Before asking a federal judge to grant preliminary approval for a class action settlement with Ameritrade over alleged privacy breaches, make sure that your “client,” the class representative, isn’t going to tell the court he opposes the settlement. In re TD Ameritrade Account Holder Litigation, Case No. C 07-2852 VRW (N.D. Cal.) ($1.87M for the attorneys, coupons for the class.).
Tagged as:
CCAF,
class action settlements,
class actions,
coupon settlements,
don't,
privacy
- Pennsylvania Department of Labor launches probe on whether reality-TV show “Jon & Kate Plus 8″ violates child labor laws [Pennsylvania Labor & Employment Blog, Hirsch/Workplace Law Prof via Ohio Employer's Law]
- Dispute over termination of Navy aircraft contract called “Jarndyce v. Jarndyce of U.S. legal system” [WSJ Law Blog]
- Medical tourism, cont’d: “It appears that ‘we’re easier to sue’ is the uniquely American defense to medicine outsourcing.” [KevinMD]
- New Oklahoma law protects farmers from neighbors’ suits complaining of nuisance from farm activity [Enid, Okla., News]
- For unusually bad advice on how to save GM and Detroit, Michael Moore as usual comes through [Popehat]
- Lawyer reprimanded for telling party she should be cut up, shipped overseas [NJLJ, ABA Journal]
- Call for reform of UK laws banning press interviews of jurors after verdict [Times Online first, second articles and commentary]
- Coming soon: campaign against depiction of smoking in Raymond Chandler books, Edward Hopper paintings [CEI "Open Market"]
Tagged as:
agriculture and farming,
Detroit,
don't,
medical,
Michael Moore,
nuisance,
Oklahoma,
Pennsylvania,
tobacco,
United Kingdom
Maybe we need to create some “super-Don’t” label for when a story like this comes along: “A defense attorney and former federal prosecutor whose clients have included rap stars and a soldier at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was charged Wednesday with arranging the killing of one witness and trying to hire a hit man to kill another.” [AP/1010WINS]
Tagged as:
defense lawyers,
don't,
New Jersey,
Paul Bergrin
- Eeeeuw! Missouri woman’s suit says she was groped by Chuck E. Cheese mascot [Heller/OnPoint News] Parade of other bad things that can happen at theme enterprises and amusement parks [Lemondrop.com]
- “The Doctor Will Sue You Now”: why chapter about scientist-turned-vitamin salesman and his relations with African-leader “AIDS dissidents” is missing from book by British writer Ben Goldacre [BoingBoing]
- Just trying to make an honest living? “A former federal prosecutor who became one of New Jersey’s brashest and best-known criminal defense lawyers pleaded guilty today to helping run an exclusive Manhattan call-girl ring.” [Newark Star-Ledger via ABA Journal]
- “Perez Hilton Sends DMCA Takedown Over Anti-Gay-Marriage Ad” [Citizen Media Law]
- How not to get excused from jury service [Lowering the Bar; Montana, via Smoking Gun, etc.]
- Multiplied vexation: “Stopping a serial suer” [SE Texas Record]
- If exhortation does any good: “Judge Exhorts Class Action Lawyers to Forestall Feeding Frenzy Over Fees” [Henry Gottlieb, NJLJ]
- More on bodega raids by rogue Philadelphia narcotics unit [Radley Balko, earlier here and here]
Tagged as:
amusement parks,
don't,
feeing frenzy,
New Jersey,
Philadelphia,
police
Don’t offer reductions in your legal fees to clients who agree to have sex with you (Florida lawyer James Harvey Tipler, disbarred over offenses that also included having “altered evidence and caused a witness to unknowingly give false testimony”, taken clients’ money and neglected their cases, and much more).
Tagged as:
don't,
Florida
More things it would be better to avoid doing if you’re a lawyer:
- Claim to be assetless and thus unable to make restitution for the largest theft of state money in Massachusetts history even though you live in a $1.5 million Florida house with a $70K BMW and other goodies [Boston Herald, Globe, disbarred attorney Richard Arrighi]
- Botch appeals and then refrain from telling clients their cases have been lost [Clifford Van Syoc, reprimanded by New Jersey high court; NJLJ; seven years ago]
- Attempt to deduct “more than $300,000 in prostitutes, p0rn, sex toys and erotic massages” on your income tax returns, even if you are “thought of as a good tax lawyer” [NY Post] Nor ought you to accept nude dances from a client as partial payment for legal fees [Chicago Tribune; for an unrelated tale of a purportedly consensual lap dance given by secretary to partner, see NYLJ back in April]
- Introduce a patent application purportedly signed in part by someone who in fact had been dead for a year or two [Law.com/The Recorder, Chicago's Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro, of blog-stalking fame, client's patent declared unenforceable] Or pursue a patent-infringement case based on what a federal judge later ruled to be a “tissue of lies” [NYLJ; New York law firm Abelman, Frayne & Schwab and lawyer David Jaroslawicz, ordered to pay opponents' legal fees; earlier mentions of Jaroslawicz at this site here, here, here, and here]
- Demand ransom for a stolen Leonardo da Vinci painting [biggest U.K. art theft ever, all defendants have pleaded not guilty, LegalWeek via ABA Journal]
Tagged as:
don't,
Massachusetts,
New Jersey,
patent litigation,
patent quality,
Patent Troll Tracker,
strippers and exotic dancers,
taxes
They shouldn’t include hiring a felon to put the strong arm on deadbeat clients. Attorney Mark Blevins of Wheeling, W.Va., a Republican candidate for county prosecutor, denies the charges. [Lawrence Smith, “Wheeling attorney faces suspension for using felon to collect debts”, West Virginia Record, Aug. 22; Joselyn King, “Lawyer faces license suspension”, Wheeling Intelligencer, Aug. 26) (via ABA Journal).
Tagged as:
don't,
West Virginia
Really, we couldn’t make it up: after raiding the Hot Lap Dance Club on W. 38th St. in Manhattan as a front for prostitution, police arrested lawyer Louis Posner and 22 others as part of the enterprise, which allegedly skimmed earnings from girls who entertained customers in private rooms for fees as high as $5,000. “Posner, once known as the king of nuisance lawsuits, brought a landmark $16 million suit against his then-4-year-old son’s nursery school in 1992 for letting the child run out of his classroom.” (New York Daily News first, second, third, fourth story). Posner, who more recently has concentrated on such areas of practice as taxes, trusts and estates, is reviled by several sources in the New York Daily News’s coverage for hitting on the girls himself, to their frequent disgust. Incomparable detail: cops claim Posner funneled the brothel profits through a political activist group called Voter March, which he set up after the disputed Bush-Gore election in 2000. (ABA Journal, New York Times). Fair labor practices angle: “The pair [of interviewed dancers] estimated that 120 women worked there. Some were Americans who operated as independent contractors and paid $80 a night in ‘house fees;’ others were Russians who worked to pay off debts to their handlers.” And we can’t leave this out: “The club last made news in March when it was sued by a securities trader who claimed he was seriously injured when a lap-dancing stripper swiveled and slammed him in the face with her shoe.” More: Above the Law, New York Observer.
Tagged as:
don't,
NYC,
strippers and exotic dancers
Another bunch of things not to do if you’re a member of the legal profession.
- Send insulting letters to opposing counsel. (G.F. Pignato, ordered to write an article about civility.) [Legal Profession Blog via ABA Journal]
- Leave your innocent client in jail by failing to act on new evidence. (William S. Gebbie, surrenders his California license; also accused of stealing client funds.) [ABA Journal]
- Use the NY Yankees trademark without permission in advertising for asbestos clients. [ATL]
- Make “jerk-off” motions in court. (Adam Reposa, Texas, sentenced to ninety days for contempt of court; many in blogosphere are appalled at what they call an overreaction.) [ATL; Simple Justice; Mark Bennett and again; and Patterico notes an interesting coincidence]
- Mock the plaintiffs’ attorney at a jury trial with “Overruled” signs and soccer-style red cards. (Judge James M. Brooks, admonished.) [ATL]
- As a prosecutor, conceal exculpatory evidence. (Former Sonoma County Deputy District Attorney Brooke Halsey Jr., suspended.) [ABA Journal]
- And even if you’re a pro se, don’t send a death threat to opposing counsel by fax. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]
Earlier: Feb. 24.
Tagged as:
asbestos,
don't,
ethics,
pro se,
roundups,
trademark
Another bunch of things not to do if you’re a member of the legal profession.
- Don’t get caught pursuing forged fen-phen claims. (Robert Arledge, Vicksburg, Mississippi, sentenced to 6.5 years, the only lawyer to date to be sentenced in a much larger fen-phen scandal.) [ABA Journal]
- Don’t try to dissuade a witness from testifying at a deposition. (Cleary Gottlieb, which said it would appeal the judge’s order of sanctions.) [WSJ Law Blog]
- Don’t inflate your GPA and include fake awards on your resume. (Gregory Haun, DC, recommended for suspension, resigned his six-digit BigLaw associate job.) [Legal Times]
- Don’t end your jury service by casting a vote to break a deadlock and then sign a statement drafted by the plaintiffs’ attorney asking for a new trial saying that you did so so you can return to work. (California bar has recommended disbarment for Francis Fahy.) [ABA Journal; Recorder ($); Law.com ($)]
- Don’t steal money from your clients by forging their signatures on insurance company releases to get their settlement money. (Richard Boder, New York, caught as part of a larger scandal involving the illegal use of paid runners to bribe hospital employees about auto accident injuries, sentenced to a year in prison.) [NY Law Journal]
- Don’t read Maxim in the courtroom. (Todd Paris, held in contempt by North Carolina judge.) [WSJ Law Blog]
- Don’t have an affair with a judge you’re practicing in front of, or vice versa. (Federal Way, WA, Municipal Court judge Colleen Hartl resigned after bragging about an affair with public defender Sean Cecil, who still has 5 Avvo stars for professional conduct, but has been the subject of a formal complaint to the bar.) [AP/Post-Intelligencer; Federal Way News; Lat]
(Earlier: Nov. 5, etc.)
Tagged as:
Cleary Gottlieb,
don't,
ethics,
fen-phen,
hospitals,
mass tort fraud,
Mississippi,
North Carolina,
Seattle
More things you really shouldn’t do if you’re a lawyer:
- While having an affair with a married client, draft a will for him in which he leaves you nearly $5 million from his estate (Orange County, N.Y. estate lawyer Michele Okin, already disbarred over unrelated client fraud; a judge threw out the will)(New York Law Journal)
- Hire a thug to rough up clients who owe you money (former Winnipeg immigration lawyer Ingrid Chen, sentenced to 18 months behind bars)(CBC)(more at Legal Juice)
- Serve as straw man for a 3,000-client bogus accident ring (now-disbarred Solomon Kaplan, convicted in New York of witness tampering and making false statements to an FBI agent, though the Second Circuit vacated his insurance fraud convictions on account of judicial error)(New York Law Journal)
Tagged as:
don't,
ethics
Don’t kidnap your client in an attempt to collect your legal fees from him, or recoup the bond money you advanced. Especially not if you’re going to be taking him away from his wedding celebration. It’s just plain wrong, so don’t do it, okay? (”Lawyer Allegedly Kidnaps Client Over Fees”, AP/ABC News, Jan. 13)(Waco, Texas).
Tagged as:
don't,
ethics
When riding in an elevator with jurors who’ve just rendered a verdict against your client, avoid calling them “crackers” to their face (John Shiffman, “Workers’ bias suit ends in win, slur”, Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 20).
Tagged as:
don't
Point of Law