Holiday gift guide: Gifts for lawyers

Listen to this article

Oklahoma City — Need a special Christmas gift for a hard-to-please attorney in the family or your circle of friends?

Not to worry.

For the fourth-year running, Washington, D.C., lawyer Reid Trautz has done the hard part for you, coming up with several out-of-the ordinary ideas in his 2008 Holiday Gift Guide for Lawyers.

Among Trautz’s own favorites?

“Anything for the iPhone is good, the speaker systems, the headsets or earbuds,” he said in an interview.

That’s probably because Trautz’s wife apparently read the 2007 guide and gave him an iPhone last Christmas.

He said one item that is getting a heightened response is the “Power Nap Kit” for lawyers burning the midnight oil.

The kit includes two CDs of meditative relaxation exercises and music, as well as a booklet.

Kit sponsors say that a proper 30-minute nap can give a person the restorative power of four hours’ sleep.

Trautz said he did not know there is a technique for taking a power nap.

“That was pretty funny, to learn that,” he said, adding that such a system may come in especially handy this busy time of year.

Then there is the Harvey Birdman DVD set, which packages the series seen on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.

Superhero/lawyer Harvey has represented Shaggy and Scooby-Doo in a drug case, Fred Flintstone in a case where he is accused of being a crime boss and Boo-Boo the bear on eco-terrorist charges.

The 2008 guide also recommends some thought-provoking books, such as Richard Susskind’s “The End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services,” a sequel to the author’s “The Future of Law,” published in 1996, which explored how technology would transform the legal profession.

In his new work, Susskind looks at what has come to pass and how those engaged in the traditional practice of law may be affected by ongoing changes in years to come.

As the book’s publisher puts it: “For the conservative legal adviser, the message is bleak. For the progressive lawyer, an exciting new legal market emerges.”

This year, Trautz says, the social-networking explosion has expanded the routes through which Web surfers are finding their way to the guide.

“There are more ways to get information out about the guide,” he said. “It’s not just from e-mails or from blogs.”

Trautz has a presence on Facebook through which he can notify more people about the new list.

“Now, other people see it, that may be friends, not necessarily lawyers,” he said. “Before, I was really only letting the legal market know.”

Trautz said the gift guide generated the most interest last week, just after it was initially posted.

The full online guide can be found on Trautz’s Reid My Blog at www.reidtrautz.typepad.com.