Peter Halmos -- Will His Ship Ever Come In?

That toe-tappin' crippled yacht case is slowly limping to port, as the parties prepare their post-trial proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law.

And the beat goes on.

It took me all morning to read Steve Marino's excellent 85-page brief, which sets forth in exquisite detail the mountain of commercial litigation required to get the parties to this point (and they're not even done yet).

I guess one SIMPLY AMAZING! thing that fascinates me about this case is the uncontrollable variables that have entered into what should otherwise be a straightforward insurance coverage dispute.

Between the lawyers, the rulings, the clients and the witnesses you have a near-perfect s@#tstorm of what can go wrong when parties engage in f*$k the costs, balls-to-the-wall litigation.

It's almost an ideal case study for commercial litigators in that the subject matter could be anything -- widgets, yachts, whatever -- and the disputes seem both wildly impossible yet depressingly familiar to any of us who do this for a living.

Turning back to Roy Black's intriguing suggestions for UM Law, how in the hail do you teach kids to handle crap like this?

Seriously, how do you -- or even should you -- teach law students to do this type of litigation effectively?

Efficiently?

In such a way that they don't leave the office at night stupefied, screaming at the walls, drinking themselves to oblivion on a Tuesday, and allegedly challenging their girlfriends to naked post-shower sword fights?