Speaking at Emory today is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Atlanta police shooting aftermath is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

July 9 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

More on railroad trespassers here, here, here, etc.

“4-year-old survives being hit by train” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

• His meritless suit against the DC Circuit (followed by a self-defeating appeal to the Supreme Court, where there was no quorum because he had sued seven of the justices)
• his follies in the Palfrey case and in an earlier 2006 Florida prostitution case; and
• his vexatious pro se work in family court.

And we didn’t even mention his work representing Larry Sinclair (the fellow who unsuccessfully sued Barack Obama for denying Sinclair’s implausible claim that he had engaged in a homosexual tryst with him) in a lawsuit against three anonymous bloggers. (DBKP blog, Mar. 14.)

After years of over-the-top abusive litigation, the state bar finally took action, and he has been suspended by the Florida bar for three years. No doubt, this will result in a new round of frivolous pro se collateral litigation. It took a contempt-of-court citation for failure to pay child support before the Florida bar took action, so this can hardly be considered a rousing success of the bar in policing its own, even for someone as over-the-top as Sibley. (Florida Bar v. Sibley; ABA Journal, Apr. 25; MPGS blog, May 14; h/t S.G.).

Update: Two commenters (who never appeared on Overlawyered before) implausibly defend Sibley, both posting from BellSouth accounts in Atlanta, GA. Nothing about a divorce requires one to sue seven Supreme Court justices for “judicial treason” for denying a (frivolous) certiorari petition from a frivolous lawsuit. He should have been disbarred a long time ago; that he is only being suspended, and then only because of failure to obey court orders, is appalling. He’s been a hazard to his clients and to taxpayers; so, no, I don’t think he’s a “damn good lawyer.”

Update, May 16, 2:45 AM: We originally repeated a second-hand report sent to us that Sibley had also been suspended in DC as part of reciprocal discipline. It is possible that our correspondent confused a Rule 8.1 report, made by the DC Bar counsel recommending reciprocal suspension, with an actual suspension. If a Rule 8.1 report was filed, Sibley is entitled to file a response; no oral argument is scheduled at this time (though none is required to be scheduled) and no DC Board on Professional Responsibility report is listed as having issued with respect to Sibley. Rule 8.4 of the DC Board on Professional Responsibility Rules of Procedure is titled “Conclusive Effect of Adjudication in Other Jurisdiction,” which would appear to give Sibley nothing to argue in DC, and would likely make discipline inevitable, but the District of Columbia, in its typical competence, has posted the wrong text for 8.4 on its website, so I cannot say that for certain. Montgomery Sibley is, as of May 16, still listed on the DC Bar’s website as a member in good standing. If the error is ours, rather than that of the DC Bar website, we regret the error. Without written confirmation of the suspension, we retract the original statement that the DC Bar has suspended Sibley in response to the Florida bar’s three-year suspension of Sibley.

Update, May 20: We were right the first time.

Montgomery Blair Sibley suspended is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The Jonathan Lee Riches docket is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Roundup, March 15 is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Viewers were invited to play the “Lucky Case Game” by choosing which of six on-screen gold briefcases was the lucky case. Viewers submitted their choice on the Internet for free or through a text message that cost 99 cents. At the end of the program, the winning briefcase was revealed, and the winners were entered into a random drawing. The winner of that drawing received a prize of as much as $10,000.

One enterprising Georgia lawyer claims that this amounts to illegal gambling and has filed a class action lawsuit to obtain refunds of the 99 cent text message fees (plus attorneys fees, of course):

When a Forsyth County couple sent 99-cent text messages trying to win a prize on the NBC game show “Deal or No Deal,” they engaged in illegal gambling and should get their money back, a lawyer told the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday.

So should all other Georgians who sent text messages in the show’s “Lucky Case Game” and lost, lawyer Jerry Buchanan said. A judge hearing the case has estimated the bounty could reach tens of millions of dollars.

The case has been report to the state Supreme Court for the answers to two questions:

1. Does Georgia law allow losers of an illegal lottery to recover the money they lost?

2. And, if so, may the losers recover that money from the lottery’s promoter or organizer?

No mention of the third question.

(Atlanta Journal & Constitution, ajc.com, Feb. 27)

Since the suit was filed, the game has stopped.

Deal or Raw Deal? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The National Council of State Legislatures details a range of complaints made against some of the collectors:

* written and oral communications with obligees designed to look or sound like they are from the state child support agency or other government entity,

* repeated harassment of employers, family members and neighbors of obligors,

* keeping as payment for services 50% or more of support collected,

* intercepting current support payments from the state agency to apply to back support they contracted to collect for the obligee,

* charging a fee for collections made by the state agency,

* refusing to terminate contracts when requested by the obligee, and

* requesting income withholding from employers without proper authority.

In Florida the state attorney general took enforcement action against one firm: “Stuart C. Cole, operator of Child Support Services of Atlanta, Inc., was fined $250,000 for violating a 2006 injunction obtained by the Attorney General’s Office after the company was accused of taking child support payments and threatening those responsible for providing the funds.” More on collector regulation: National Center for Youth Law, National Women’s Law Center. A relatively early journalistic account of the industry was Tamar Lewin, “Collecting Child Support: Private Firms Help Single Parents Get What’s Due”, New York Times, May 21, 1994 (search at Times site). More on child support collection: Feb. 19, 2005, etc.

Child support collection, for a percentage is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

November 2 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system