Posts tagged as:

patent quality

Don’t

by Walter Olson on September 22, 2008

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]

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May 2 roundup

by Walter Olson on May 2, 2008

  • Contriving to give Sheldon Silver the moral high ground: NY judges steamed at lack of raises are retaliating against Albany lawmakers’ law firms [NY Post and editorial. More: Turkewitz.]
  • When strong laws prove weak: Britain’s many layers of land use control seem futile against determined builders of gypsy encampments [Telegraph]
  • “U.S. patent chief: applications up, quality down” [EETimes]
  • Plenty of willing takers for those 4,703 new cars that survived the listing-ship near-disaster, but Mazda destroyed them instead [WSJ]
  • “Prof. Dohrn [for] Attorney General and Rev. Wright [for] Secretary of State”? So hard to tell when left-leaning lawprof Brian Leiter is kidding and when he’s not [Leiter Reports]
  • Yet another hard-disk-capacity class action settlement, $900K to Strange & Carpenter [Creative HDD MP3 Player; earlier. More: Sullum, Reason "Hit and Run".]
  • Filipino ship whistleblowers’ case: judge slashes Texas attorney’s fee, “calling the lawyer’s attempt to bill his clients nearly $300,000 ‘unethically excessive.’” [Boston Globe, earlier]
  • RFK Jr. Watch: America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure® endorses Oklahoma poultry litigation [Legal NewsLine]
  • Just what the budget-strapped state needs: NY lawmakers earmark funds for three (3) new law schools [NY Post editorial; PoL first, second posts, Greenfield]
  • In Indiana, IUPUI administrators back off: it wasn’t racial harassment after all for student-employee to read a historical book on fight against Klan [FIRE; earlier]
  • Fiesta Cornyation in San Antonio just isn’t the same without the flying tortillas [two years ago on Overlawyered]

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