Evan Schaeffer's Legal Underground

Weekly Law School Roundup #19

This Week: Stories from the Summer Trenches According to The Anonymous Lawyer, it's the part of the summer when the events at the law firms "get ratcheted up a bit in terms of expense," so that the firms can make "the final sales pitch" and get "a good conversion rate" on the offers they hand out. But what are the summer clerks saying about their jobs? To find out, keep reading . . .

• Lawyers as Paper-Wasters Beanie of Screaming Bean complains that lawyers print far too many cases (which, I should add, they probably don't read). About a request from a lawyer to print all her research, Beanie says, "I'll spend about an hour with the trusty printers and produce utter tripe. Yup, I love my job." (By the way, Half-Cocked has a technological solution to the problem, which I'm going to explore in more depth the next time I'm on Westlaw.)
• A View from Just Below the Bench Dubitante is clerking for a judge, and hasn't been impressed by the lawyering. About a week-long criminal trial, Dubitante comments, "Fairly miserable lawyering all around.” About a plaintiff's memorandum in opposition to a motion for summary judgment, Dubitante says, "The plaintiff may have a legal argument worthy of examination somewhere, but her attorneys certainly didn't shed any light on it.” Ouch!
• Don't Ask Pork Rind About Her Summer Pork Rind of Notes from the (1L) Underground complains: "I don't want to be your resource, and tell you how to look for firm jobs, or what the 'atmosphere' is like. Sniff some white-out, stay up till 3 AM and self-administer a few papercuts, that'll give you a good idea of the fucking atmosphere around here." (Important note: Make sure to read the entire post. It's a classic, in my humble opinion.)

[In the continuation: More from Ichiblog, Ditzy Genius, ambulance chaser, Law v. Life, Jeremy's Weblog, ambivalent imbroglio, and transmogriflaw, plus a free bonus and a reminder.]

Frivolous & Bollixed

by David Giacalone

David Giacalone -- formerly known as ethicalEsq and Prof. Yabut -- can now be found at f/k/a . . ., which features "one-breath poetry and punditry with haikuEsq." Currently retired, David spent ten years at the FTC and another decade doing divorce mediation and family law.--Ed.

Are there any lawyers (or adults) over at MoveOn.org?  The politically-active, proudly biased group has formally asked the Federal Trade Commission to declare the Fox News slogan "fair and balanced" to be unlawfully deceptive. [see WorldNetDaily]  Along with filing a petition, MoveOn has launched a letter-writing campaign.  There's just one big problem: their legal claim has no legal precedent nor merit. Very few fair or balanced persons actually believe Fox's slogan.  But, as noted by its Chairman, Timothy J. Muris, such mottoes and puffery -- especially when done by a news organization -- are simply not within the FTC concept of deception (see text at fn. 42).

So, what's the point, MoveOn?  Is having a whiney temper tantrum good politics?  Is it going to win you any votes, or convince Fox's audience to switch channels or listen more critically?  Do you have so much Soros money that you can waste it on frivolous media circuses?  

This little publicity stunt has, nonetheless, left me wondering just how truthful newspaper and media slogans are in general.  With a little Googling, I located a website that lists the mottoes of many American newspapers.  The Newspaper Mottoes webpage is compiled by Loyola University (N.O.) communications professor Larry Lorenz.  Here are a small selection of the mottoes listed, categorized (by me) for your convenience (and entertainment).  Just how many of these slogans do you think would pass muster under a truthfulness and substantiation test?

A New Feature: Wednesday Guests

I'm not sure whether it's a good idea, but I'm going to give it a try: Wednesday guests.

On Wednesdays, I'll open up my weblog to submissions from anyone who would like their words and wisdom to be published on Legal Underground. Contributors might be those who don't have a weblog (I've heard there are a few such lost souls); those with weblogs whose posts don't fit within the framework of their own (like the post of my first guest contributor); or those who would like to publicize their weblogs to a different audience.

Rules and Guidelines:

1. Send your submissions by e-mail. I reserve the right to reject submissions, but I'll try to be nice about it. (On the other hand, I'm easy. Try me.)

2. Use your own judgment as to whether your piece would "fit" on this site. It's certainly not a requirement that your opinions are like mine; in fact, it might be better if they aren't. If you aren't a lawyer and want to write about why lawyers are such insufferable bores, that would be fine with me.

3. If I post your piece, I'll permanently catalogue it with all the other guest posts in the "guests" category. Other than that, you'll retain all rights to your work.

4. If your post is longer than three paragraphs, some of it might be published on a continuation page. If I do any editing, I'll get your permission first. Finally, my open-source copyediting offer (see here) does not apply to guest posts.

On Wednesdays when I don't have any guest posts, I'll run a reminder that spots are available. If four weeks pass without any submissions, which is entirely possible (about half of my weblogging experiments are flops), I'll retire the feature and we can all agree not to talk about it.

The first guest post? It's from David Giacalone . . .

UPDATE: This post originally referred to "Saturday" guests, but I changed the feature to Wednesdays.

Weekly Report #28: Secret News

It was a good week in the history of Schaeffer & Lamere, but owing to my suspicious nature, I don't want to post the specifics here until sometime next month. By then, I'll be absolutely certain that nothing is going to go wrong, and I'll be able to provide an explanation as to what, how, and why. With any luck, I'll be able to make it interesting too.

In news I can talk about, I attended the Cardinals game on Thursday night with my former partners, John Carey and Joey Danis. Although I've made references before to "my former partners" on this weblog, and they figure in some of the posts in the "war stories" category, I've never named them specifically before today. So now you know.

Their firm is called Carey & Danis. They have offices in St. Louis, Chicago and New York, and they also rent space from Andrea and me in Godfrey, Illinois. As of a few weeks ago, I entered into an "of counsel" relationship with Carey & Danis. Specifically, I'm heading up our joint project involving mesothelioma, a disease caused by exposure to asbestos.

Finally, I had an interesting conversation this week with a reporter from Atlanta about legal weblogs. To anyone reading this, weblogs are nothing new, but now the rest of the world seems to be catching on. It will be interesting to see where the weblog phenomenon leads. (For example, have you seen The Blawg Channel?)

Advice to Young Lawyers #12

Dear Mr. Schaeffer:

I’m a young male associate who’s wondering if I have a legal claim against my law firm. Even though I’m much smarter than most second-year associates, the firm’s female partners all assume I’m a dimwit because of my good looks. Although I do have quite a nice physique (I’m a weightlifter), it’s just not fair that no one gives me credit for my stellar law school record and my high IQ.

My specific problem deals with what happened the other day. The head of the litigation department, who everyone calls “The Barracuda,” dumped four boxes of documents on my desk at 4 p.m. and told me to “have all the privileged stuff flagged by the morning.”

By the morning! She was expecting me to work all night. But it gets worse. Two and a half hours later, she stopped by my office on her way out and asked if I had “time for a drink.” It was clearly a sexual advance. One of the reasons I know was the way she was smiling—it’s the only time the Barracuda has ever smiled at me. On top of that, she seemed to be lewdly moving in a manner that would make her large breasts unmistakable from my angle.

Do I have a claim for sexual harassment? If so, how much do you think it’s worth?

Signed, Feeling Violated in Virginia

Yet Another Post About the Federal Judges of the MDL Panel

I like the federal judges of the MDL Panel, I really do, but I get the feeling that I'm just not getting their attention.

Today they're meeting in Seattle on the 8th Floor of the courthouse on Fifth Avenue, according to their latest hearing memo (PDF). What's wrong with that? It's just that it's been five months since I invited them to hold a hearing at the federal courthouse nearest my office. That's the one in East St. Louis, Illinois. Since then, I haven't heard a word. Not a letter, not a postcard, not even a measly e-mail. It's like they're ignoring me or something.

Perhaps this is a job better suited to Underneath Their Robes, a weblog specifically devoted to the federal judiciary. Assuming the anonymous author of UTR is listening, here's my advice: every citizen would benefit from a little background about the MDL Panel, the super-secret group of seven federal judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Since I also understand that UTR wasn't around when I got started on my quest to lure the MDL Panel to East St. Louis, here's a brief summary of my posts to date:

1. What's the MDL Panel? In this post on February 27, I explained the MDL Panel to my unsuspecting readers.

2. And Where Does It Meet? In a follow-up post on the same day, I demonstrated why the MDL Panel usually packs light when it heads off for its hearings every two months.

3. Take the Aeroplane, Then the Mystery Train In this post during the Legal Underground's Rock 'n' Roll Week, I told the federal judges of the MDL Panel a few things they probably didn't know about East St. Louis.

4. Greetings, Federal Judges of the MDL Panel On March 23, before the MDL Panel's meeting in Jacksonville, I bothered them with a memo in which I admitted I'd never read Rule 16.1 of the Rules of Procedure of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

5. MDL Panel Update: Federal Judges Heading to Baltimore. Two months ago, as the federal judges of the MDL Panel were meeting in Baltimore, I gave them some advice about what they could do there if they had any free time.

All these missives to the MDL Panel, but not a word. Could it be that the federal judges of the MDL Panel don't read weblogs? Stay tuned.

Types of Lawyers #7: The Modest Lawyer

Is the modest lawyer a myth? That’s the conventional wisdom.  Yet once or twice each year, rumors begin to circulate of yet another sighting of this silent and mysterious man. Three years ago, he was spotted emerging from a portable restroom at a county fair.  Another time he was seen helping a small child unhook a bluegill at a lake in Mississippi. Once he was seen high on a mountain in Colorado, searching for a pass during a thunderstorm.

Despite the frequency of the sightings, only three details remain consistent: the modest lawyer vanishes quickly, leaves no trace, and always remains nameless. Yet it’s possible to speculate about some of his other defining characteristics, and many have done so. There was a theory put forward by a professor at Harvard Law School that the modest lawyer probably graduated from that esteemed institution. Another theory held that the modest lawyer most likely hailed from Texas. Both of these theories were obviously flawed, but others have been less controversial: that the modest lawyer has never appeared on a cable TV news program, for example, or that he most certainly doesn’t have a blog. 

More enduring than any other mystery, though, is this: What is it about the modest lawyer that makes him so notably modest? Could it be that he failed to receive an adequate helping of love from his parents, such that he regards it as normal to downplay his own accomplishments? Could his personality defects be the result of a sudden and unexpected blow to the head? Has he been possessed by demons?

Only calamitous events like these can explain how the modest lawyer, even if he were to have the good fortune of owning the latest model of BMW’s largest sedan, wouldn’t find it necessary to work this news into every conversation. A mystery, indeed! It’s such a mystery, in fact, that the modest lawyer is doomed to remain the circus freak of the legal profession. If he’s ever identified, tranquilized, and bagged, he’ll be exhibited far and wide, a living testament to the unusual oxymoron that gives him his name: the modest lawyer. 

But the modest lawyer will never be identified. If he’s invisible, he’s invisible by choice. It shouldn’t surprise you, in fact, that the modest lawyer might be standing right next to you at this very moment, waiting to initiate a conference call, hand in an assignment, or accompany you to lunch. If this describes you, consider yourself lucky. Most don’t ever get so close to the modest lawyer. Introduce yourself if you must, but don’t blow his cover. That's the way he'd want it.

[Like this post? It's one of many included in my book How to Feed a Lawyer (And Other Irreverent Oberservations from the Legal Underground). Details here.]

Related posts:

1. Types of Lawyers #5--The Lawyer Who Brings Her Breast Pump to the Office

2. Types of Lawyers #3--The Lawyer Who Advertises on TV

3. The "Types of Lawyers" Category--all 17 "types of lawyers" posts

Political Humor You Can Count On

It's "This Land," a short cartoon by the Spiridellis brothers featuring everyone's two favorite presidential candidates. Links to the cartoon seem to be all over the place, but I couldn't resist providing one anyway. The Spiridellis' weblog is here. Thanks to my cousin Dave for the heads up.

The Illinois Supreme Court Race: One Reason Why Maag Will Win

The national media coverage of the Illinois Supreme Court race between Democrat Gordon Maag and Republican Lloyd Karmeier is certain to be shallow and inept, as is demonstrated by this piece from the Associated Press via CNN.com: "Size of verdicts focus of Illinois race."

It's a long article, but it contains absolutely nothing about the candidates' backgrounds or their judicial records. Instead, it's all the usual stuff about "trial lawyers," "sharks in fancy suits," "judicial hellholes," and other such nonsense.

Why will Judge Maag win the election? One reason is because the NRA has endorsed him. That's a rare occurrence for the Democratic candidate in any election. Moreover, a Republican vote for Maag by an NRA member is like two votes, since it also takes away a vote that Karmeier was counting on. Just don't expect to read about it on CNN: its piece is silent on the interesting twist of Maag's NRA endorsement.

Keep Moving #7

In case you've been too busy to read your favorite legal weblogs, here are a few items of interest from around the blawgosphere:

I Remember When It Was Just a List of Links I'm speaking of Underneath Their Robes, which is probably the first blawg to get a write-up in Newsweek. The catalyst was the weblog's "Superhotties of the Federal Judiciary." Meanwhile, there's something about that hot-federal-judges contest that I've been wanting to get off my chest: none of the nominated judges are hot. What gives?

St. Louis, Missouri Is Blawg City, USA Dennis Kennedy explains why in this post. (To Dennis' list of St. Louis blawgs, I'd also add musclehead, Soupie's BBQ & Daycare, Omer Poos, Matt Schuh Online, and Attempted Survival.)

Is There a Doctor-Blogger in the House? Carey of Glorfindel of Gondolin asks, "Who Blogs More, Law Students or Medical Students?" The conclusion--law students. But why?

Weblogging: Will It Change Your Life? Xavier Morales of Unfashionable Observations has some interesting thoughts about the limitations of blogging in a post that marks his one-year blogging anniversary: "i need some meaning i can memorize."

Women Lawyers on Outsourcing Childcare I don't know what it is about JCA's post "the chick thing" at Sua Sponte, but I keep thinking about it. It's an inside look at the way a few lawyer-mothers think about law-firm partnership, and it ends with a twist. A very interesting post.