Success is hard to define.  We think we know it when we see it.  But we seldom do.  In fact, more often than not we actually misidentify things such as material abundance, popularity or power as “success.”  They can in fact be correlative with success, but they are not success or even necessarily proof of success.

Thankfully as we get older this becomes more and more intuitive to us.  We learn to focus our inquiry when thinking about success.  The old maxim that “no man is a hero to his valet” reminds us that we are all ultimately only human.  The march of mortality as well prevents any illusion to the contrary from lodging with sustained firmness in any but the most unsuccessfully matured mind.  So we come to realize there are a lot of ways to define to success, to measure it, and to weigh it in terms of the overall picture of what or who it is we’re considering.

We also, it is to be hoped, stop fearing failure, and learn what it is there for, and how there is no success without it.

Now, this blog’s title is an allusion to one of the criteria used by courts to decide whether or not to issue a preliminary injunction in a civil litigation matter.  Typically the elements weighed by a judge are (a) a balancing of harms as between what will happen if an injunction does issue, compared to if it does not; (b) whether the harm sought to be prevented is “irreparable harm”–meaning the relief sought is the only way to compensate the party seeking it or whether plain old money will do the trick without too much guesswork or speculation regarding the harm done; (c) a consideration of whether the issuance of the injunction will be in the public interest and (d) whether the party seeking the injunction can show its likelihood of success on the merits of the underlying legal claim.

This last element requires a judge to do a quick once-over of “the case” presented to him and evaluate whether the party seeking the injunction has put forth a plausible and appropriately authenticated prima facie factual set of claims which, in the framework of the applicable legal doctrines set out by the plaintiff, looks like a winner.  Typically along with the issuance of a preliminary injunction, a court will require the plaintiff to post a bond, so that if something material turns out to have been misrepresented or misunderstood and harm results to the enjoined party, the court knows that party has recourse to the bond for compensation.

Blogging, however, does not require such profound undertakings. Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight, that is — it’s the first night of Chanukah.  That means that I’m going to be hosting the annual Blawg Review next Monday, at LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® (here’s last year’s).

Just a heads-up.