Thanks to Carolyn Elefant of My Shingle.com for this post at Law.com Legal Blog Watch pointing out this article on the disposition of the OSC against the lawyer who told a judge she was “a few French fries short of a Happy Meal,” an event I first blogged about here. It didn’t turn out nearly as badly for the lawyer as the original OSC suggested it might. Perhaps the judge issued the OSC in a fit of pique and had a chance to calm down before the hearing. Maybe she saw some of the blogger comments, like those here or here. Above the Law had several posts following the progress…
-
-
Disrespect . . . With All Due Respect
“I suggest to you with respect, Your Honor, that you’re a few French fries short of a Happy Meal in terms of what’s likely to take place.” This statement to a judge was made by (a) a newly minted, naive lawyer; (b) a renegade solo criminal defense attorney; (c) a criminal defendant; (d) a partner from a prestigious, nationally recognized, Chicago-based law firm. Answer: (d). The remark earned him an order to show cause as to why he should not be suspended from practice before the court and have his pro hac vice admission revoked. See Above the Law for the full story. Some commenters there actually take the judge…
-
Blogging about Judges Can Be Dangerous
Most lawyers like to know a little about any judge they are going to appear before in a case. If a judge is new to them, they ask around. What do other lawyers think? Does the judge normally permit aggressive discovery? Are her settlement conferences productive? Does he ask a lot of questions, or does he generally leave that to the other judges on the panel? So it’s no surprise to me that a blog to discuss judicial performance has arisen in at least one jurisdiction. Kevin O’Keefe at Lexblog links to a Florida blog to which lawyers posted their opinions regarding judicial performance. Now an ethics complaint against a…
-
A Different Kind of Monkey Trial – How Not to Allege Judicial Bias
Monkeys and the law don’t seem to get along. The famous 1925 “Scopes Monkey Trial” was the prosecution of a high school teacher who taught that mankind descended from apes. An article linked here today by Howard Bashman at the How Appealing blog reports that a Delaware attorney was reprimanded by that state’s Supreme Court for writing in a lower court brief that, among other things, the county board whose decision he was disputing might as well have been composed of monkeys: The briefs were part of an appeal to Superior Court disputing a decision by New Castle County Board of License, Inspection & Review, in which he made several…