“….except in situations when an honest and straightforward approach will not be effective.” [David Hricik (citing not endorsing), Legal Ethics Forum]
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Posts tagged as:
ethics
We will not at present inquire whether the doctrine which is held on this subject by English lawyers be or be not agreeable to reason and morality; whether it be right that a man should, with a wig on his head, and a band round his neck, do for a guinea what, without those appendages, he would think it wicked and infamous to do for an empire; whether it be right that, not merely believing but knowing a statement to be true, he should do all that can be done by sophistry, by rhetoric, by solemn asseveration, by indignant exclamation, by gesture, by play of features, by terrifying one honest witness, by perplexing another, to cause a jury to think that statement false.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on Francis Bacon
The court said the conflicts between law firm Leeds Morelli and its clients’ interests in the employment case were so “enormous” that they could not be waived by the clients. Ethicist Stephen Gillers calls the ruling a “must read for the legal ethics crowd with jaw dropping allegations“. [ABA Journal, opinions, more documents, earlier coverage] More: Daniel Fisher, Forbes.
…consider this cautionary tale [Brian Tannebaum].
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The St. Petersburg Times explores the ethical issues raised by the practice of a Florida lawyer who “flies his six-seat Piper Malibu around Florida championing the cause of the little guy. His target: the big, bad banks.” The plan: charging upfront fees of up to $5,000, plus a contingency, for the privilege of enrolling in “mass joinder” suits demanding foreclosure relief.
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What better way to pick up that slow DJ business than to hitch a press release to a preposterous trademark infringement claim? Hint: It involves an utterly phenomenal battle between intellectual property and journalism in the the New York Post, which no one but the publicity-seeking plaintiff wins.
But first, our story:
“Jersey Shore” star Paul “Pauly D” DelVecchio was slapped with a $4 million trademark infringement lawsuit Thursday from a Connecticut DJ who claimed his business has been ruined by comparisons to the MTV personality.
Paul Lis of South Windsor, Conn., said he spent 40 years building up a reputation as the region’s “DJ Paulie” before DelVecchio began calling himself “DJ Pauly D” on television. . . .
“He formally trademarked [sic] the name ‘DJ Paulie’ and then came the ‘Jersey Shore’ which basically wiped him off the face of the map,” attorney Jose M. Rojas told NewsCore.
The lawsuit alleges that MTV itself flooded the internet with so much “Jersey Shore” content that it was virtually impossible to find Lis’ information or advertise on [sic] his website.
Sounds like rough going all around here — but believe me, it gets worse. And how much worse can it get? After all, how can you “ruin” someone who starts out as a “Connecticut DJ”? What exactly is the up side on that? Oh, $4 million you say? Who knew?
Of course, if you were to run a Google search for DJ PAULIE CONNECTICUT — or go crazy and use PAULY — right now… you’d have one heck of an easy time finding him, now that he’s got, not only two turntables and a microphone, but his own lawsuit!
All of which means proving damages should be a snap, right? Because this year, what with all the search-engine saturation his court filing has got him, Paulie will demonstrate that, best-case scenario, the DJ Paulie gig is a $4M proposition. And why should MTV deprive DJ Paulie of his best case? Trademark infringement-wise.
Or is it the other way around? Because now that sounds like all that infringerating is making things better, not worse. (Someone write this down: ”File lawsuit; enhance Google search results.”) Okay, we’ll let the jury sort that one out.
Well, how about the Post’s explanation of the theory of damages in the first place here? ”[I]t was virtually impossible to find Lis’ information or advertise on his website.” That makes it sound as if MTV was even flooding Lis’s website — to the point where you couldn’t even, um, advertise “on it.”
Typo, right? Well, the fine state of intellectual property journalism in New York is finally hammered home with this beaut later in the article:
Meanwhile, DelVecchio applied for a slew of US patents attempting to copyright his own moniker.
Whoa! Trademark… copyright … patents … monikers?
If indeed the test for a trademark infringement is a likelihood of confusion — and I’ve always been partial to the argument that it was — then there is definitely a trademark infringement here. Because after reading this article I, for one, am completely confused.
What a train wreck. Here the newspaper story about the lawsuit may be even worse than what reads like one pretty bad lawsuit. Good thing professional journalism is keeping that edge and saving society from that blogging stuff.
The biggest irony? The article doesn’t even mention the right of publicity — publicity being the the only thing DJ Paulie’s lawsuit definitely got right.
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Great moments in criminal defense, as revealed at a murder trial in Washington, D.C. [WaPo] Eric Turkewitz has many more links on the story, and also is put in mind of a lawyer advertising angle.
Ontario’s Law Society has rejected a would-be lawyer despite strong academic credentials because of concerns about his character, specifically episodes in which he harassed fellow apartment owners during a condo leadership fight and forged a letter supposedly from an owner. “Character” screening was once a common prerequisite for admission to the American bar, but fell largely into disuse following complaints that it could be subjective and applied unevenly. [Toronto Star]
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- Cato Institute scholars liveblog reaction to State of the Union speech and GOP response, plus video on Facebook with Gene Healy and Julian Sanchez, more video;
- Private store owners get beaten up for lack of ADA ramps. On the other hand, when the federal government is building courthouses… [Sun-Sentinel; earlier here and here]
- “Securities suits filed in 2010 again a record” [Business Insurance]
- Do mass tort “claims facilities” enable participants to bypass the strictures of legal ethics? [Monroe Freedman, Legal Ethics Forum]
- Latest workplace-retaliation ruling once more undermines “pro-business Supreme Court” narrative [Bader, Examiner, more]
- Jacob Sullum reviews Daniel Okrent book on Prohibition [Reason]
- Another “lawyers excited about coming wave of bet-the-company climate change suits” article [AFP]
- Dickie Scruggs: “It was never about the money for me, this litigation” [four years ago on Overlawyered]
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- What, no more monkeys or snakes? Starting March 15 new federal regulation will restrict definition of “service animals” to dogs alone [Central Kitsap Reporter, earlier, more]
- “Appeals court: SD prosecutor’s conduct denied man a fair trial” [San Diego Union-Tribune]
- A tale of local regulation: “A septic system at the crossroads” [Roland Toy, American Thinker]
- Firm sues Fark, Reddit, Yahoo, etc. etc. over 2002 patent on “structured news release generation and distribution,” draws rude reply from defendant TechCrunch;
- UK schools minister: “no touching pupils” policy keeps music teachers from doing their job [Telegraph]
- Legal ethicist Stephen Gillers hired at $950/hour to approve ethics of Ken Feinberg’s BP compensation fund work [two views: Andrew Perlman and Monroe Freedman; earlier, Byron Stier]. Per Ted at PoL, trial lawyers criticizing the arrangement “complain that BP is using the same tactic plaintiffs’ lawyers regularly use to prove their own ethics.”
- Is WordPress’s quirky “Hello Dolly” plugin a copyright infringement? [TechDirt]
- Congrats, you’re eligible for a job with the D.C. public school system [ten years ago on Overlawyered; more on criminal records and hiring, subject of a current EEOC crusade]
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- Jack Park on Bruesewitz v. Wyeth vaccine preemption case at Supreme Court [Heritage]
- Incidentally happening to assure lawyers more access to work: Harvard’s Tribe devises “access to justice” initiatives for Obama administration [BLT]
- New Haven cops accidentally photograph themselves deleting video of an unlawful arrest [Balko]
- How elite law culture miscomprehends the military [Second Circuit chief judge Dennis Jacobs speech at Federalist Society convention, YouTube]
- “Later, Bad Lawyer”: a blogger heads to prison [Greenfield]
- Reform medical liability? Depends on how badly you want neurosurgeons’ services [Michael Lavyne, NYDN]
- “Cab-rank principle” in legal ethics explained [Lawyers' Lawyer, Australia; via Legal Ethics Forum]
- $3.5 million award to unsuccessful suicide-while-in-custody is one of long series of such cases [six years ago on Overlawyered]
It’s remarkable how many lawyers’ websites use exactly the same phrasing in promoting their services. Mark Bennett finds out why, and identifies some ethical problems in boilerplate assurances that lawyers participating in the marketing campaign (including fledgling law grads) each have a “stellar record.”
Twelve ways lawyers try to gain (often unfair) advantage when interrogating captive opponents. [Maryland Bar Journal/SSRN via Legal Ethics Forum]
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The Human Rights Campaign has issued a report rating major law firms (among other large employers) on how well they address LGBT issues. It takes off points for law firms that have represented anti-gay clients, such as Foley & Lardner, which has represented opponents of gay marriage in litigation in the District of Columbia.
Many nonlawyers will not see anything unusual in this. The thing is, it’s a passionately held tenet of N.Y. Times-reader legal liberalism — sometimes, at least — that law firms must not be publicly shamed for electing to represent “bad” clients in important legal matters. After all, representing those clients does not necessarily mean they share the clients’ objectives or viewpoints. For example, former Bush administration defense official Cully Stimson was widely excoriated after he suggested that it was to the discredit of leading law firms that they had thrown a tremendous effort into the pro bono defense of Guantanamo detainees.
Elie Mystal at Above the Law and John Steele at Legal Ethics Forum are among those to raise the question whether there is any real consistency to all this. And does it make a difference whether the “bad” client is being represented pro bono, or is paying handsomely, as with Sen. Kristen Gillibrand’s repping of Big Tobacco as a young lawyer?
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Derek Jeter gets to first base by misleading the umpire, and debate ensues over his lack of apparent scruple. A parallel to lawyers’ ethics in adversary factfinding? [Freedman and Vischer, Legal Ethics Forum]
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Are they OK when lawyers do them? Such at least is the view attributed to one law school ethics expert [Daniel Fisher/Forbes]
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- Shameless: House leadership exempts NRA lest it sink bill to regulate political speech [John Samples, Cato]
- Employment law: “Arbitration Showdown Looms Between Congress, Supreme Court” [Coyle, NLJ]
- “Wake Up, Fellow Law Professors, to the Casualties of Our Enterprise” [Tamanaha, Balkinization]
- Move to allow international war crimes trials over “aggression,” a notoriously slippery term [Anderson, Brett Schaefer/NRO "Corner" via Ku]
- Litigation slush funds: “Cy pres bill in Ohio House” [Ted Frank, CCAF]
- “Recent Michigan Prosecutions for ‘Seducing an Unmarried Woman’” [Volokh]
- Scalia: “…least analytically rigorous and hence most subjective of law-school subjects, legal ethics” [LEF]
- Silicosis settlement scandal update: “As 2 Insurance Execs Admit Bribes, PI Lawyer Says He Can’t Be Retried” [Houston Chronicle via ABA Journal, earlier]
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