December 9th, 2013

Another Turkewitz Sits Jury Duty

Ellen Turkewitz

Ellen decides to crop her brother out of the shot.

Another family member sits jury duty. Niece Ellen Turkewitz now joins brother Dan and Mrs. NYPILB giving their bird’s eye view of the process, which is altogether different than what we trial lawyers see.

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When I got the notice to serve jury duty a few months ago, I was really excited– As a Law and Order fan, I had visions of courthouse showdowns and action packed trials.

I woke up on Thursday morning in the midst of a pretty terrible cold. I trekked to the courthouse and found a line of 40 people deep waiting to get in… in the pouring rain. The security team working the x-ray machines were moving at a glacial speed, barking orders at those trying to pile into the building to avoid the downpour outside.

Once I was seated in the “jury duty holding pen,” I awaited instructions from the clerk monitoring the room. You think your job is a snooze? Can you imagine telling a group of frustrated, wet and cold people over and over again that they needed to sit and wait until their name was called? To be fair, the clerk did crack a few jokes attempting to make the situation a little less dull.

By far the most interesting part the experience was watching other people and their reactions to the clerks’ instructions. “New York City has no one day trials. If you get chosen, you will be on trial for more than a week. If this is a problem, go to the other courthouse to reschedule your date,” he says.

Cue groans and eye rolls. About 20 people stand up and shuffle back into the rain. “You cannot serve if you don’t speak English.” About 10 more people get up and leave ( my question? How did they understand that last sentence if they don’t speak English?)

“You cannot serve if you are a convicted felon” comes his next line. At this point everyone giggles and looks around to see who will stand. Sure enough, about 10 more people get up, including the Burberry clad girl next me. Humm… makes you wonder.

In the midst of the clerks’ instructions, people kept going up to his desk to ask him questions. I was silently sceaming at them to sit down and wait for the clerk to finish his speech– I couldn’t believe that people thought it was okay to interrupt him mid sentence to ask a personal question!

Around 10:15 the clerk received the first case. He began to call out the names of selected jurors, but mine was never called. I was bummed. I was looking forward to hearing a case and living out my Law and Order dreams. He told us to sit tight and he would let us know when the next case came in.  Around 12:30, we were given a two hour lunch break and told to return at 2:15. The fun part of jury duty had begun!

When we returned from lunch, the clerk repeated his instructions to be patient and wait for the next case. Out came the books, laptops and newspapers. At 2:45 the clerk announced that there would be no more cases that day and we were free to go… until the next day. I was at a loss of what to do with myself! Who gets out of work before 3pm?!

When I woke up Friday morning with an even worse cold, my first thought was “can I call sick to jury duty? Who pays my salary if I do? Will I have to go back next month to repeat this tedious process?” I dragged myself down the court house, waited in the pouring rain (again) to go through security, and took my seat in the waiting room. The clerk told us no new cases had come in yet that day and he would update us later.

As I battled my runny nose I noticed one very important thing- There were no tissues! You would think that the city of New York could spring for some Kleenex if they were going to hold us hostage for the day. Thankfully, at 12:15 the clerk announced that NYC was so safe that there would be no more cases that day and we were free to go (for the next 6 years!).

While I was slightly disappointed that I never got to hear a case, my desire for a nap and some dayquil overpowered everything else.

Do I feel like a made a difference in the justice system? Not really. But it was an interesting two days of people watching and I have offically completed my civic duty for the next 6 years.

 

December 2nd, 2013

Proner Law Firm Violating Ethics Rules Over Train Accident? (Again?)

PronerAndPronerYouTubeAd

Screen Shot of Proner & Proner Ad on YouTube, 9 pm on December 1st, with YouTube noting it had been up for 11 hours.

Well, there they go again. It was just this past May that I took the New York law firm of Proner & Proner to task for stepping all over New York’s attorney ethics code with regard to a local train accident, and they seem to be back at it again. Yesterday’s deadly train derailment in the Bronx occurred about 7:20 am. The Proner law firm ran their first ad on YouTube within hours.

Let’s review, shall we?

In the wake of the 2003 Staten Island Ferry crash that killed 11 — and the race by some law firms to run ads in the Staten Island Advance before all the bodies had even been pulled from the wreckage —  New York updated the Rules of Professional Conduct to stop the unseemly chasing of cases soon after a tragic event. This is our 30-day anti-solicitation rule:

Rule 4.5(a) In the event of a specific incident involving potential claims for personal injury or wrongful death, no unsolicited communication shall be made to an individual injured in the incident or to a family member or legal representative of such an individual, by a lawyer or law firm, or by any associate, agent, employee or other representative of a lawyer or law firm representing actual or potential defendants or entities that may defend and/or indemnify said defendants, before the 30th day after the date of the incident, unless a filing must be made within 30 days of the incident as a legal prerequisite to the particular claim, in which case no unsolicited communication shall be made before the 15th day after the date of the incident.

And just to be clear about what solicitation means, yes, it seems to mean doing something exactly like this — targeting a specific group. Read for yourself:

Rule 7.3(b)  For purposes of this Rule, “solicitation” means any advertisement initiated by or on behalf of a lawyer or law firm that is directed to, or targeted at, a specific recipient or group of recipients, or their family members or legal representatives, the primary purpose of which is the retention of the lawyer or law firm, and a significant motive for which is pecuniary gain. It does not include a proposal or other writing prepared and delivered in response to a specific request of a prospective client.

I’ve written about this 30-day rule often, first after Captain Chesley Sullenberger splash landed a plane in the Hudson, then after a plane crash in Buffalo.

And most recently, I brought it up with this same firm, Proner & Proner, after another Metro-North derailment in Stamford Connecticut, when they apparently did the same thing they do today — use YouTube to solicit cases, despite our anti-solicitation rule. I counted stock videos uploaded in the hours after the accident, all of which have keyword loaded text to accompany it. See the screen grab above.

This makes Proner & Proner the second firm to get dishonorable mention twice on this blog for the same infraction.  (The first went to Ribbeck Law after plane crashes.)  I’m willing to bet, given that Proner has over 1,000 YouTube videos, that this type of conduct is probably standard procedure for them.

Why write about it again? Apparently, because those in charge of doing the disciplining either:

1. Don’t read this blog / didn’t notice; or

2.  They did notice but don’t actually care enough to do anything about it.

I sure hope it is the former and not the latter, because the idea that the courts would institute ethics rules but not follow them isn’t a thought I like to contemplate. Since I happen to think that the 30-day rule works, I likewise think it’s important to enforce it.

It’s also important to note, as I always do when taking a firm to task when my eyes see as ethical issues, that there are very few firms that do this. But those that do serve to influence how the public feels about lawyers. And when I go pick a jury on behalf of my own clients, my clients are the ones that suffer from the deep cynicism that such conduct creates. This is not just my opinion.

Judge Frederick Scullin, Jr. sitting in the Northern District of New York in Alexander v. Cahill, wrote in a footnote about the reason for the rules:

Without question there has been a proliferation of tasteless, and at times obnoxious, methods of attorney advertising in recent years. New technology and an increase in the types of media available for advertising have exacerbated this problem and made it more ubiquitous. As a result, among other things, the public perception of the legal profession has been greatly diminished.

It should be the obligation of attorneys to improve upon the system of justice, not bring it down.

 

November 27th, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving

Two years ago at this time I wished one and all a Happy Thanksgiving as I celebrated my fifth year blogging. And I dressed up in a turkey suit for a local race.

I’m now past my seventh year as a blogger, and I still do the turkey costume for the race. And if you want to read why, you can click on that link I just provided.

I make only one request for Thanksgiving Day. Please try to spend it with friends and family, and not digital devices unless you’re using that phone function that many of them seem to have, to talk with important people in your life that couldn’t be with you.

And stay out of the stores. If you are foolish enough to go on Friday, don’t say you weren’t warned about the dangers.

Happy Thanksgiving one and all. May it be safe and festive, and may you give some thought to those who are not as well off as you likely are if you have the modest means needed to read this little blog.

 

November 25th, 2013

Who Will Be Injured On Thanksgiving Friday?

wal-mart-789124It happens every year like clock-work. The pleasant Friday after Thanksgiving gets turned into a commercial “holiday” as stores try to engineer a great rush on their front doors for the TV cameras.

A few high profile loss leaders for sale, lots of crowds, and free publicity.

Except that stores generally suck at crowd control, unless they are owned by Apple. And having engineered this wretched experience, some stores get more than they wished for as too-big-to-handle crowds show up.

I’ve written about this before, when a worker was killed in a Wal-Mart stampede.

The race by retailers to pull people away from their families with this nonsense has now extended to some stores forcing employees to forego the actual Thanksgiving holiday and come in and open the stores on that day. It’s a Thanksgiving celebration with no Thanksgiving.

My best hope is that, come next week, I get to say “I was wrong” with regard to the injuries, instead of “I told you so.” Sometimes I like being wrong.

Updated: Walmart chaos.

 

November 18th, 2013

Abe Lincoln, Jack Kennedy and Lawyering

Abraham-Lincoln-Trial-LawyerThis is a big week for anniversaries. On Friday it is 50 years since John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. And tomorrow is 150 years since Abraham Lincoln delivered his two-minute long Gettysburg address, in a scant 270 words or so, which I wrote about three years ago.

Lincoln left behind on that Gettysburg battlefield some of the most memorable language that we have regarding the future of our democracy, “whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.” He thought it important for the nation to resolve  “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

On the day Lincoln spoke for just a few minutes, so too did Edward Everett a noted politician of the day. He spoke for over two hours. Nobody quotes Everett.

One thing that Lincoln and Kennedy both left behind was the simple power of their words, in that they were able to enrich broader concepts. A simple search of quotes on Kennedy turns up these well-known words, and much more:

  • My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
  • Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.
  • Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
  • Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.

This leaves us with a few questions:

  1. What words are you using to communicate, and how many do you really need?
  2. What are you doing today that will cause people to remember you after you’re gone?
  3. What are other people doing in your name?