January 25th, 2010

Should Obama Sit Jury Duty?

So news comes out that President Obama has skipped jury duty in Chicago. Is that a good thing?

Here in New York, it used to be that there were exemptions from jury duty for lawyers, doctors, and a panoply of others. Everyone and their brother seemed to have a legit excuse. The legislature killed that off, and now all the exemptions are gone. Rudy Guiliani famously sat jury duty while mayor, as did Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Chief Judge Judith Kaye.

But how about the President?

On the plus side of having him sit, it promotes jury duty and the concept that power is dispersed among the people. The distribution of power among the citizens and away from the Crown was the very essence of the Revolution. The Declaration of Independence, once you get past its magnificent opening, leads into its bill of particulars regarding the usurpations of power by King George with this:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States

And among that list of usurpations is this:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury

And this is not just enshrined in the Declaration, but the Bill of Rights. The Sixth Amendment protects those charged with crimes and the Seventh Amendment guarantees juries in civil trials:

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

There is little disagreement among the people of the need for the dispersion of power — though oddly there are conservatives that wish to consolidate power among the few and call this “reform.” This concept of greater government power has thus far been widely rejected. (I never really understood how conservatives that preach limited government wish to endow it with more in this circumstance, but that is an issue for another day.)

Notwithstanding the noble goal of jury duty, any lawyer that has spend 12 seconds in the jury selection process knows that many people want to talk their way out of it, even personal injury lawyers. But I have sat, as has my wife and my brother.

On the flip side of having Obama serve jury duty is the security problem, not just for the courthouse but for the nation as a whole as it requires the man with the button to be in one place for an extended period. Leaving aside the issue of distraction for the other jurors, the forcible placement of the President in one place could turn into a life and death problem for all of us.

So, while I am a huge fan of the jury system, when it comes to the top honcho, I believe that deferment until he leaves office is appropriate.

January 22nd, 2010

FindLaw Uses Dead Child To Advertise Attorney Services

Demonstrating that, perhaps, there is no sewer deep enough for it to descend into, FindLaw has used the death of a child to promote the services of the lawyers that pay them fees.

On its Philadelphia Personal Injury Law Blog (coded as “nofollow” so that site doesn’t get Google juice) FindLaw‘s writer, Emily Grube, re-hashes the tragic accident of a nine-year old that was hit by a car while playing with its scooter. After the re-hash comes this deep-thinking analysis:

There are many difficult questions about this case: Was the driver aware that she hit White? Was she aware that he was under the car? Did she continue to drive in an attempt to flee the scene?

Truly profound. I know I feel more educated having read it. At the end of it comes the call-to-action: “If you have been involved in a similar situation such as a hit and run, or a pedestrian injury, you could discuss your possible personal injury case with…” blah, blah blah

The “blog” is one of the dreck-blogs that I wrote about previously (Are FindLaw’s “Blogs” Tainting Its Clients, Commentators and the Profession of Law?), that offer little content beyond repeating a local story, making damn sure the name of the victim is repeated in the event the victims (or their survivors) Google the event, and ends with a call-to-action. There is, of course, no comment area since discussion isn’t the point of the ad.

(If the name of the writer sound familiar, Ms. Grube also writes dreck-blogs for other FindLaw sites, having apparently left what little dignity she may have been born with in the dust.)

In my prior posting, FindLaw was using dead adults in its pseudo-blogs, which appear as little more than ads designed to chase clients. The extent to which such ad-blogs violate local ethics laws has yet to be explored by any ethics committee that I know of, though surely that day is coming soon.

So who sponsors this kind of crap? When you click their link, these are the firms I found at the top of the link, that would benefit from FindLaw‘s use of dead children in its ads:

The Law Offices of Eric Strand
West Chester, PA

Law Offices of Basil D. Beck, III
Norristown, PA

Law Offices of V. Erik Petersen
Harleysville, PA

Hark and Hark
Philadelphia, PA

Law Office of Henry S. Hilles, III
Norristown, PA

So long as lawyers continue to pay money to FindLaw for its services, this will no doubt continue. (See, FindLaw, How To Leave and Save Your Reputation.)

And the continued existence of such crap will continue to hurt the legal community and our clients, and make it even more difficult to find objective jurors.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that Mark Bennett had previously published a partial list of New York attorneys that were supporting this kind of conduct (Call This Notice). Yet FindLaw continues, and subjects more of their clients to being associated with its ugliness. So it appears that FindLaw doesn’t really care about the reputations of the very people that hire them. Considering that FindLaw is the agent of these firms, that’s important.

The only way for FindLaw‘s clients to preserve their reputations appears to be to ship out, because it doesn’t appear that FindLaw will shape up.

January 22nd, 2010

NY Court Clerks Get New Rules On Rejecting Papers

When you are up against a deadline, the prospect of a court clerk rejecting papers can not just be problematic, but fatal. And because of prior instances where some clerks have rejected papers based on their understanding (or misunderstanding) of rules, the Office of Court Administration has issued changes.

There are now just four reasons for a clerk to reject papers:

1) papers that do not have an index number,
(2) documents commencing or concluding a lawsuit that do not list the names of all parties,
(3) filings offered in the wrong county, or
(4) documents not signed as required by court rules authorizing sanctions for frivolous contentions.

The rules come because the White Plains general practice firm of Tilem & Campbell brought a lawsuit to challenge what they saw as inappropriate rejections of papers by clerks.

From today’s New York Law Journal (reg. req.)

January 16th, 2010

FindLaw in Class Action?

A comment came in yesterday about a possible class action suit against FindLaw. I didn’t publish it because it was a blatant advertisement for a couple of firms who bizarrely thought I created this blog so that they could freely advertise. Go figure.

But the ad itself is worth discussing so it now follows with the names of the law firms redacted.

The potential class deals with FindLaw promising attorneys that it will put them on the first page of Google, which, of course, is impossible to do for all of your clients if you have more than a few clients and you use normal keywords. Lawyer search service hustlers are pretty much everywhere these days, and slime predominates from WhoCanISue and SueEasy to FindLaw, to MalpracticeLawOffice and AnAttorneyForYou amongst the gazillion companies sleazing their way across the web.

The redacted version of the ad, originally submitted on the post on how to save thousands of dollars a year by dumping FindLaw, looks like this:

We understand that many attorneys are dissatisfied with services and products provided by FindLaw. Many laws firms have told us that their business dealings with FindLaw did not come close to meeting their expectations. For example, we have been informed that FindLaw made promises about placement on the “first page” of search engines that were not delivered?

Attorney [redacted] and [redacted] have joined forces to investigate any potential causes of action that may flow from FindLaw’s business dealings with lawyers across the United States. A number of attorneys have contacted us and have asked to retain our services, therefore we are in the process of gathering more information and documentation to assist us in our investigation. Any feedback, documentation and suggestions that you would like to share with us would be greatly appreciated. We are also looking for experts in the areas of legal marketing and the Internet.

If you would like to learn more about this matter or offer your assistance, please click on the link below in order to connect with our law firms. You can expect to receive a prompt and confidential response. [redacted]

While I certainly see the anger in those that wasted big bucks with FindLaw, such a suit on these terms seems to be a no-win situation since the actual contract that the lawyers signed with FindLaw would govern, there are unlikely to be any such written “first page” assurances, and the verbal assurances (even if admissible given the existence of a written contract) would likely differ from case to case. That would tend to be problematic given the need for common questions of fact for the victims in a class action.

It would also be problematic given the sophisticated nature of the potential plaintiffs and the fact that only a moron would believe every customer could be on the first page.

To the lawyers that tried to use my blog to chase clients: If you want to chase, do it on your own dime.

While the above class action seems to be a likely loser, there may be another avenue to explore. If lawyers want to claim that FindLaw‘s dreck-blogs tarnishes their reputations (as well as the reputations of every other attorney in the country) and constitutes a breach of contract, then more power to you. Perhaps a suit lies in such a claim and I wish you well in nailing them to the wall for their scuzzy conduct. Here is a copy of the FindLaw Master Agreement.pdf for you to go looking for additional ammunition.

I’m just trying to help. If anyone goes that route, give FindLaw my best regards. If you succeed based on my tip, please remind them where it came from.

January 15th, 2010

Linkworthy

A dramatic slip and fall caught on video. Too bad he was trying to throw a chair through a Burger King door at the time. Will he be dumb enough to sue?

Point of Law has AAJ’s agenda for protecting consumer rights. They don’t like the list. I do.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals opines on champerty and maintenance in New York. You don’t know what that means? If you practice personal injury law, you better damn well find out at Blawgletter.

Is that really a stodgy, New York, government bureaucracy on Twitter?

How many auto accidents take place each year because of drivers distracted by cell phone use and texting? The answer is here;

OK, CareerBuilder has placed an ad on the web that I don’t think you will ever see on television. My wife is still laughing…

In honor of the 20th Anniversary of The Simpsons, that law-talking guy…

Scott Greenfield has an example of a good lawyer ad from one of the bastion of fine personal injury firms in New York, Trolman Glaser and Lichtman — even Walter Olson seems to like it! Too bad the firm also is part of the wretched FindLaw system of using dreck-blogs for advertisements. Hey TGL, if you’re reading this, isn’t it time to get on the phone with your FindLaw rep and tell them to stop creating stuff that hurts our clients and our reputations? It’s already hard enough to find impartial jurors for personal injury cases, we don’t need them making things worse;

Finally, Blawg Review #246 at The Client Revolution, looking into the crystal ball at the future of law.