Lawyers’ Case Of Culture Clash

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LOS Angeles attorneys Yoanna Binder and Yi-Chin Ho have reason to celebrate. Last week, the Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP lawyers successfully sought asylum for two Tibetan women who were incarcerated after entering the United States illegally. But the lawyers’ work didn’t stop there.

Binder, who is a litigation associate at the firm, played host to the two women after they were released from jail. “They got to my house and asked if it was OK if they slept in the same bed, because in Tibetan culture you never sleep alone,” Binder said.

Binder started introducing the women, Tsering Dolma and Tsering Chodron, to Western culture; they went on a walk in Binder’s Carthay neighborhood and watched “The Other Boleyn Girl” with captions to help them learn English.

The relaxed atmosphere was sharply different from early meetings. Both women at first were suspicious of Ho, who is of Taiwanese descent.

“The clients were afraid of me and thought I was a Chinese communist spy,” Ho said.


Power Referral

ThisNext is a social shopping site where members recommend products to each other. So last year when founder Gordon Gould, 38, needed a successor to take over his company, he used his own business model by asking for recommendations within his social network.

“One value-added role of venture capitalists is to introduce people,” he said.

After chatting with VCs, headhunters and friends, Gould selected Scott Morrow, a former vice president at CNET, who was hired as president last year. After a year of training at that post, Morrow took over as chief executive last week.


Manny Fans?

Are Manny fans feeling dissed?

Since Manny Ramirez joined the Dodgers several weeks ago, fans in the left-field bleachers started sporting $280 Ramirez jerseys, $29 T-shirts and $15 skull caps. (A Dodgers spokeswoman said the team sold $86,299 in Manny stuff in only the first three days of August.) But at least some fans report that Ramirez seems to ignore them.

In the Dodgers’ come-from-behind 7-6 win over the Phillies on Aug. 13, for example, fans kept asking Ramirez for the ball he used to warm up between innings. But he never tossed one into the crowd. However, utility outfielder Juan Pierre immediately obliged with a toss into the bleachers when he subbed in the ninth inning.

Season-ticket holder Alex Richmond is disappointed: “Especially since we are out there in the cheap seats. We are the ones who are there to see him. … Juan Pierre does it every inning.”


Staff reporters Alexa Hyland and Joel Russell contributed to this column. Daniel Miller can be reached at [email protected].

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