The Worst Boss in the World

Guess who.

In all fairness to whoever this boss is…. the underwear was clean, and does anyone NEED to tell you that the middle seat sucks?

What’s the Difference Between a Lawyer and a Hooker?

One Rhode Island character and fitness exam that isn’t likely to go very well.

When “Support” is Really a “Tantrum”

Facts are sexist!

Ann Bartow posted a piece over at Feminist Law Professors that started out seeming to be a rather nice bit supporting Prof. Mark Lemley, one of the attorneys representing Brittan Heller and Heide Iravani in the AutoAdmit suit, — and a defendant in Anthony Ciolli’s countersuit — a case that the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has allowed to go forward — in part.

Bartow writes:

Mark Lemley got involved with this case, in my opinion, because he is a progressive, good-hearted, moral and generous person. (source)

I can’t be sure why Lemley got involved in that case. I directly asked him that question, and he didn’t answer me. Nevertheless, I believe that Prof. Bartow’s assessment of him is accurate. He does seem like a genuinely good-hearted, generous, and moral person, and I have never heard a single person say otherwise. His involvement in the case did puzzle me, which is why I asked him about it. While his silence was disappointing, I can understand that for liability reasons, it was better that he not reply.

I suspect that he got bamboozled into the case — that he wasn’t told the whole truth until he was already waist deep in the muck, and then it was too late to back out gracefully. Accordingly, I think it is kind of nice that Bartow supported Prof. Lemley. Hell, the man was one of my heroes before I saw the Auto Admit case with his name on it. I still reverently respect him and personally like him, and a part of me hopes that he can disprove the allegations against him. However, if the allegations do stick, like him or not, adults must answer for their actions.

Regardless of Lemley’s motivations, Prof. Bartow’s piece is not at all about supporting Lemley. Behind all of her compliments for him, this post is just Bartow’s latest anti-free-speech diatribe (see commentary on a previous one here), further demonstrating that second-wave feminists have turned the Auto Admit case into their cause-celebre. They just can’t wrap their heads around the fact that sometimes, occasionally, the poor female victim(s) can lie, be spiteful, be unethical, be misled, or just plain wrong. Or, if they can wrap their heads around it, they would rather set themselves on fire than admit it.

Bartow writes:

[I]t seems pretty obvious to me why Anthony Ciolli was named in the original law suit. ISP immunity under Section 230 does not apply to the authors of contested material. Ciolli was clearly posting comments at the AutoAdmit discussion board under at least one pseudonym, “Great Teacher Onizuka.” The plaintiffs had every reason to suspect that he was posting under others as well, and that he could have been personally responsible (and liable) for some of the actionable material. They could not rule him out without conducting discovery in the context of litigation, and they could not do a thorough investigation of the matter unless Ciolli was a named party. Once the plaintiffs knew either that Ciolli was not a bad actor or that they would be unable to prove that he was a bad actor, they dismissed him. Any competent lawyer would have done the same thing. This is Civil Procedure 101. (emphasis added)

Ciolli was “clearly” posting under a pseudonym. Was he? Was it clear? Was it about the girls? Was it negative? Then why include this?

Lets teach Prof. Bartow a little bit about Civil Procedure. Or, better yet, lets teach everyone else about it, because I can’t see Bartow getting off her shrill perch — but I’d rather not let people in the blawgosphere be misled.

Even if Ciolli were not a defendant, the plaintiffs would have had every right to subpoena and depose any person who may have possessed relevant information. In fact, after Ciolli was dropped from the case, Heller and Iravani’s lawyers did, indeed, take his deposition to make sure that they did not leave any stones unturned. Any competent law professor would know that this was not only possible, but proper. Any competent blogger would have at least read Ciolli’s complaint to find that fact. But, lets not let a pesky thing like the facts get in the way of a Dworkin wanna-be’s tirade.

If the reason Heller & Iravani sued Ciolli was because he “might have” posted under multiple personas, then why did they not name each and every moniker on Auto Admit? Everyone on Auto Admit could have had multiple monikers. In fact, law professor Brian Leiter is rumored to have posted on Auto Admit under the name “Tokyo Rose.” I posted on AutoAdmit under my real name. Why not name me? By Bartow’s post-hoc rationalization, Leiter and I both could have been one of the defendants until we were ruled out in discovery, no? Furthermore, if there was ever a suspicion that Ciolli used another moniker, then why wasn’t that allegation ever made, on information and belief, in the complaint?

I’ll tell you why not, because the Plaintiffs’ own published statements contradict Bartow’s made up “facts.” The “theory” that Mr. Ciolli was another pseudonymous poster never arose until Heller & Iravani’s lawyers started grasping for a way out of possible sanctions, and their cheerleaders started to see their lovely pre-packaged daydream unravel.

A competent attorney does not file suit against each and every person who could hypothetically be a defendant. (As in if the facts and the law were stretched like a goatse about to snap). If that were the case, then every lawsuit would name hundreds of defendants, including people who did nothing wrong, and let discovery sort out who was actually liable. Meanwhile hundreds of additional defendants would need to report that they were defendants in civil actions and live under the cloud of litigation while plaintiffs took their own sweet time figuring out if they had sued the right person. No, it doesn’t work that way and Professor Bartow should know that.

Bartow then throws out her own “theory.”

My theory on why Ciolli is suing Lemley and the plaintiffs? To scare away other potential plaintiffs, and to discourage other lawyers from representing them.

To scare other potential plaintiffs who might bring a lawsuit against him? I should hope so, since pages 23-29 of this decision make it pretty clear that Ciolli has brought a proper claim for wrongful initiation of civil proceedings against Iravani and her attorneys. Ethics and judgment are supposed to discourage lawyers from bringing baseless claims. It is a shame when someone must file suit in order to “scare” potential plaintiffs from abusing the courts and filing frivolous claims for an improper purpose.

The AutoAdmit case has been shown to be more of a shakedown, legal extortion, than a suit calculated to vindicate any real legal interests. While some might point out that over-inclusiveness and scattershot complaints are more common than I might like, the fact is that Bartow’s post is less about backing a nice guy – and more of a way of backpedaling and acting as an apologist for misuse of the legal system. Ethics matter, and the reason that so many lawyers miss that lesson is professors like this seem to disagree.

Ciolli had some pretty damning evidence to present in his case. Unfortunately for him, the E.D. Pa. ruled that it was excluded by FRE 408. Lets sit back and see if Ciolli’s lawyer in that case can find an alternate way of getting the information before the court. If he can, I’d imagine that Ciolli will prevail — which will probably give Bartow an excuse to blame it on the “patriarchy,” because in Bartow-world, the only women who are ever wrong or ill-motivated are those who disagree with her.

Idiocracy is Real

Quizlaw has the proof.

Souter to Retire

I don’t like a lot of the names being bandied about to replace him.

If it were entirely up to you, who would you choose to be on the Supreme Court?

My short list is here:

Eugene Volokh
Don Verrilli
Alex Kozinski

Enrico Schaefer: FTW!

I’ve always liked trademark attorney Enrico Schaefer, though we’ve only “met” via email. I mean, I’m not about to go to Traverse City, Michigan to have a beer with the guy.

Well, after reading this story, I think that it might be worth the trip – even in the winter.

Every lawyer has that one adversary whose uber-doucheness makes you want to smack them upside the head. Enrico, the founding partner of Traverse Legal has one too. Instead of getting mad, he just bought some billboard space outside the douche’s office!

The best part? According to Schaefer, the douches threatened to run him out of town – yet most of the companies logos on that billboard are companies that were formerly represented by the “annoying law firm!” Go Enrico, Go!

Enrico FTW!

Can anyone recommend a billboard company in Barcelona?

The New U.S. News Rankings Are Here! The New U.S. News Rankings Are Here!

This hidden camera shot catches a law school dean as he wets his pants as he sees that his school has moved up two slots in the U.S. News rankings.

Ok, not here. I’m not publishing them. All the lawprof blogs are all aflutter with the new leaked U.S. News rankings — obsessing over which schools moved up and down. But, nobody is talking about the real story — that U.S. News’ rankings don’t mean jack for anyone except law school marketing departments. Here’s a news flash:

U.S. News doesn’t consider quality of teaching, practical skills training or faculty-student relations, while bar passage rate and placement have low importance in the U.S. News rankings. (source)

I am so tired of seeing law schools chase the U.S. News rankings. They mean nothing in terms of quality of education, yet they mean so much in terms of marketing. Why? Because law schools let them.

If I ever become dean of a law school, (which I probably won’t, but if I do…) when I get that U.S. News survey, I am going to gut a fish, wrap the entrails in the form, and send it back to them. Then I am going to focus on what really matters — quality of teaching, mentoring, and faculty-student relations.

One of my readers wrote to me one time:

U.S. News is just a corporate shill for the Establishment and their anointed legal indoctrination centers. The rankings are a rigged beauty contest where the big boys trade slots every year, but they always stay on top. That is why “teaching, practical skills training or faculty-student relations” aren’t factored, because they would plummet into the lower tiers.

Word to that Johnny.

No wonder American legal education is worthless. Perhaps if we were all more concerned with the Vault rankings, the profession would be better off.

UPDATE: My fellow Satyriconista, Chris Harbin, disagrees with me.

Short Url: http://bit.ly/FPbyM

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Technorati :  law practice, legal education

The Worthlessness of American Legal Education

You'll get more practical knowledge out of this than you'll get out of three years at most law schools.

When I went to law school, it absolutely shocked me to learn how much the legal academy despises legal practitioners. In fact, laypeople might not know that for those who aspire to teach in a law school, it is considered to be a negative to have “too much” practice experience. The conventional wisdom is that once you’ve practiced for three years, that’s all you need in order to be a professor. More than that, and you’re considered to be “too experienced.” Less than that, however, is just fine. Go poke around some law school websites and look at the C.V.s of law professors. You may find some experience there, but you’ll be shocked at how many people with a few months of experience practicing law are responsible for training the next generation of lawyers.

We don’t teach you how to practice law. We teach you how to “think like a lawyer.” PFFFFFT!

One infamous quote that gets batted around the practical blawgosphere is this one:

We don’t want law school to be lawyer-training school. When we cave in to demands of that sort from the ABA and assorted study commissions, we actually invite alienation among law students and lawyers. Legal education should appreciate the depth of the legal discourse and explore its rich complexities. It should operate on a graduate-school level and graduate people truly learned in the law. -Marquette Prof. David Papke.

Papke took a beating for this from the practical blawgosphere. See, e.g., Greenfield, Gideon, Tannenbaum, and Bennett. Of course, no full-time law professors criticized him. Nobody wants to upset the academic apple cart — more appropriately described as a circle jerk.

Is it any wonder then that law schools don’t usually teach law students jack about how to practice law? Can you imagine any other profession where it would be a bona fide occupational requirement that you should be relatively (if not entirely) inexperienced in whatever it is you are teaching? As Tannenbaum put it:

In medical school we teach students about the body, its organs, how it works, how it reacts to certain factors, and what causes disease and sickness. Then the “doctors” do a “residency” where they focus on the practicalities of “doctoring.”

In law, we give “lawyers” a degree, that they can immediately frame, hang up in an office and greet unknowing clients. The law school having “done their job.” Some law schools embrace clinical programs and practical education, others, believe that a practicing lawyer is evidence of the failure of the law school’s education.

Apparently the people trying cases and arguing motions are not well versed in the law. They’re “just lawyers.” (source)

With this as an introduction to the legal academy, there are a couple of stories going around in which the legal academy either acknowledges its uselessness, or it damn well ought to. At least to those of you outside the bubble, it should demonstrate that legal education is broken and should be completely overhauled and reinvented.

Go Solo — Even though we didn’t teach you a damn thing!

A dispatch laugh from the guild of “I don’t know how to do it, but I’ll teach others how.” At least one law school is suggesting that students consider going solo after graduation.

Back in the “good old days,” (last year) law students went to law school for three years. While at law school, (for the most part) they attended lectures by, by and large, professors who never practiced law. They learned nothing. After three years, some law firm picked up that student on the basis of his grades in his “think like a lawyer” classes, and then gave him two years worth of paid training until he had a clue how to practice law.

That’s how I became a lawyer.

When I got my shiny new Georgetown Law degree, but had absolutely no clue how to draft a notice of appearance. I had no idea how to bill a client. My memos of law were like law review articles. My client letters were even worse. A client would ask a simple question and get a 10 page, well-written and well-researched treatise on the issue – but that isn’t what a client is looking for. Fortunately, I had patient mentors who told me “forget all the crap you learned in law school, we will teach you how to be a lawyer now.”

Unfortunately, the legal profession is in a state of free-fall because clients have gotten sick of paying for first-year associate billing when the first-year associate doesn’t know a damn thing about how to practice law. Clients are, correctly, saying that they shouldn’t have to pay to train new lawyers. So clients don’t want to pay to train them, but the law schools don’t want to train them either. So, they tell them to go solo!

Should we really turn out a few thousand solo practitioners a year who have been taught by those who couldn’t hack it as practitioners? Then what? Just have them “figure it out” on their own? This all as a reaction to the glut of lawyers created by — you guessed it, the academy.

I have news for the academy. If they want to turn out solos (which isn’t a bad idea) they had better get over this idea that law schools are not lawyer-training schools. That is precisely what they should be — or they should be shut the hell down.

I’m trying to do my part, but I am only one professor. In my classes, I require students to do projects like (gasp) client advice letters. I also require my students to submit bills with each assignment. When I have pro-bono cases, I try and drag in as many students as I can to help out. In other words, I try and turn my classes into lawyer training, despite the fact that some would call this blasphemy.

When you learn how to be a doctor, you work on cadavers until you learn how to work on real people. When you learn to fly a plane, you spend some time in the simulator. If you want to be a lawyer, you still need to attend law school. Unfortunately, most of the legal academy doesn’t think it should stoop to actually teaching students how to be lawyers. Even if law schools wanted to, how could they? The majority of tenured law professors don’t know how to be lawyers either. With that kind of “training,” dumping hundreds of clueless solos on the market will result in: 1) an avalanche of legal malpractice suits; 2) a hailstorm of unethical and unprofessional behavior by solos who lack the institutional mentors to teach them better; and, 3) a swarm of unsupportable litigation by desperate solos who are just trying to pay the rent.

Oh, but for $41,500, we’ll train you now.

One law school has reacted to the economic collapse by offering law students one more year of law school. Yes, for the bargain basement price of $41,500, and another year of your life, UCLA will actually teach students what they THOUGHT they were getting for the first three years of tuition payments — how to practice law.

In response to the changing employment situation for graduates of U.S. law schools, UCLA School of Law announced today that it is reopening its LL.M. program application process for the 2009-10 academic year, and will accept up to 20 additional students who are graduates of U.S. law schools, including deferred hires.

The newly admitted LL.M.s will have the option of participating in the new Transition to Practice program, which will focus on enhancing the practical skills and development of the new lawyer. The program will replicate significant parts of the learning that comes in the first year of practice, but in a controlled learning environment. (source)

An LLM to teach you how to practice? This is what the students should have been getting all along for the cost of their JD!

This new “program” at UCLA is an admission that law school is severely broken. Many people already say that law school is a year too long. I partially agree. It is a scam. You spend three years of your life and $120,000 to take law classes from people who, by and large, have no idea how to practice law. After those three years, you aren’t even prepared to take the BAR EXAM! You have to spend the next summer, and another couple thousand dollars, taking a bar preparation course. $120,000 and most law schools don’t even bother to teach you how to pass the bar (my school does have a bar prep course). Those that do are mocked by the “prestigious” end of the academy.

So now UCLA is going to let you pay for yet another year of school, after you’ve paid for your JD and your bar preparation course, to “replicate significant parts of the learning that comes in the first year of practice, but in a controlled learning environment.“

Three questions:

1) Why the hell isn’t UCLA, and every other law school, already doing that for their students? This is the very thing that the academy has rejected for years… I guess if you’ll pay them for another year, they’ll lower themselves to such pedestrian pursuits.

2) I wonder who UCLA is going to get to teach in this LLM program. Their best professor, Eugene Volokh, didn’t even know about the plan. And, as much as I admire him (if I were President, he would be my first choice to fill a Supreme Court vacancy), I’m not sure how much practical experience even he has. If the LLM program is nothing more than a few more full-time, “I practiced for 13 months and then clerked for a judge and now I teach theory and write law review articles” types, I can’t see how it will be remotely useful.

3) What kind of an abject fool would actually pay to attend this program? Honestly, anyone with this LLM on their resume should be blackballed as someone too incompetent to be a lawyer in the first place.

Anyone with the poor judgment to pay an ADDITIONAL $41,500 to “replicate significant parts of the learning that comes in the first year of practice, but in a controlled learning environment” is a complete asshat, and I wouldn’t want them handling my parking tickets — let alone my valuable legal work. They will be paying $41,500 to get less experience and practical training than they could get for free from an unpaid internship in a law office.

What if they can’t find an internship? If you graduate with a JD and you can’t find someone to hire you FOR FREE, then the market has spoken. You should be doing something with your life, but practicing law is NOT it.

But, have no fear: I have an alternative!

Announcing the “Practical LLM Program in First Amendment, Intellectual Property, and Internet Law”

If you are a prospective UCLA LLM student, send me a copy of your resume and a cover letter. I only require that you delete any reference to which law school you attended from your resume, because I don’t think that alma mater means jack. I’m not impressed by my own, and I’m certainly not going to be impressed by yours.

If you are accepted to the program, I will let you work in my office as an associate attorney (you’ll need to pass the Florida or Massachusetts bar first). I’ll teach you how to practice law in a REAL learning environment (none of this “controlled” bullshit). I’ll not only teach you how to actually draft pleadings, do real legal research, actually litigate and/or do transactional work, but I’ll also teach you how to talk to a client, develop clients, and how to practice with ethics so that you don’t develop a reputation for being a douchebag. Even better, I’ll have you work on a few pro-bono free speech cases that I might not have otherwise taken. At the end of the year, I guarantee you that you’ll be MUCH better prepared to practice law than any donkey who spent $41,500 at UCLA, AND you’ll have one year’s worth of experience on your resume. Plus, I can assure you that you will work on at least one really fun free speech case.

If you are selected, tuition for this program is $20,750 (half UCLA’s tuition). For that price, you will get your own office, your name on the door, and all of your overhead covered. You will be expected to generate at least $80,000 in collections — as the overhead for a new attorney is about $100,000.

If you don’t have the money up front, never fear. I can put you on a payment program, and I’ll let you work a flexible schedule so that you can have another part time paying job. However, you’ll need a sizable portion up front, and if you are late on your payments, you’ll be expelled.

After six months, if you are showing a profit, you’ll start getting paid a salary based on your profitability. If you can demonstrate adequate progress, talent, ethics, sense of humor, financial success, and future promise during that year, I will guarantee you a job as as an associate for at least one more year once you finish the program. That year WILL be a paid gig. Your salary will be based on your performance during the “LLM program.”

Even better than that, if you show that you can make it rain (and I’ll teach you how to do that too), you very well may become a partner with me. You know how long that will take? As long as it takes you to prove to me that it will be more profitable to be your partner than to lose you.

Any takers? Operators are standing by.

Hat tip to TaxProf for the story on UCLA’s program.

Short Url: http://bit.ly/12Zzuw

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Technorati :  imbeciles, law practice, legal education, misc

Sex with clients is not unethical in England… Just don’t bill for it

by Jason Fischer (follow me on )

The American Bar Association’s (ABA’s) Mode Rules for Professional Conduct state, in the section about Conflicts of Interest:

A lawyer shall not have sexual relations with a client unless a consensual sexual relationship existed between them when the client-lawyer relationship commenced. Rule 1.8(j)

(Interesting side note: this is the only conflict that is not imputed to all members of a firm (Rule 1.8(k)) — so feel free to bang your partner’s clients)

Apparently, there is no such restriction in England. However, as this story demonstrates, you may have a problem if you bill for the time you spend “servicing” your client’s needs.

Best line ever from a legal news story:

Her claim states that under the advice agreement, in addition to a fixed fee arrangement for £120,000, Beaumont could charge her for unforeseen and urgent work, and that she was surprised to discover when he billed her that some of the “urgent work” was actually for time when she had personal reason to know he was not thrusting himself into a law book.

H/T @kevinokeefe

Goldman Sachs Tries To Bully Blogger

I've got news for you: the Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint!
So Goldmansachs666.com will remain up as this case slowly winds its way through the courts like the man in the black pajamas wound his way through the jungles of 'Nam.

Michael Morgan is a Florida blogger who is a little bit upset with Goldman Sachs and its business practices. To voice his displeasure, he registered the domain name goldmansachs666.com and goldmansachs13.com and forwarded them to his blog on the financial giant.

Naturally, Goldman Sachs doesn’t like to be criticized. Who does? Nevertheless, I fail to see how they could have perceived Morgan as a threat to their financial well being or anything else. The fact is, Mr. Morgan’s blog just isn’t that good. The layout is visually painful. The writing isn’t engaging. After muddling through it for about 15 minutes, I still don’t really get what all the fuss is about. In other words, Morgan’s blog was destined for the blogger derelict heap. Morgan has a full time job, had very few readers, and probably would have either gotten bored with his griping, or his blog would have been ignored to death.

With Morgan’s blog plodding along in obscurity, enter John A. Squires of Chadbourne and Parke, LLP. Now this guy has an impressive background: He was top of his class in law school, on his law school’s moot court team, on law review, and an Order of the Coif inductee. Sounds like a pretty smart guy, no? Smart enough to become co-chair of the intellectual property practice at a major law firm. Smart enough that he “is widely recognized in both the financial services and technology sectors as one of the country’s top experts on the issue of patent-eligible technologies.”

Goldman Sachs' demand letter
Click to enlarge

Nevertheless, he put his name to one of the dumbest trademark demand letters I have ever read. Go ahead, click it. If you practice trademark law, don’t drink any liquids while reading or you’ll shoot them out your nose as you’re laughing and then you might have to change your shirt.

This letter seems to anecdotally confirm two things I’ve preached for years:

1) Patent guys don’t necessarily know trademark law,

2) A lawyer who doesn’t understand public relations is only half a lawyer.

I’m just guessing here, but I’m reasonably certain that Mr. Squires did know better. This demand letter just screams “reluctantly written to shut a client up.” Patent lawyer or not, the guy had to know that his trademark claims were just plain stupid. If goldmansachs666.com creates confusion in the marketplace, then I guess that I had better stop calling my balls my “nutsack,” because someone might come along and expect them to sweat stock options.

Personally, I would never have affixed my signature to this piece of dung. I’ve learned the art of “client control.” That’s when you tell someone “my credibility is worth more than what you want to pay me to write this unsupportable demand letter.” Sadly, many lawyers never learn this skill. I’m certain that some tool at Goldman Sachs told Squires “I don’t care if we can’t back the claims up, just send the letter to try and scare this little mouse of a blogger.” (Or maybe I’m just inclined to give the lawyer the benefit of the doubt).

Although I would love to say that I would continue to that same big shiny set of brass balls if my client were a gazillion dollar financial powerhouse that shits rubies, I won’t judge Mr. Squires until I walk a mile in his Bruno Maglis — especially since I’m 98% certain that somewhere, he has an email to his client telling them that the claims in the letter are just one molecule away from being pure pharmaceutical-grade fecal goodness.

At least I hope so… because the mouse, he bite.

Squires’ letter ends with a threat that if Morgan doesn’t confirm, in writing, that he will stop using the words “Goldman” and “Sachs,” they just might sue him. Well, April 18 is a Saturday, Walter Sobchak doesn’t roll on Shabbos, and Mike Morgan did respond in writing — with a lawsuit of his own.

Morgan probably figured that if Goldman Sachs wasn’t bluffing, they would file suit against him in New York. Morgan lives in Florida, and would likely rather just have it out in Florida than travel to New York. So, given that there was a bona fide legal question — created by Squires’ dumb letter, Morgan had the right to file suit to just get the whole thing over with. Naturally, Goldman Sachs probably isn’t too worried about the financial consequences of this suit. The most that Morgan will win is a piece of paper that says he has the right to use the words “Goldman” and “Sachs” to criticize Goldman Sachs. But what a piece of paper it will be.

More importantly, now that he has filed suit, a lot more people are going to take note of this dispute. I’ve been following it for a little while myself, and until I received a copy of Morgan’s complaint, I didn’t really find it interesting enough to write about. Guy gripes. Company whines. Dumb demand letter. Yawn. Happens every day.

What doesn’t happen every day is that the griper has the coglioni to tell one of the biggest financial institutions in the world “You wanna step outside? Fine, lets go.“

So now what happens?

Hopefully, Mr. Squires tells his client “I told you so,” and keeps a copy of the memo he sent them telling them that this was all a really dumb idea and that they should have just ignored Mr. Morgan’s blog. If he didn’t tell them so, then someone at Goldman Sachs should re-think how they choose their attorneys.

Once that is all settled, Goldman Sachs should just gracefully back away from this — issue a statement that they reconsidered their position, and it all goes away. The first rule of getting out of a hole is to stop digging. However, I predict the opposite will happen: Goldman Sachs will dig in, the Spin Doctors song “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” will be played over the PA system at Chadbourne and Parke, and we will see both an answer and a counterclaim that will be just one hair shy of being frivolous enough to warrant sanctions because some nitwit will think that it will scare Morgan into submission… and the case will draw even more attention to this once-obscure blog.

And then we’ll see if Mr. Morgan’s reporting on Goldman Sachs’ misdeeds grows any legs. He already has a conference call scheduled to gather the volunteers who have rallied to his side.

Jones Day v. Blockshopper Settles

The completely bogus lawsuit that Jones Day filed against Blockshopper has settled.

According to Wendy Davis, writing for Slate:

Faced with the prospect of big legal bills and an unfriendly judge, BlockShopper co-founder Brian Timpone decided to settle. On Tuesday, the real estate site said it agreed to change how it links to Jones Day. BlockShopper will no longer use the names of Jones Days attorneys as anchor text. Instead, it will use the full and cumbersome URL. In other words, Timpone said, instead of posting “Tiedt is an associate,” the site will write “Tiedt (http://www.jonesday.com/jtiedt/) is an associate.” (The agreement also calls on BlockShopper to say that the lawyer in question is employed at Jones Day and that more information about the attorney is on the firm’s Web site.) (source)

Davis’ article has some fantastic analysis of the case… including a link to yours truly.

Yet Another Moronic PATRIOT Act Result

My former Con Law Professor and the author of the PATRIOT Act, Viet Dinh, calls himself an “attendant of freedom.” I have to admit, I liked the guy personally… but I don’t think he should be the attendant of anything but a dingy rest room in a bus station for his act of idiocy and treason — even if he does think that he meant well at the time.

So far, unless its success is classified and the leak-prone Bush administration actually managed to keep all the secret successes under wraps, the PATRIOT Act has been a colossal failure. It has, however, succeeded in being a huge pain in the ass. If you’ve opened a bank account or bought anything more costly than a bicycle since the fascist pig wish list was jammed through Congress with nary a peep (thank you for your patriotism, Russ Feingold) you know what I am talking about.

Now, it appears that a lawyer (who happens to be my FALA brother) in Utah, Andrew McCullogh, has discovered another ludicrous side effect of Dinh’s problem child. See, like most lawyers, McCullogh has a trust account — an account where he keeps his clients’ money until he has properly billed for it. McCullogh, once he earns that money, transfers it into his firm’s operating account, from which he then pays himself and his employees.

That is now “suspicious activity,” as the PATRIOT Act defines the term — or as some dipshit banker interprets the Act. No matter whether the blame rests with Zion Bank, Dinh, or Congress, the fact is that the PATRIOT Act is a colossal failure — well, unless its intent was to instill millions of people with false fear and to render the Constitution a quaint anachronism. In that case, bravo.

Crappy Day At Work?

SAN DIEGO — A mistrial was declared Monday when a home-invasion robbery suspect smeared human feces on his attorney’s face then threw more at the jury.

Weusi McGowan, 37, was upset because San Diego Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser refused to remove Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jeffrey Martin from the case, prosecutor Christopher Lawson said.

At the mid-morning break, McGowan produced a plastic baggie filled with fecal matter and spread it on Martin’s hair and face, then flung the excrement toward the jury box, hitting the briefcase of juror No. 9 but missing the juror himself. (source)

I expect the comments on this subject to be full of puns and bad jokes. Please commence.

Best. Fracas. Ever.

Lawyers gone wild!

Tampa attorney Aimee Marie Dias walks into a bathroom at SideBern’s Restaurant on Saturday evening. She claims that she then saw a couple having sex. Then all hell broke loose.

Aimee Marie Dias, a lawyer, told police she opened the women’s bathroom door and saw George Anthony Hochschwender and Jodi Jacolow having “sexual relations.”

There was an argument and physical confrontation, and the fight spilled into the hallway, Dias told police. She said she and Jacolow went to the floor, rolling around and exchanging punches.

Ok, if it ends there, it is hilarious. But it gets better. This is Flori-duh, after all.

Hochschwender told police he was not having sex with Jacolow in the bathroom. According to the police report, Hochschwender said he is is gay and was upset that Jacolow “was calming him as a result of a poor relationship.”

Hmmm…. the “I couldn’t have been screwing her, I’m gay!” defense.

Hochschwender told police that Dias entered the bathroom, began yelling and then hit him on the face. The women then became involved in a physical confrontation, he told police, and that “spilled out into the hallway and then to the main bar floor.”

Oh what I would have given to see that. Now how much would you pay? But wait! There’s more!

While police were “sorting out the fracas,” attorney Brent Warren Yessin approached and “insisted that he was the lawyer for all the parties, but the three people involved told officers he was not.”

Giggle.

Those involved in the bathroom brawl decided not to press charges against each other, but Mr. Yessin was taken downtown.

Yessin was charged with obstructing or opposing an officer without violence. His bail was set at $1,000. He has been released.

Source for all quotes - Tampa Bay Online

I can’t make heads or tails of this. Were they screwing in the bathroom or not? If not, why did Dias say they were? Even if they were, I’ve walked in on people screwing in bathrooms before. Once I just laughed and cheered them on. Once I threw water on them and ran away. I never did get the urge to go all gangsta on them. Watching people fuck just doesn’t put me in the fightin’ mood.

Sanction Thomas More Center

Not a Potted Plant thinks that the Thomas More Law Center should be subject to Rule 11 sanctions for its moronic Establishment Clause lawsuit.

I happen to think the place should be burned to the ground, and everyone who works there should be thrown into a pool of feces, but I’m not in charge. I’ll settle for Rule 11 sanctions.