Comments for Overlawyered

Comment on Lawyers! Getcher hot “pearl-shucked” case leads! by Ron Miller

Ron Miller — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:07:31 +0000

I get an email from these folks every few weeks it seems.

Comment on Telling blonde jokes in workplace by L Nettles

L Nettles — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:55:30 +0000

Note that the top rated Blonde joke at the linked site is this.

There was a blonde who found herself sitting next to a Lawyer on an airplane. The lawyer just kept bugging the blonde wanting her to play a game of intelligence. Finally, the lawyer offered her 10 to 1 odds, and said every time the blonde could not answer one of his questions, she owed him $5, but every time he could not answer hers, he’d give her $50.00. The lawyer figured he could not lose, and the blonde reluctantly accepted.

The lawyer first asked, “What is the distance between the Earth and the nearest star?”

Without saying a word the blonde handed him $5. then the blonde asked, “What goes up a hill with 3 legs and comes back down the hill with 4 legs?”

Well, the lawyer looked puzzled. He took several hours, looking up everything he could on his laptop and even placing numerous air-to-ground phone calls trying to find the answer. Finally, angry and frustrated, he gave up and paid the blonde $50.00

The blonde put the $50 into her purse without comment, but the lawyer insisted, “What is the answer to your question?”

Without saying a word, the blonde handed him $5.

The moral being that the only group the public would like more to make fun of than blondes are lawyers.

Comment on “The video that helped put a man in prison for 22 years for running a stop sign” by Todd Rogers

Todd Rogers — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:22:41 +0000

I just don’t like it when a law professor, CNN, Fox, Drudge, etc…puts a completely B.S. spin on the headline. If a defendant was sent to prison for twenty two years for running a stop sign, whether or not a crafty video influenced it, we stop calling our courts “courts” and start calling them “star chambers.”

Comment on “The video that helped put a man in prison for 22 years for running a stop sign” by Bill Alexander

Bill Alexander — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:59:28 +0000

I believe the problem many of us have with the article is the slant that his crime was running a stop sign, rather than having 3 DUIs and still driving drunk and trying to evade the police and in the process killing someone. Personally I would be fine with limiting the victim impact videos to no longer than the criminal sympathy testimony.

Comment on Dov Charney chronicles, cont’d by mojo

mojo — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:08:54 +0000

A lawyer named Fink?

What’s that, truth in advertising?

Comment on Lawyers! Getcher hot “pearl-shucked” case leads! by PhilG

PhilG — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:55:48 +0000

This item brings up the subject of lawyer referral fees once again. Lawyers are the only professional group that considers it ethical to pay referral fees. The bar associations allow and approve referral fees as long as they are paid only to other lawyers.

In the sort of mass tort lawsuits that this company is dealing in, it is extremely common for ‘clients’ to be bought and sold, sometimes multiple times, with a typical referral fee being around a third of the contingency fee. The general public doesn’t realize that the lawyer advertising on TV or out on the Internet for mass tort clients is usually just a marketer, selling all the clients he collects to other lawyers. It is actually more lucrative to advertise for clients and then sell them to other lawyers than to do the actual work of representing clients.

If, for example, someone is injured in an auto accident, it is common for a relative or friend who happens to be a lawyer to offer to refer the victim to a “good personal injury lawyer”. But the victims aren’t aware that their relative or friend is probably making money off of their accident by collecting around a third or so of the contingency fee from the lawyer they have been referred to. Although bar association rules usually say the referral fee and its amount should be disclosed to the client, in practice it is always kept secret from the client, who thinks his or her lawyer relative or friend is just being altruistic.

But it appears that this company might be trying to collect money up front from its targeted lawyers, rather than taking the normal percentage payment of their referral fees from the contingency fees after the fact. If so, the targeted lawyers need to be very cautious indeed.

Comment on “The video that helped put a man in prison for 22 years for running a stop sign” by DAV

DAV — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:48:31 +0000

Mr. Frank, does that mean that if you found yourself as a defendant in a case involving a traffic fatality you wouldn’t think a similar video aimed at you wasn’t just a tad over-the-top? Given the circumstances you’ve described why would it be necessary to show the video to a jury at all? The prosecution was afraid the facts alone wouldn’t have justified the result without it? If so, then it tacitly admits the prejudicial nature of the video and a willingness to go that far to win.

Particular circumstances aside, Althouse raises an interesting — and troubling — issue.

Comment on “Chiropractor Sues Patient Over Negative Yelp Review” by someone

someone — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:33:09 +0000

I meant nosy

Comment on “Chiropractor Sues Patient Over Negative Yelp Review” by someone

someone — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:28:13 +0000

Hmm. I hope there aren’t any noisy neighbors around in my grandmother’s nursing home, when she complains about her latest doctor’s visit. I wouldn’t want her to get sued by said doctor.

Comment on Pork-handling and religious accommodation, cont’d by nevins

nevins — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 04:08:38 +0000

The perp’s got a slab of bacon and it’s like Kryptonite to me. Don’t nobody move. I’m calling for backup…