The Legal Underground

Advice to Young Lawyers #23

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

Many months ago, I was assigned to write an important appellate brief by a partner in our 760-lawyer firm who should have known better than to trust me to write it. I hate to sell myself short, but appellate briefs just aren’t my thing. Even though the deadline kept getting nearer, I couldn’t bring myself to work on it. Still, I had to look at the trial transcript each day, which was taking up space on my desk. I simply didn’t know what to do. Finally, I said good-bye to my secretary, took the elevator to the basement of my building, and revved up the engine of my car. I had decided to head west. I was going to Aspen where I planned to become a ski lift operator.

Unfortunately, just before reaching the open road, I made the mistake of turning into Borders. I told myself I was just going to run inside to get a cup of coffee and browse through the men's magazines. In fact, I never left. I can’t explain why. Or maybe I can. Borders just didn’t seem as far away as Aspen and the furniture was really comfortable. As for the rest of my plan, I followed it to the letter. Even though I’m only ten minutes from the office, I never went back. Instead, I’ve been returning to Borders each day where I sit in a cozy leather chair and read the graphic novels. It’s not like I’m completely AWOL. As I said, I’m conscientious. I’ve been checking my Blackberry pretty much every thirty minutes. The strange thing is that even though the appellate brief was due a week ago, I’ve had no word from the law firm. Which brings me to my questions. Do you think I might have been wrong about the due date? Or is it more likely that my Blackberry is broken? And how long do you think I have before the firm quits direct-depositing $2,400 a week into my bank account?

Signed, Living-at-Borders in Baltimore

A New Way of Dealing With Comment Spam

Comment Spam n. 1. A fake weblog comment containing an embedded link to a website featuring a worthless product or service. 2. A royal pain in the ass for weblog authors. 3. What Satan coughs up when he pukes.

I tried organizing against the comment spammers. I tried shaming them. I tried ignoring them. But the other day, for the first time, I tried an entirely new approach: I deleted the comment spam but invited the comment spammer, via e-mail, to send me the product he was hawking for free. I told him I might like it, which might lead me to post about it. And wouldn't this be better, in the end, than simply leaving a link?

I was a little surprised that it worked. But yesterday, the product arrived in the mail with a nice note. Is it because the marketing-savvy are catching on to the value of weblogs, as I read in Fortune magazine? Or is it because the comment spammer I'd caught was a rank amateur who didn't know any better? After all, he had a web address in the U.S. and left an e-mail address that worked.

Perhaps it was a fluke, but I'm going to try it again. As for the product that arrived in the mail, I won't tie it to the stigma of comment spam by identifying it here. I can tell you, however, that it didn't fall into the class of one of the fourteen other products or services that have mucked up this weblog in the past few months, as follows: auto insurance, Vioxx representation, pay-to-surf programs, debt consolidation, online dating, online gambling, credit checks, asbestos representation, rape stories, cheap blinds, propolene diet pills, discount cigarettes, dental plans, and phentermine.

Internet puke, indeed.

Who's More Funny: Jay Leno or David Letterman? A Post About Two Webloggers Who Criticize Anonymous Lawyer

Is a person's reaction to humor subjective? I think so. Personally, I prefer David Letterman to Jay Leno. Early Evelyn Waugh cracks me up, but I can do without Christopher Buckley. I love The Daily Show, but I thought America was lame. Am I right or wrong?

This rhetorical question is a partial response to two interesting posts from Soupie and Larry: "Johnson, J. Dissenting" and "pistol packin' mama." Both take the position that they don't think Anonymous Lawyer is funny. They have other objections, as well. Soupie says, in part, that Anonymous Lawyer makes "lawyers look even shittier than they do already by drawing attention to the very worst aspects of the profession." And Larry says, in part, that "to publish AL as his tone is now (smug and self-congratulatory) is to legitimate poor partner treatment.  Or, in other words, it sets forth as appropriate acting like a prick and treating others poorly.  I don't believe that kind of treatment is okay, even if the stakes are enormous and pressure to do well is high."

The Real Crime Is All Those Federal Judges Sporting Superman Underwear

In Alabama, where state-court judge Ashley McKathan is under fire for decorating his judicial robe with the Ten Commandments, the Demopolis Times has published an editorial defending his attire.

Bush's "Nuclear Option" for Judicial Appointments: A Conservative Dissent

by Matt Schuh

The USA Today opined on Monday that President Bush's move to renominate 20 judicial nominees who had previously been blocked by the US Senate is likely to set up a deadlock in the Senate that could potentially affect his agenda as his second term begins next month.

The article's concern however isn't so much the renomination of the failed nominees, but rather Bush's push to eliminate filibustering on Judicial nominations. By the comments of the Senators who have weighed in on the issue, it seems both sides are prepared to stand firmly with their position, even at the expense of lost political ground. The question to ask though is what exactly are these two sides fighting over?

Guest-Writers Welcome

Stay tuned for a post by our Wednesday guest writer, who is up next. In the meantime, if you would like to be a guest writer, please send me an e-mail. The rules are here. Please feel free to reserve a slot; two slots are available in January, and February is wide open. I'm also happy to give you feedback on your posting ideas or to provide a list of topics, specially-tailored to your own interests, at no charge.

All previous posts by guest writers are stored permanently in the "guests" category.

But Dennis, I Never Win Anything!

I recently learned that Dennis Kennedy named this weblog the Funniest Legal Blog for 2004. Thank you, Dennis. Before I make my speech, for which I've have allotted myself a brief 250 words, I'd like to say that Dennis was the guy who first got me thinking about weblogs, when I attended a presentation he made at the 2003 annual meeting of the Missouri Bar. Not long afterwards, I started three weblogs of my own.

So Dennis knows weblogs. But I'm not sure if he knows this one. Funniest Legal Blog? Hardly. Sure, I try to be a little irreverent from time to time, but I don't think of this as a humor site. Instead, I try to mix it up. You know, something for everyone, like Rolling Stone magazine. It's not everyone's model, I suppose; Jim Dedman just decided he's been mixing it up too much. But it seems to work for me. Some long posts; some short posts; some satire; some serious commentary; some personal essays; some dopey-looking pictures of myself. If you come here looking exclusively for humor, however, you're certain to be disappointed.

By writing so self-consciously about my own weblog in this post, I realize I'm violating an unstated rule of weblogging etiquette. But if Jim Dedman's post is any indication, introspection seems to be in the air. I partook of it once not long ago in a post titled "What's the Use of This Weblog?" And now that I'm just a few days away from the one-year anniversary of this site, it's hard not to be thinking of ways I should change it.

And change it I will. Most of these changes will probably be subtle. For example, I'm going to post less about how I make my living as a lawyer and more about my life as a writer and a father. Good idea? I don't know. I'm also thinking about abandoning some long-standing features and replacing them with others. I'll still do "humor" from time to time, but not exclusively, and only when I'm in the mood. But that's not really a change; it's always been the rule.

If you have any suggestions for my weblog, please let me know. They'd be very much appreciated.

The Money Shot: Evan Schaeffer, Weblog Author

Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm Evan Schaeffer, the author of this weblog, as depicted in my new photo for the pictorial directory of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis. After 750 posts, I thought you deserved to know a little more about me. I'm a lawyer who practices in various courts around the country, but primarily in the St. Louis metropolitan area, including Madison County, Illinois. That's where the offices of my firm, Schaeffer & Lamere, are located. Although I have described myself on this weblog as a "plaintiffs' lawyer," a "trial lawyer," and a "class action lawyer," and began this post with a line from "Sympathy for the Devil," I'm best described simply as a lawyer. Back in law school, I was the managing editor of the law review. After I graduated, I worked as a defense lawyer at Thompson Coburn for nearly seven years. (I'm now a proud member of its new "alumni program.") As a defense lawyer, I was in the litigation department, and did commercial, tort, and criminal litigation. Primarily, I worked on the defense of medical malpractice and admiralty lawsuits. I was also lucky enough to get lots of trial experience, which included second-chairing a three-month criminal trial in the federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, with the mentor whom I most respected. (He knows who he is.) The trial involved charges that the defendants had falsified tests of a fire retardent that was used in nuclear power plants across the country. We won.

My more recent professional statistics are catalogued on my firm's website. Is there anything else to say about me other than that I'm a lawyer? Well, yes, there is. It's not unusual for lawyers to have other interests. The one I've divulged over and over on this weblog--for example, in this post--is writing. In the years before I was able to invest my writing energies in weblogs, I was published in many different newspapers and magazines, including Runner's World, the Chicago Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. You can read many of these Op-Eds and essays here and here. Recently, as a direct result of my weblogs, I got a book deal. Unfortunately, it's a non-fiction book for a specialized audience. I'm still having fun with it, but my main interest is fiction. The fiction publication to date about which I'm most proud is a long story in the literary magazine Artful Dodge titled "Artwork," which is included in the limited material from the print publication that the Artful Dodge editors have made available online. Other fiction efforts are in the works.

So that's a little about me. Welcome to my weblog, where you'll read now and then about my wife and law partner, Andrea Lamere, and the four children making noise in our home, ages 15, 12, 8, and 7 months. If you promise to return from time to time, I'll do my best to provide you with something worth reading.

Related post: The Money Shot: Joe Simon, Mass-Tort Lawyer

The Tuesday Morning Stock Market Minute

Did you know the people who write stock-market analysis are the same ones who write fortune cookies? Yes, it's true, as is demonstrated by the following quotes from three stock-market fortune cookies I purchased myself at great expense.

• "Market uptrends don't last forever. At some point, leading stocks will start to crack and distribution days will flood the market, exactly what happened in March 2000." [Investor's Business Daily]
• "[S]hould there be an escalation in military tensions around the globe or an increase in terrorist activity, the economic upturn's resilience would be tested." [The Value Line Investment Survey]
• "The rally is still in place but starting to thin in breadth here, so investors should remain aware of possible headwinds looming." [Mark Boucher of TradingMarkets.com]

Are you ready for your own stock-market fortune? Here it is: If you invest wisely, you'll make money, unless you don't make money. It's stock-market advice so eerily accurate that you can bank on it!

Related Post: The Tuesday Morning Stock Market Minute: Why the Market's Going to Crash
 

Taking Back Their Monopoly, One Weblog at a Time

According to this week's Riverfront Times, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter was suspended when his bosses learned about his anonymous weblog. Details about the reporter's precise offenses are not readily available, as the weblog has been erased from the Internet. Post-Dispatch management also seized the reporter's hard drive.