Posts Tagged ‘Fun with Words’

Fiverr.com is a terribly entertaining site, where artists, designers, programmers, and other enterprising individuals sell a variety of services for $5.00.

I obtained this drawing from a Fiverr seller, for example:

Now, I have decided to offer some variants of my legal training to Fiverr users, by offering some legal jargon on demand. More offers to follow, I’m sure.

Today’s post is from a guest blogger, the Legalese Generator:

Key employees, or other paper or the Company will be furnished by the event royalty by the recitals or mental disability shall be disclosed under the Plan have personal collection upon which the parties HEREBY and as aforesaid parties hereto, without negligence has been established on the Committee may also to the right to be registered Warrants in accordance with respect of the Date such date. As expressly noted herein. Amendment to the Company, be made in the proceeds of the acceleration of his work duties of manufacturing and shall be ignored if any), and all of the Warrant Agent is currently receiving benefits from any other information as the Stock Option granted hereunder; and decision shall be merged or more beneficiaries to initiate any other compensation PLAN may be assigned, sold or longer. This Plan, and conditions, not be evidenced thereby circumventing this Agreement. The Warrant certificates to time by the Committee so authenticated by promissory notes or the balance converted to such loans available resources to the consent of the laws of the extent not directly interfere with any other agent. (a) The corporate Bond rate. Section 3.1 and exclusive and the Corporation. The death (or any deferral account, together with the premises and binding upon with the Stock in writing its remaining after grant. (b) The form of the Committee. Stock were not be made with the shares subject to the acquisition by the Company expects such shares of its sole and all or shall mean the Stock Options and CHARACTERS (IMAGE) cannot be released at any communications containing terms of the Licensee shall execute, acknowledge and , as to subcontract, use of Exercise price of this User Agreement and the Committee may consult with the Purchaser, the scope of the following MUTUAL COVENANTS or for which the Internal Revenue Code of the forgoing, this User Agreement may be addressed to be canceled, modified, amended from time a sum sufficient to be subject to become payable to such notice of the Offered Debt Securities or access to anyone else for such exchange [or transfer]. (d) METHOD OF the Committee may deem advisable; to such terms and biological parents that it in writing by the earliest   to the Date the public. (E) Certain Conditions.

You can have your own bit of legal gibberish too!

A Pennsylvania man has started a free speech debate, of sorts.

A bitter, divorced Pennsylvania man’s blog has triggered a free-speech debate, officials say.

Doylestown resident Anthony Morelli created his blog, ThePsychoExWife.com, in 2007 as a way to blow off steam about his ex-wife, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Sunday.

But then his ex-wife, Allison Morelli, found out about the Web site and became very upset, calling it “heartbreaking” and potentially harmful to their 9- and 12-year-old sons.

At a June 6 custody hearing, Bucks County Court Judge Diane Gibbons ordered Anthony Morelli to take down the Web site and banned him from mentioning his ex-wife “on any public media” or saying anything about his children online “other than ‘happy birthday’ or other significant school events.”

At that point, Mr. Morelli did not stop posting, and the judge ordered that the site be taken down. Did this violate Mr. Morelli’s free speech rights? Many people believe it did, to the point that a campaign has begun to bring his website back:

We are asking for help in this defense because it is an issue that faces any parent that is divorced. Imagine a judge telling you that you cannot talk about your children on “any public media” – which would include things like Facebook updates, Twitter, or your personal blog – or you will lose custody.  Imagine the far-reaching consequences for bloggers everywhere if orders such as this one are left unchallenged?  There goes your online support group.  There goes your Facebook and Twitter updates.  Your website, personal OR commercial – ordered gone under threat of incarceration and having your beloved children removed from your custody.  This order flies in the face of our civil rights, and your civil rights, too! Imagine trying to protect your children from abuse and a judge telling you that you must hide the abuse and protect the abuser by not allowing you to talk about the abuse in public, we can’t let this stand.

While you're busy blogging, your children might be lost in a cornfield!

This does not appear to be a question of defamation, in that I don’t think the mother is specifically charging that statements on the blog were untrue, but rather that they would be harmful to the parties’ children if the children saw them. Most states, Pennsylvania included, follow the “best interest of the child” doctrine when determining child custody and orders relating to parenting. The question is, does the best interest of the children trump the father’s First Amendment rights?

I am very hesitant to support curtailing anyone’s freedom of speech and expression based on the extremely fuzzy “best interest” standards. In my experience, though, judges often place “best interests” above any rights of the parents, basic common sense, and the laws of gravity. Since I cannot directly review the blog in question, all I can say is that it seems to have contained some rather unpleasant stuff (just as anything at the forefront of a free speech debate does). I can see how the contents of the blog would be relevant to an ongoing custody case, since the nature of the parents’ relationship affects the children  on a daily basis. I can see a judge exercising some sort of review to make sure neither parent is defaming the other (in any medium, really). To issue a blanket injunction against most forms of communication with (or about) the children, though, does not sit well.

The blog seems petty, to me at least. Even if his ex-wife is a psycho, he is taking the low road. The point is that the low road ought to be his to take if he wants.

BlogathonATX, Saturday, October 1, 2011.

I’ll be there. Are you cool enough?

Every so often a judge comes along with a razor wit that puts much of the confrontational silliness of our adversarial legal system into proper perspective. For a long time, Judge Sam Kent of Galveston, Texas filled that role: “With Big Chief tablet readied, thick black pencil in hand, and a devil-may-care laugh in the face of death, life on the razor’s edge sense of exhilaration, the Court begins.”

Today, we have Judge Martin Sheehan of Kenton County, Kentucky, who expressed poetic elation at the settlement of what must have been a nasty lawsuit:

Kenton Circuit Judge Martin Sheehan said in an order issued last month that he was “happier than a tick on a fat dog” that a settlement had been reached in a lawsuit over a contract dispute, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

In the order canceling the trial, which had been set for July 13, Sheehan wrote the court is “busier than a one-legged cat in a sand box and, quite frankly, would rather have jumped naked off of a twelve foot step ladder into a five gallon bucket of porcupines than have presided over a two week trial of the herein dispute, a trial which, no doubt, would have made the jury more confused than a hungry baby in a topless bar and made the parties and their attorneys madder than mosquitoes in a mannequin factory.”

The newspaper said Sheehan and attorneys in the case either declined to comment about the order or did not return calls.

Clearly the judge made a mistake when he chose law school over that creative writing course.

(Full order available here.)

This is meant to represent frustration, or something.

Sometimes it is nice to have a judge call out a situation like he sees it. Mind you, I don’t know that background of this case, but I can imagine frustration with overwhelmingly vast disputes run amok through the courthouse. It’s heartening to see a judge with a sense of humor, but it’s also a bit sad to see how badly we seem to need humor coming out of our legal system, as Judge Sheehan himself notes:

Sheehan said he was taken aback by the volume of calls regarding Kissel v. Schwartz & Maines & Ruby Co et al. In the week since Sheehan distributed the ruling to the attorneys, his office had been contacted by news outlets in Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago and New York, he said.

“It’s a sad comment on the legal profession,” Sheehan said. “A judge puts a little humor in the judicial opinion, and it goes viral.”

For my part, I say keep the snark coming.

A few months ago, my friend Cat wrote about why she blogs. In short: “Writers write.”

I started this blog all the way back in 2007, without much thought as to why. I already had a few other blogs (which I am not linking to, sorry), but I wanted an outlet specifically for more professional writing and information.

And for the next four years, give or take, nothing.

A few random posts here and there, but nothing substantial.

It was only March of 2011 that I finally started getting into writing here, and I still didn’t have much of a plan. Was I writing content directly related to my practice areas for SEO purposes? Was I sharing useful information with my clients? Was I expressing myself artistically?

No, I was just writing.

There’s no need for professional SEO now, and no need to attract clients with this blog. This blog is here to give me a place to write. And that is all I need.

I have a peculiar fascination with the law. I may not always enjoy being a lawyer, but I love learning and writing about how the law affects us in different ways. About how we view animals in relation to people. About how we protect various members of society, and punish others. About how law is represented in popular culture. I may not want to practice law right now, but I still want to tell people about it.

I have no illusions of fame. Mine is but one of 152 million blogs in the U.S. (which implies that 1 in 2 Americans is a blogger assuming everyone only has one). I am okay with relative obscurity, as long as I get to write. To quote Stephen King:

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.

For whatever reason, I’ve started a Tumblr blog for random legal-related things that I find.

Adult Swim has the following bump in their rotation:

I think this has gone beyond viral at this point, wouldn’t you say?

I’m still going with the perceptual vigilance theory. The latest is that Thomas M. Cooley Law School of Lansing, Michigan is suing a New York law firm and four anonymous bloggers for…..

wait for it……

…..defamation, for saying mean things about the school online (and, in the case of the law firm, for posting Craigslist ads re: a potential class action lawsuit against the school similar to the one filed against Thomas Jefferson School of Law earlier this year).

In one lawsuit, Thomas M. Cooley Law School, located in Lansing, Michigan, claims that it has been the victim of ads on Craigslist and Facebook – posted by attorneys at Kurzon Strauss LLP – seeking former Cooley law students to join in on a potential class action suit against the school. (Click here for an example.)

One of Cooley’s concerns with Kurzon Strauss’ online postings regard the school’s student loan default rate, James Thelen, the school’s general counsel, told the Law Blog.

For instance, the law firm allegedly claimed that there were reports of Cooley law grads “defaulting on loans at an astounding 41 percent” in various online posts, according to the papers filed by the school. Thelen claims the actual rate is 2.2 percent.

In the second lawsuit, also filed Thursday, the school claims that four “John Doe” defendants have been blogging and perpetuating online comments damaging to the school’s reputation, Thelen said to the Law Blog.

No matter what, I hope campuses will always have cute squirrels

Golly.

First off, I cannot think of a better way for a law school to take a relatively minor and obscure series of comments and complaints (in the form of the bloggers) and make it into something that could be known nationwide (cf. Streisand Effect). The scambloggers are going to have a field day with this. Let the battle begin…..

Second, in a lawsuit claiming damage to a law school’s reputation as a premier educational institution, the law school’s choices so far have been interesting, as Elie Mystal reports:

So far, the most damning statement about Cooley’s education has come from Cooley itself. Cooley president Don LeDuc said that the school filed these suits: “to protect Cooley’s reputation and stand up for our students and more than 15,000 graduates.”

And yet, of those 15,000 graduates, when it came time to defend Cooley’s reputation, the school went with lawyers who were not educated at Cooley.

Not only did the school not use its own graduates for this work, one of the anonymous commenters the school is suing appears to be a recent Cooley graduate. I mean, with friends like these, right?

Third, and I’m just brainstorming here, but isn’t it inevitable that a law firm, in seeking members for a class action, would say things about the potential defendant that would be construed as less than nice? Here’s an example of a firm seeking class members. And here’s what Kurzon Strauss posted to Craigslist re: Cooley:

My firm is currently conducting a broad, wide-ranging investigation of a number of law schools for purportedly manipulating their post-graduate employment data and salary information. Among the many schools we are investigating is the Thomas M. Cooley Law School which claims that 76 percent of its graduates have allegedly secured employment within nine months of graduation.

Finally, let me note the irony (if that is even the correct word) of a law school suing a law firm for defamation because the law firm is seeking plaintiffs for a class action fraud suit against the school. Cooley has to prove that the allegedly defamatory statements made by the law firm are not true, which is similar to the position Cooley would be in if the fraud case were to go forward (although the burden of proof would be on the other side there). Depending on procedural rules in Michigan, Cooley may have just opened itself up to discovery into all of its various claims regarding, say, employment statistics for its graduates.

The law school issued its own statement the day the suit was filed:

The Thomas M. Cooley Law School filed two lawsuits today to protect the reputation of the school and its students and alumni from defamatory Internet attacks. In the two actions, the law school asserts defamation and other legal claims against a New York City law firm, two lawyers in that firm, and four anonymous Internet bloggers.

“With ethics and professionalism at the core of our law school’s values, we cannot – and will not – sit back and let anyone circulate defamatory statements about Cooley or the choices our students and alumni made to seek their law degree here,” said Brent Danielson, Chair of Cooley’s Board of Directors and a retired District Court Judge.

[snip]

“Cooley has consistently and truthfully reported job placement and salary figures in the manner required by the American Bar Association (ABA), our accrediting agency, and by the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), a national jobs-reporting clearinghouse,” said Charles Toy, associate dean of Career and Professional Development at Cooley and the immediate past president of the State Bar of Michigan.

Consistent with all 201 ABA accredited law schools, Cooley’s job placement rates are reported annually to the ABA and NALP nine months after graduation based upon the results of graduate surveys in full compliance with the reporting methodology required by those agencies. Cooley’s reported job placement rates have ranged from the current 76 percent up to 82 percent in 2006, with a similar range reported back to 2000.

“Everyone has the right to state an opinion about Cooley, online or elsewhere,” said James B. Thelen, Esq., Cooley’s associate dean for legal affairs and general counsel. “But our lawsuits contend that these defendants have crossed the line both legally and ethically, -
smearing our reputation with blatantly false and often vulgar statements that they attempt to spread as broadly as possible.”

[more at the above link]

The complaints against the law firm and the anonymous bloggers are posted on Cooley’s website, where they will apparently be posting updates on the case. Between this and the Thomas Jefferson class action, it will be interesting to see how each side of this whole kerfuffle presents its case. Time for everyone to put up or shut up. Grab some popcorn (if you can afford some after making this month’s student loan payment, of course.)

Of course, these are all just the opinions of one guy with an interest in defamation law. Please, Cooley, don’t sue me.

“R v. I” is just my shorthand for Rakofsky v. the Internet, in case you were wondering. As I’ve said before, others have addressed this case with much greater wisdom than I, but a few notable events have appeared on my radar.

1. “Rakofsky Effect” has made it into Urban Dictionary:

Infinite pleading amendments as the unintended consequence of suing to censor your critics.

This term is in reference to Rakofsky v. The Internet, a defamation suit filed by Joseph Rakofsky against approximately 80 defendants, including The Washington Post Company, screen names, email addresses, and various esteemed lawyers who publicly on their websites condemned Joseph Rakofsky for bringing shame upon the practice of criminal defense and the legal profession. As the story caught fire across the blogosphere, plaintiff Rakofsky continually amended the suit, adding new defendants seemingly every time a new individual on the internet spoke critically of him, which only prompted wider criticism, thus creating a self-perpetuating cycle.

This lemur has nothing to do with the case I am discussing. He's just cute.

There’s also a Twitter account I hadn’t noticed before.

2. This may be completely unrelated, it may be completed related, or it may be some strange meta-narrative on the whole strange saga of young Rakofsky. On June 30, an ad appeared on New York Craigslist looking for a lawyer to handle a large defamation case, offering $200/week plus $150 per court appearance (this has since been changed to “Compensation to be negotiated”). First, Joe DePaola tweeted about it, and Ryan at Absurd Results blogged about it. Then my fellow defendant George M. Wallace made note of it in his weekly update on the case.

The ad is a bit long to quote at length, so I have a couple of screenshots for your enjoyment.

The ad does not identify the person(s) seeking an attorney. It could be you-know-who, or it could be another New York litigant suing a large group of defendants for defamation. One thing is clear, though: this seems a singularly poor method of finding an attorney. Fellow defendant Scott Greenfield said it best:

As enticing as this offer might seem at first blush, it reflects a problem.  Could it be possible that the reason that the litigant who found it necessary to solicit a lawyer blind on the internet can’t find a lawyer otherwise?  Lawyers are a dime a dozen, taking on dubious causes all the time if there is even the slightest hint of making a buck somewhere down the road.  Why, then, does the person who has carefully crafted his requirements for his lawyer found it necessary to go to the virtual street and solicit for anyone, anyone at all, willing to take him on?

What if the ad-placer went from lawyer to lawyer, knowing a few who could be asked to fill the shoes he feels are so vital to his cause, and was told that despite their hunger and desperation, their willingness to take on pretty much any case that held any potential to make a buck, they would not take his?  This would seem to be as clear a message that his cause was not just, not right, a horrible loser.

Who is this mysterious seeker of legal services? We may never know for sure, but his/her case seems to parallel one that is familiar to me. I will say this: we have a lot of lawyers in America right now. Some are quite good, some are not quite so good, and all of them probably need more than $200 per week to really focus attention on a case.