02 « May « 2004 « f/k/a archives . . . real opinions & real haiku

May 2, 2004

no if’s or but’s, we’re staying

Filed under: pre-06-2006 — David Giacalone @ 9:30 pm

That big, ugly No Yabuts sign arrived today over our cyber transom. We’re stirred, but not shaken by it.

It’s only been a week since we announced the creation of prof. yabut’s journal (and the retirement of that ethicalEsq character). We couldn’t possibly have made any enemies yet; indeed, we apparently haven’t had any readers yet. In the honored tradition of the Free Press, pyj will not be cowed — nor branded. Being born (and born-again) contrarians, this just makes us want to yabut ourselves silly.

Yeah, but, we’ve nevertheless been doing some soul-searching, and even forced ourselves to read this week’s entire pyj output. To be honest, a lot of it sounds ghost-written by the Former Editor — just too heavy. So, the pyj gang promises to get serious about getting unserious (at least most of the time). Law Day‘s behind us, as is Evan’s defense of the standard contingency fee. We have fully vented about the venality of our youth, too, It should be a lot easier to start carping and kvetching with a twinkle in our eye, rather than a lump in our throat or an ache in our belly. What could possibly ruin our profound new feeling of serenity and detachment?
Please let us know how we’re doing. . .

Comments Off

Schaeffer on the Ethics of Contingency Fees

Filed under: pre-06-2006 — David Giacalone @ 5:41 pm

%key small Our former editor made us promise to point to the much-anticipated posting on the ethics of contingency fees by personal injury lawyer and bon vivant Evan Schaeffer. Well, it came out yesterday, at Notes from the (Legal) Underground, and you can find it right here.

Although recently retired, ethicalEsq left his usual prolix comments at Evan’s place, and he and Evan, plus Beldar, continued the conversation, in what some may even consider an interesting debate, which you are invited to join. As you may recall, ethicalEsq is far from comfortable with the use of the standard contingency fee. Evan defends its use, but is mensch enough to link to ethicalEsq’s arguments, so we don’t have to.
thanks, evan. Now that Evan has fulfilled his pledge to write about contingency fees, he can go back to the far more entertaining fare that can normally be found at his Underground weblog.

“$key small” . .

Comments Off

the marshall and the cellphone

Filed under: pre-06-2006 — David Giacalone @ 8:27 am

Yesterday, just when I needed some lawyer humor, Craig Williams posted about his recent run-in at court with the cellphone police. Actually, it concerned one of them new-fangled picture-takin’, call-makin’, bread-bakin’ PDAs. [In my day, a PDA was a public display of affection, and not a provocative device of annoyance.] Being a man who hates to be inconvenienced, but who has an admirable sense of humor, Craig has supplied us with his usual dose of understated whimsy, plus lots of links concerning both cellphone nannies and courthouse personnel.

lawyer cellphone small flip Having been forced to go through court metal detectors a second time on too many occasions (often to feed the one-hour parking meters that surround the Family Court in Schenectady — do not get me started on parking meters!), I am not totally unsympathetic to Craig’s plight. On the other hand, having vented over cellphone use in many other circumstances (e.g., here), it should surprise no one that this old fogey is siding with the miffed marshalls and the jaundiced jurists. Cellphones and tiny cameras don’t belong in the courtroom (not to mention the guns made to look like cellular telephones).

Update (05-03-04): See this warning from law.com: “Most federal courthouses ban two items: weapons … and cell phones. For other courts, lawyers and clients would be wise to check local rules. But there does seem to be one consistent rule of thumb for cell phones: If you bring it to court, one day it will ring — and it will cost you.” [Thanks to Nancy for the pointer.]

Non Sequitur Postscript: I’m not an investor, but I want to thank the folks at Google for making it so easy for me to find stuff on my own weblog. We don’t have search capabilities, but even if we did, it couldn’t be quicker than the eyeblink it takes to locate a posting that I want to link to or use to refresh my ever-foggier recollection. Guess I’m not a Total Luddite.

Comments Off