkled and bubbled. This made it hard to read the symbols on the panel. I thought that I could live with this, but it just got more annoying over time.

I decided to call G.E. customer relations with the expectation that I would probably have to ship it back, at considerable cost. The G.E. representative was pleasant and she asked me to remove the serial number label and to send it to her. “We will send you a refund,” she then said. A check arrived soon after.

DAVID SEGAL, Philadelphia

(The writer, whose name really is David Segal, is not related to the Haggler. But the Haggler still hopes that he will immediately cease and desist from using the name. Please, let’s keep the lawyers out of this.)

•

See? Some companies know how to cultivate loyalty. The Haggler salutes them. Really. And now, having finished that salute, this column will return to its regular programming, which is delivering the written equivalent of a Dutch rub to any consumer-abusing chuckleheads that need one.

E-mail: haggler@nytimes.com. Keep it brief and family-friendly, include your hometown and go easy on the caps-lock key. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

Off the Shelf: ‘Big, Hot, Cheap and Right,’ a New Look at Texas - Review

This is nothing new, as most any Texan will tell you. But Ms. Grieder, a onetime correspondent for The Economist who now works at Texas Monthly, and a Texan herself, has written a smart little book that counters much of this silliness, and explains why the Texas economy is thriving. It’s called “Big, Hot, Cheap and Right: What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas” (PublicAffairs, $26.99). The sad truth, alas, is that it’s probably a lot easier to understand the successes of Texas than it would be to duplicate them.

What might be copied, Ms. Grieder indicates, is the so-called Texas model — that is, a weak state government with few taxes and fewer regulations and services. It would be far harder to replicate the state’s civic DNA, which features traits that can be traced to its decade, beginning in 1836, as a stand-alone nation (independent, suspicious of Washington), the late-1800s cowboy era (self-reliant, fraternal) and the 20th-century introduction of oil and entrepreneurialism (pro-business, skeptical of government). Those values, Ms. Grieder says, created a populace ideal for economic growth: “pragmatic, fiscally conservative, socially moderate and slightly disengaged.”

This is a refreshing book on many levels. Outside writers have been regularly caricaturing the state since the novelist Edna Ferber introduced America to postwar Texas with “Giant” in 1952. The canon ranges from “The Super-Americans,” by John Bainbridge (1961), to “As Texas Goes ... : How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda,” by Gail Collins, a New York Times columnist (2012). Ms. Grieder’s is the rare book that takes stock of the Texas model without ridiculing many of its traditions and politicians.

I tend to look askance at an analysis that attributes a company’s or a state’s success to events two centuries ago, but Ms. Grieder’s history lessons are persuasive. Texas’s laissez-faire mix of weak government, low taxes and scant regulations is deeply rooted in its 1876 Constitution, which was an attempt to vehemently dismantle an oppressive post-Civil War government of radical reconstructionists. Texas business interests flourished after turn-of-the-century legislators passed an early antitrust law, which kept much of its oil and natural resources squarely under local control.

Historically, Ms. Grieder writes: “Texas wasn’t a straightforward pro-business state. It was (and is) pro-Texas business.”

More recently, the state’s economic boom has been a mix of luck and good planning. Strict lending laws allowed Texas to dodge the worst of the housing collapse, while the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement was a boon to the state’s export sector.

But “the secret ingredient,” Ms. Grieder writes, has been the industrial policy of Gov. Rick Perry, offering a generous broth of subsidies and incentives that Texas has used to attract hundreds of businesses that have richly diversified its traditional energy-based economy. This has had the added benefit of insulating Texas from the ups and downs of oil prices.

“The Texas model isn’t an accident, in other words, even if the state Constitution does call for a very stark version of it,” Ms. Grieder says. “Texas has a long tradition of looking outside the government for support — and often finding it. That predates the Texas revolution and was reinforced by the rise of the cattle kingdom and the oil booms.”

Systems and laws aside, Ms. Grieder emphasizes, the crucial component in the Texas boom has been its people, who tend — forget stereotypes — to be tolerant, optimistic and results-oriented. It’s no accident that Houston, a city sometimes caricatured as a haven for obnoxious right-wingers, in 2009 became the country’s largest city to elect an openly gay mayor. The state has benefited from waves of immigration, beginning after the Civil War and persisting to this day.

As outsiders, successful immigrants tend to be hard-working and self-sufficient, and the state’s pro-business culture has made their jobs easier at every turn. Non-Texans tend to look at glib right-wing Texas politicians like Governor Perry — and many others — and assume that the Texas electorate must be similar.

In fact, Ms. Grieder demonstrates, Texas voters are notoriously ambivalent about politics, in large part because the state Constitution gives politicians so little power. As a result, even the worst Texas leaders tend to do little damage.

“Texans are, ultimately, a pragmatic people,” she writes. “Politicians and their excesses can be justified by the economy alone. And that’s one area where no one’s been disappointed. So maybe it doesn’t matter if the state’s leaders breathe fire, pray for rain, turn up at Tea Party rallies and spend all day suing the federal government. How crazy is that, really? Texas is a pretty good place to live; that’s why several million people have moved here since the beginning of this century.”

This is a good book, and Ms. Grieder’s clear, vivid writing makes it downable in a single afternoon. I have only one bone to pick. Ms. Grieder has graciously mentioned a book of mine in her footnotes. Unfortunately, she misspells my last name. And my first. But one can overlook minor errors. This is a promising debut from a promising young author.

Making the Effort to Network the Right Way

Networking is not something that is accomplished at an event; it?s a process. Many attorneys tell us that they?ve tried to network and it hasn?t worked for them. When we ask what they?ve done, they usually tell us that they went to a few events, got nothing out of them and then stopped going. This is not how the process works. It can take years to build up your network to a level that translates into new business. There are no shortcuts to building relationships. Like most things that are worth doing, the process of networking takes time, effort and dedication.

Making the Effort to Network the Right Way

Networking is not something that is accomplished at an event; it?s a process. Many attorneys tell us that they?ve tried to network and it hasn?t worked for them. When we ask what they?ve done, they usually tell us that they went to a few events, got nothing out of them and then stopped going. This is not how the process works. It can take years to build up your network to a level that translates into new business. There are no shortcuts to building relationships. Like most things that are worth doing, the process of networking takes time, effort and dedication.

Budget Cuts’ Impact May Be Difficult to See Right Away

Late Friday night, Mr. Obama formally triggered spending cuts that will reach across the breadth of the federal government after he failed to persuade Congressional Republicans to replace them with a mix of cuts and tax increases.

In a 70-page report to Congress accompanying the order and detailing the reductions — agency by agency and program by program — Jeffrey D. Zients, Mr. Obama’s budget director, called them “deeply destructive to national security, domestic investments and core government functions.”

But even as the cuts become official, some of the immediate impact is difficult to see.

The process of trimming government budgets is slow and cumbersome, involving lengthy notifications to unions about temporary furloughs, reductions in overtime pay and cuts in grant financing to state and local programs. Less federal money will, over time, mean fewer government contracts with private companies. Reduced overtime for airport security checkpoint officers will make lines longer, eventually.

And so as the first weekend began for the new, slimmer government, little of that is evident yet.

Letters to governors, informing them of the smaller grants are beginning to go out, officials said. Shaun Donovan, the secretary of housing and urban development, wrote to Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio: “You can expect reductions totaling approximately $35 million,” helpfully putting the amount in a bold type.

The Air Force Thunderbirds — the elite team of F-16 pilots who perform tricks at air shows — announced on its Web site that all of its shows have been canceled starting April 1. The last show will be in Titusville, Fla., on March 23.

Still, it will take some time, officials acknowledged, before the cuts begin to make life more difficult for teachers, defense contractors, Head Start students, border patrol agents or others who rely on the largess of the federal government.

Emerging from an Oval Office meeting on Friday with the lawmakers, the president called the cuts “just dumb.” He said they would slow the economic recovery and spoke emotionally about their impact on people who would feel the consequences of government layoffs and disruptions in public services.

“I don’t anticipate a huge financial crisis, but people are going to be hurt,” Mr. Obama said during a 35-minute news conference at the White House, in which he acknowledged that his campaign of highlighting fallout from the cuts had failed to persuade Republicans to consider tax increases as part of a package to avert the $85 billion in reductions over the next seven months.

But the president and his Republican adversaries said they would not carry the fight over the cuts into a coming legislative effort to finance the government through Sept. 30, essentially declaring a cease-fire in the budget wars that have dominated Washington since 2011.

The showdown in December over the so-called fiscal cliff yielded $620 billion in tax increases over 10 years. The across-the-board spending cuts now going into force will cut deficits an additional $1.2 trillion.

Both sides indicated that for now, that may be enough — a fiscal peace through political exhaustion. The two parties are now expected to move to a broader argument over the right level of taxes and spending as they seek to develop a new budget for the coming year and beyond. Republicans said they welcomed a return to a more orderly budget process but warned they would not give in on their basic principles.

“I will not be part of any back-room deal, and I will absolutely not agree to increase taxes,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

After a public relations blitz lasting weeks that was aimed at stopping the cuts, Mr. Obama said he was prepared to extend a stopgap law that finances the government to March 27 if Republicans stuck to an agreement worked out in 2011 about the level of federal spending. The decision will most likely allow the across-the-board spending reductions to remain in place for months if not years.

White House officials and Senate Democrats had considered making one last stand around the March 27 deadline, declaring the Senate would not pass another government spending plan unless it undid the across-the-board cuts. But Senate Democrats were leery. The first furloughs are likely to hit in April, and the Democrats feared that little political pressure would have built on Republicans before the current stopgap spending law expired.

In his weekly address on Saturday morning, the president acknowledged that the reductions would not affect everyone equally.

“While not everyone will feel the pain of these cuts right away, the pain will be real,” Mr. Obama said. “Many middle-class families will have their lives disrupted in a significant way.”

And heading into the weekend, some officials seemed eager to offer reassurance that government would continue to function despite the deep cuts.

While Leon E. Panetta, who just left the job of defense secretary, had thundered about the critical risk to national security — and lamented what he viewed as a shift of Washington’s political class away from good governance — his successor, Chuck Hagel, spoke in more conciliatory terms.

Wis. Supreme Court: Newspaper has right to records

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The state Supreme Court says a newspaper has a right to complete copies of Juneau County's legal bills.