Evan Schaeffer's Legal Underground

Judge Goes Easy on Courtney Love's Celebrity Skin

In news from New York, Courtney Love showed up to a court hearing five hours late on Monday, but merely received a scolding:

A visibly annoyed New York Criminal Court Judge Melissa Jackson admonished the 39-year-old singer that she was about to issue a bench warrant for Love's arrest for being tardy.

"I want to make it clear to you that you are supposed to be in court at 9:30, not 3 o'clock," Jackson said. "Three o'clock is not acceptable. The rule applies to you, the same as it does to everyone else."

Taking a box of cigarettes from her purse as she stood in the courtroom, and seemingly bewildered in pink spike heels, Love barely mustered an apology to the judge, replying, "Sorry."

The moral of the story, which applies only to celebrities appearing in New York courtrooms: Take your time/hurry up/the choice is yours. (The moral is courtesy of Nirvana. Those seeking further lessons from New York courtrooms or rock 'n' roll should see my earlier post, "Run For Your Lives! It's Judge-zilla!")

The Rats Participating in the Study All Hailed from New York; Four Are Now Pitching a Steamy Half-Hour Sitcom Concept to HBO

From Reuters, via CNN.com: "Rat drug may boost sex drive in women, study finds." According to US and Canadian researchers, the drug "seems to drive female rats mad for sex [and] may offer the first real scientific aphrodisiac for women."

Types of Lawyers #5: The Lawyer Who Brings Her Breast Pump to the Office

At first, she was a little hesitant. But hesitant about what? Not the question of whether to pump at the office. Of this, she was quite certain. As long as her newborn infant was determined to maintain his take-no-prisoners hunger for her milk, she was going to do her damnedest to perform as nature intended.

No, her hesitation wasn’t about whether to pump at work. Her hesitation was about whether to return to work at all. What gave her pause? It was the magnificent force with which her newborn baby exercised his tight connection to her heart. It was truly one of the world's great wonders.

But so was the fact that just last month, she was named chairman of the firm’s compensation committee. How could she pass up that opportunity? So she made her decision. A lock was placed on her office door, a lactation consultant was placed on retainer, and a shiny new Medina Pump In Style® Advanced Breastpump was placed in the back seat of her BMW.

A Redesign from Kevin Heller

Kevin Heller, the Tech Law Advisor, writes that his site's redesign is 85% complete. Kevin's Tech Law Advisor domain will be devoted to "tech, internet and ip law," while blog.techlawadvisor.com will be devoted to everything else. A complete run-down of all of Kevin's blogging projects can be found here.

Meanwhile, Kevin has responded to Matt Homann's "Five by Five" feature, and scolds me for not noticing his post. Actually, I did notice the post, but I was too busy to do anything about it. My apologies to Kevin. I should also point out that in the best Professor-Althouse tradition, Kevin has posted a non-review of Fahrenheit 9/11. (Professor Althouse's own non-review was mentioned here.)

Inside the Sex Discrimination Case Against Wal-Mart

From the Los Angeles Times, via KTLA5: "Lawyers Take on Wal-Mart," by David Streitfeld. Here are some choice quotes from the article, which profiles the lead attorney, Brad Seligman:

• "The Wal-Mart case has already cost Seligman, his colleague Jocelyn Larkin and the 16 participating lawyers at six other firms nearly $2 million in out-of-pocket expenses."
• "To date, 1.5 million documents have been produced. Luckily, many of them can be stored in cyberspace. The case, in fact, probably wouldn't exist without the Internet. An internal Web site common to all the firms means documents don't have to be sent by messenger or faxed, and that expensive meetings can be kept to a minimum."
• "The lawyers have participated in about 200 depositions, about 75 with Wal-Mart employees who offered to be witnesses."
• "The next step for the plaintiffs is to send letters to the 1 million women who are members of the class action but no longer work at Wal-Mart, informing them of the suit. Their addresses will come from Wal-Mart. The $500,000 for the mailing will come from somewhere else, although it's unclear where."

Who do I think will pay the notice costs? The law firms representing the plaintiffs, which include the class-action powerhouse Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, PLLC.

Keep Moving #6

Here are some recent items of interest from around the blogosphere:

Jim Dedman's Script Comes to Life You can't go wrong reading the fascinating posts at Jim Dedman's weblog about the making of his independent film. Meanwhile, his legal career is also chugging along, as is illustrated by lines like this: "I was unable to attend the shooting during the day, as I was in the midst of finalizing an appellate brief." How many lawyers can write something like that?

Will Baude's Bad ID Will Baude of Crescat Sententia is working at The New Republic this summer. In case you missed it, be sure to read "Bad ID," Baud's article about Hiibel v. Nevada, the Supreme Court's recent criminal procedure decision. In a measured tone, Baude demonstrates why every citizen should be concerned about the Supreme Court's "creeping expansion" of the powers granted to police officers.

How to Maintain a Weblog Find out from Scheherazade Fowler in her post "Mosaic," which contains her "rules of blogging."

Is There a Doctor in the House? The weblog symtym bills itself as "the meanderings of a board certified emergency physician at mid–career…who tumbled into law school." If you have an interest in litigation against hospitals and drug companies, the author follows it pretty closely, as in this post.

Fahrenheit 9/11: Law Students and Lawyers Respond

In yesterday's Law School Roundup, I linked to two reviews of Fahrenheit 9/11 and invited readers to send me links to others. I'll use this post to collect any I receive. Here's what I have so far:

• David Gulbransen of Preaching to the Perverted, a "liberal" who has "mixed feelings about Michael Moore" is generally positive about the film, and concludes "[i]t's clear that even if you hate Moore, we can't trust our president."
• Sally Greene, a lawyer who's guest-blogging at Is That Legal, posts a review that contains these lines: "Critics of the movie call it propaganda. Then why does it seem so resoundingly consistent with the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission: that there were no meaningful links between Al Qaida and Iraq?"
• Matt Schuh, a soon-to-be 1L at St. Louis University School of Law and a self-described conservative, recommends the movie but writes, "For all of his bellyaching about how the Bush administration distorts the truth and relies on people not thinking critically about his policies, Moore uses the exact tactics he criticizes to make his points."

If you're a blogger with a Fahrenheit 9/11 review, please feel free to send me an e-mail with a link. It doesn't matter if you're a law student, lawyer, or non-lawyer--all views are welcome.

UPDATES:

• 6/28. Professor Althouse, one of my favorite bloggers, posts this non-review, which I found on my own: "So am I going to go see 'Fahrenheit 9/11'? I've been told it will give me something to blog about. I could describe the Madison audience and the noises made at various points and so forth. I could monitor my own reactions. But no, life is too short for that. I zap TV commercials--why would I sit through a feature length anti-Bush commercial?" (Too bad: I was looking forward to the Professor's comments.)

• 6/30. I received word of a review from the author of The Neutral Zone Trap, who recommends Fahrenheit 9/11 but adds: "I think that a lot of the cinematic criticism is valid. There are a few times when Moore is just beating a dead horse. A needlessly dead horse." Interestingly, she also notes that "[t]hroughout the movie, there was some spontaneous cheering and applause."

• 7/5. Ditzy Genius writes: "If anyone thinks that this movie is going to persuade any serious Bush supporters from voting for him, I've got 2 words for you: Get Real. The only people this movie might *possibly* persuade is people who were already on the fence and don't really care about any glaring ommissions from the film. In addition, I was annoyed by Michael Moore's incredibly smug tone throughout the movie - his voice is very irritating."

More Ideas for Changing the Legal Profession

Today, Matt Homann of the [non]billable hour is reprising last week's "Five by Five" feature, in which five lawyers (including me) responded to this question: "If you had the power to change five things about the practice of law, what would you change?" This week, several others are answering the call.

There's been a lot to think about in the posts that have been running on Matt's site. I hope that others will continue the discussion. For example, what about Scheherazade Fowler's call to "abolish the bar exam"? I'll go out on a limb and predict it's not going to happen in my lifetime, but it's certainly an idea worth discussing.

And how about Ernie the Attorney's first idea for changing the practice of law: "Modify the contingency fee system to eliminate the conflict of interest that often arises when an attorney has a stake in the outcome of a case that is dependent on physical injury to a client or the client's relative."

As a lawyer who is often paid on a contingency fee basis, I must admit this idea left me baffled. A lawyer who's paid on a contingency fee gets more if a case settles for a larger amount, but so does the client--so there's no inherent conflict of interest in this situation. I think Ernie might be suggesting something more sinister, namely, that the hope of a larger fee might lead a plaintiffs' lawyer to "invent" an injury that doesn't exist.

If that's the problem, there are ways of solving it without modifying the contingency fee system. (How does Ernie suggest it be modified, anyway?) And note that the problem can happen on either side of a case: a civil defense lawyer might help his client "invent" a defense in the hopes that he'll get more business from the client. Why pick on plaintiffs' lawyers? Let's hear some more from Ernie!

Weekly Law School Roundup #15

Who's Seen Fahrenheit 9/11? Among law-student bloggers, I found some discussion of the movie here and there, but the only "reviews" I saw were at ambivalent imbroglio and Jeremy's Weblog. A.I. says: "We saw 'Fahrenheit 9/11' last night and it was ... a great film! . . . In many ways, typical Moore. In at least one way, not quite so typical—he wasn't in it that much (except as narrator and commentator throughout, of course)." And Jeremy writes: "[I]t's a solidly entertaining and interesting sit-through. I can't help but recommend it. Regardless of your politics. But I also don't think it's going to change anyone's mind. It'll just reinforce whatever feelings you've got." As for me, I'm interested in the response to the movie, so if you want to e-mail me about your own review, I'll be happy to link to it in an update to this post or elsewhere. (And if I missed any that were posted already, I apologize in advance.)

When Oil Tries to Mix with Water Stewart at Shouting Fire posts about the "two major events" going on in Atlanta: Gay Pride Week and an "evangelical Christian revival." Stewart writes, "Though I concede their right to assemble, I fail to see the logic in the evangelical desire to picket pride week and yell at gays with bullhorns (although I believe one tenant of evangelicalism is a rejection of rationalism and logic, so perhaps I should not be surprised). Do they honestly believe they will convert proud homosexuals to Christ by publicly berating them?"

Conversations Can Develop Where You Least Expect Them "I'm a man of the people," one of my plaintiff-lawyer friends often says, and he often demonstrates why plaintiffs' lawyers are known for their ability to strike up a conversation with just about anyone. Cathy Gellis isn't a plaintiffs' lawyer, but she has the conversational ability to be one, based on her post "Around the world, around the corner." You'll have to read it yourself to see what I mean. Cathy's a law student at Boston University, and her weblog is called The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer. I wonder why her blog doesn't include a blogroll. It's none of my business, I guess, but a blogroll would lead to a greater number of readers for her interesting blog.

Not for Sheep Has Been Retired . . . And is reborn as "Legislating Gremlins: the Law School Chronicles." The author explains: "I've retired Not for Sheep for several reasons, some personal and some financial. It costs too much to continue hosting four domains, so I've parked three and am keeping one active." Will the old posts from Not for Sheep be accessible at the new site? I'm not sure, but maybe we'll have the answer once Legislating Gremlins gets off the ground.

Appointed Forever Tommy at Carolina Law provides a link to a funny satirical song about federal judges. You can think of it as the musical companion to my post "Advice to Federal Judges #2."

Preparing for Georgetown Law by Running Stairs That's Scoplaw's approach, as explained in the post, "Vanity, Vanity." Scoplaw writes, "It’s almost like a gladiatorial preparation for law school. I want to go in lean and frosty as I’m sure both pizza and low amounts of sleep will catch up with me eventually, and, even so, I don’t need to be one whit duller, surrounded by the brilliant people I’ll be surrounded by. So that means pushing myself now so I can try to hold steady later, and let my health and improved focus maximize my learning." Unfortunately, the post reminded me that I'm getting out of shape. I wonder if Scoplaw will be eating any raw eggs?

Are Conference Calls Always a Waste of Time? At Better late than never, bltn writes about a non-productive conference call at a non-legal job, and concludes: "I know people complain about billable hour requirements at law firms, but after my experience, I can see some value in holding people accountable for their time in the office. I can't imagine it being acceptable to make an entry at a firm that says, '1 hour - sat on silent conference call, waiting for something to happen.'" In my experience, lawyers sit in on non-productive conference calls all the time. I would like to bore you with examples, but I'll do it another time. I promise. (The author of Better late than never, by the way, will be attending The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.)

A Concluding Note to Recent Graduates Who Blog One of the great things about blogs written by law students is that the authors are free to express themselves without worrying that an employer might be looking over their shoulders. But once those authors are employed as lawyers, what then? I hope that all the great bloggers who recently graduated will continue to blog, and that readers like me will be able to enjoy a greater variety of weblogs written by lawyers. Judging from my own experience in a big firm, however, where my employers tried to stop me from writing newspaper op-eds, I think the transition from law schools to law firms might stifle many good blogging voices. I'm going to keep reading to find out. In the meantime, I'd also like to hear from recent graduates who plan to continue blogging once employed, whether at an established weblog or a new site.

Weekly Report #24: Crashing the MATA Convention

Have you ever witnessed a roomful of over-the-hill lawyers dancing to old time rock ‘n’ roll? I did on Friday night, when I stuck my head into the after-banquet party at the annual convention of the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys (MATA). It was taking place at the Lake of the Ozarks, where I’d crashed the convention with Andrea and the kids so we could get away and see a few friends.

I didn’t stick around to witness the dancing, but returned to the bar instead. The scary image of all that jerking around under the colored lights of a disco ball is still haunting me twenty-four hours later. It’s very uncharitable of me to say, but I think the real party was happening somewhere else. Wherever it was, I never found it. (One of the guys I was looking for had set out in a boat earlier in the day and hadn’t returned. When that sort of thing happens in the Ozarks, it usually means there's been a trip to the notorious Party Cove.)

Next week, I have a heavy deposition schedule, much as I did this week before setting out for the Ozarks. Though things are supposed to slow down in the summer, so far it hasn't happened.