The Legal Underground

More Audio Experimentation: Jeremy Richey Interviews Me at His Weblog

At Jeremy Richey's Blawg, Jeremy has posted an audio interview with me in which we discuss weblogging, my law practice, my book deal, tort reform, and more. The interview was conducted yesterday on the telephone. Very cool, and my thanks to Jeremy.

Incidentally, I played the interview for Andrea, who cracked up at the part where I said I help her decorate the office. That might have been a bit of an overstatement. So to set the record straight: decorating is Andrea's bailiwick. I just nod my head.

Slightly Related Update In a post today, Professor Althouse pans podcasting after listening to two minutes of Adam Curry's show. Perhaps I'm a dullard, but I've been listening to Curry's show for about a month and like it a lot. I listen to it on an iPod, however, and usually in my car--podcasting doesn't work well if you listen from a computer. In addition, it's a medium whose full import cannot be appreciated without understanding RSS, in which content can be made to appear magically on an audio device. Professor Althouse doesn't mention RSS in her post.

I also don't think Professor Althouse understood the bit of Curry's monologue that she quoted in full to demonstrate his supposed banality. Curry is a promoter of something he calls "soundseeing tours," in which a listener is made to form a mental impression of a scene by listening to the sounds that are picked up by the podcaster's microphone. When done right, it's a very compelling genre of Internet broadcasting. It's what Curry was getting at when he was walking around, although it wasn't a full-blown soundseeing tour and a poor example of the genre.

Anyway, Professor Althouse needs to listen to some other podcasts, like those from Denise Howell. Eventually, she might grow to like podcasting, as she hints at later in her post when she seems to warm up a bit to the medium.

Another Update Kevin Heller's "Audio and Video Roundup" led me to this quote about podcasting from Lawrence Lessig: "I am convinced from an intellectual perspective that this one of the most important net-related developments in a long time."

What Do You Like Best About Being a Lawyer?

Last week, I was at the kitchen table making some notes when I came up with the title for this post. But I only had the title. I didn't know what else to write.

Andrea was in the kitchen too. "Hey," I said. "What do you like best about being a lawyer?"

She stood there looking at me. Clearly, she'd heard the question. But she wasn't speaking.

"You're drawing a blank, aren't you?" I said.  "So did I."

It might have been a turning point in our careers. In the days that have passed since that fateful moment, we've come up with a few ideas. Andrea's: "I like it when I'm able to help someone solve a difficult problem." And mine: "I like becoming involved in cases that require me to become an expert in something I previously knew nothing about."

But let's be honest: plenty of professions would allow Andrea to solve problems, and I could simply spend my time writing books.

What do you like best about being a lawyer? If you're a law student, what do you think you'll like best?

Are you drawing a blank too?

Why Are Lawyers So Despised?

Musclehead has a theory to explain why the public dislikes lawyers:

I would argue that our problem is with our priorities. We place far too much emphasis on the primacy of clients to the detriment of our obligation to our profession, our society and ourselves. No other profession requires such allegiance to a client--doctors can refuse to perform a procedure they feel unnecessary to the patient, accountants can end their work for a client they believe is bending the rules of GAAP, teachers can teach evolution even if a parent demands creationism, etc.

The legal profession has taken the notion of zealous representation to mean whatever the client wants. The big corporate client wants to bury mom and pop in discovery? Sure... we can do that. The medical practice wants to use experts from all four corners of the US in order to make deposing them costly and time consuming for the plaintiff? No problem. All we care about is winning. There is very little consideration of the costs.

It's not a bad analysis. On the other hand, practicing lawyers can put on the brakes without violating their duty of zealous representation to their clients. To use Musclehead's analogies, I don't have to perform legal procedures that are unnecessary, even if the client wants them; and I can withdraw from a case (usually) if the client wants me to bend the rules.

If you ask me, over-the-top advertising has done far more harm to the public image of lawyers than the duty of zealous representation, especially in recent years.

Law Firms and Their Charities

Buffs Law writes:

Susman, Godfrey gave their associates six-figure associate bonuses this year, and then they threw $2 million at UT Law. You got to be stupid rich to do that. Can you imagine a Denver law firm handing us $2 million? No? No love for CU? Anyway, I thought about this for a while, why it shocks me that a law firm would just be handing money out like this, and then it dawned on me: It shocks me because while every other major industry donates tens of millions of dollars every year to all sorts of causes, law firms never, never just give away money.

True or false? Do law firms or their lawyers ever give away money? Here are two that come readily to mind: Florida lawyer Fred Levin recently gave $10 million to the University College of Law (now the Levin College of Law), and closer to (my) home, the SimmonsCooper firm gave $1 million to SIU-Edwardsville in Madison County, Illinois. And searching for just a minute on Google, I came across a lawyer who recently gave $5 million to the University of Pennslyvania Law School.

The exceptions that prove the rule? You decide.

The Weekly Report: Suspended

For the reasons I reported last week, I'm suspending publication of the "weekly report"  and replacing the Saturday slot with something a little different: a short review of a weblog I particularly like. Usually, these will be non-legal weblogs. My first post in this new series will be up in a little while.

Hey, Madison County Record: I'm in the Phone Book

Was I unkind when I called our town's new newspaper, the Madison County Record, an amateur publication? Perhaps. But in this piece, under the number "2," they've got my firm's name mixed up with another firm's. 

Amateur? You decide. My firm is Schaeffer & Lamere. The firm that they've got it mixed up with is Schrempf, Blaine, Kelly & Darr. The folks at that firm are good guys, all of them. We even work together from time to time. Even so, I doubt they like it that I've apparently replaced Mr. Schrempf in the firm's name.

Meanwhile, the article also states that Carey & Danis is from New York. Its main office is actually in St. Louis. In addition, if anyone is keeping track besides the American Tort Reform Association, the number of class actions listed in the article is also wrong. It also appears that when a single lawsuit is filed by two firms associated with each other, the newspaper is counting the lawsuit twice.

I suppose I'm naive to complain. I mean, once ATRA slaps a county with its "judicial hellhole" label, it's all a game, isn't it? But believe me, I'm not bitter. In fact, if the Madison County Record wishes to confirm its facts with me before publishing a story, it's welcome to call me on the phone. I always do what I can to help out struggling publications.

Weekly Report #50: Happy New Year

Today is this weblog's official one-year anniversary. Notes from the (Legal) Underground began on January 1, 2004, with three posts. As I recall, I was enthusiastic to be back in the blogging game after starting and abandoning some blogger.com sites long before. My first post--titled "EasyMusicDownload.com = Scam!"--was about music downloading and, in particular, a site I had learned was a rip-off. Due to the magic of search engines, that first post still gets a lot of hits, and had a comment as recently as this Monday.

The two other posts on this weblog's first day, both about tort reform, also continue to have relevance today, especially considering the news this week that President Bush will give a major tort-reform speech next Wednesday practically in my law firm's back yard. These two posts were titled "Bad Medicine" and "Who'd Defend Class Actions?" and were precursors to what later became the popular "tort reform" category.

My first "weekly report" didn't show up until January 16. Like the previous two tort-reform posts, it was a reaction to the bad press about Madison County, Illinois, that had seemed to ratchet up in 2003 about the time of the Philip Morris judgment. At present, this bad press still hasn't stopped or even slowed down, possibly as a result of pressure by tort-reform organizations that are mostly funded by large corporations like Philip Morris.

What is going to stop, however, are these weekly reports. This one, in fact, will be the last in the series. Although some readers report that they like to read about my practice, it has been very difficult to write about on a weekly basis, mostly because it requires me to mention other lawyers who probably don't want to appear on this weblog. Take this week for example. I can tell you that on Thursday, I spent most of the day with five other lawyers in depositions. We started and finished five witnesses. While I could fashion this experience into some point about the practice of law--e.g., that we moved quickly through the depositions, that there was no fighting among the lawyers, and that in Southern Illinois on that day, civility-in-litigation was in good shape--it would all seem rather dry without also writing about the entertaining personalities of the other lawyers, which I don't have permission to do.

After today, I'll continue to write about my law practice from time to time, but I'm not going to force myself to do it each week. It means the weekly-report feature will be officially retired, to be replaced on Saturdays with a new recurring post--probably, a weekly look at a non-legal weblog that I like.

As for the President's speech, which is going to take place in Collinsville, I'd like to be there but I don't think I can get a ticket. Reportedly, there are about 600, which are being handed out to doctors and officials of the Republican party. If anyone knows a source or has an extra ticket, please send an e-mail. I promise a series of respectful (though, perhaps, slightly gonzo) posts.

Weekly Report #49: Merry Christmas

The Weekly Report is taking an annual holiday break.  It will return next week with a discussion of lawyers and their vacations. Other regularly-scheduled broadcasting will resume tomorrow. If you absolutely insist on reading something, try this previous post, "A Giant Brain, One in an Ongoing Series of Essays on 'Things Important to Every Lawyer.'"

Weekly Report #48: My Two Minutes of Fame

If you heard the rumors--yes, it's true. I was so miffed on Wednesday by a KMOX radio program about the recent "judicial hellhole" news that I called into the show. Uh, bad move.

The host was Charlie Brennan, who KMOX radio says is "one of the most listened to talk show hosts in America." I met him once at a party when he first moved to St. Louis many years ago--nice guy, just mixed up these days about tort reform. The guest was Steve Schoeffel, the Executive Director of Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch, who I think I met the day tort reformers invaded the Madison County Fair. There was no one at the program speaking on behalf of the people whose rights are limited by tort reform, which is typical: injured people and the victims of corporate injustice don't usually have public-relations operatives to speak for them.

Weekly Report #47: The Lawsuit Industry

After a client's lawsuit was recently removed to federal court, I received an e-mail from a company that wished to help me out. It offered to send me an "innovative Judge Report" on all the "personal property fraud cases" pending before my particular federal judge. This report, the e-mail said, would answer these questions:

• How likely is the judge to rule in my client's favor?
• What significant motions are granted or denied by the judge?
• How long do personal property fraud cases take in the judge's court?

All interesting stuff, I suppose, and the answers could be mine for only $195. I had to decline, however: not only does my case not involve fraud or personal property, but there's a motion to remand pending which I'm 98% certain will result in the case returning to state court in the next few weeks.

While the company works its kinks out, I'll point out that it's one of only hundreds of similar companies that have popped up to serve the parties involved in litigation. Many are designed around proprietary databases, which you can use to learn what an expert witness has said in prior depositions, where your judge went to school, or which employees of a company involved in a lawsuit should be contacted about a case.

The links jump to posts at The Illinois Trial Practice Weblog. The growing lawsuit industry also includes companies that will help you conduct electronic discovery, outfit a courtroom with computers for trial, put together flashy demonstrative exhibits to impress a jury, or administer a class-action settlement. You name it, these companies can do everything but sign a pleading or argue a motion for summary judgment.