. . .
B-W L “I told my client in a personal meeting face to face in the office that we were assigned a judge who would rule against us without reading any of the pleadings. Zero percent chance of success. An appeal was too expensive. The client said to proceed making the arguments and angle for an angle, some angle, any angle. You should always send a separate letter as an attachment to an e-mail and by snail mail to the client confirming your concerns that the outcome may not be favorable as discussed. I slow rolled things playing for time with no grand plan. Out of the blue, an entity moves and is allowed to intervene; the judge steps out of the case without comment. New judge takes over case; new judge follows the law; client prevails. You need to get lucky some times.”
W-E L S “We are spending the third year trading war stories like this in the student lounge.”
B-W L “And that part of the process is not even covered by tuition. I told another client that we drew the right judge and could expect a favorable outcome. Some judge gets deployed overseas to join in killing innocent folks and a new judge is assigned. A judge who liked to use the expression ‘a no-brainer’ and met that qualification. However, the argument required a brain. He employed his patented ‘no brainer’ analysis.”
W-E L S “Dead.”
B-W L “DOA. Upon notice of the reassignment, the first reaction was utter dread. Game over. A death notice from the court. You may not realize that your state still has the death penalty in civil cases. And not a shot was fired. How do you explain it to a client who is utterly disgusted with the whole process. He kept yelling that he wanted the first judge and wanted me to get the first judge back.”
. . .
B-W L “MSU is a military expression that applies to the law. Making Stuff Up. The facts and the law. No one will ask the fundamental question whether all the money, public and private, spent to indoctrinate a young law student is worth fomenting the illusion and delusion. Is there value in the truth?”
W-E L S “Can I get a refund on my tuition?”
. . .
B-W L “Few if any of your law professors ever practiced law. You are obligated to repeat and are rewarded for propagating the myth. That is the Game.”
. . .
[B-W L: Battle-Weary Lawyer; W-E L S: Wide-Eyed Law Student]
[See the e-commentary at Playin’ The Legal Game (March 28, 2011) and Assigning Blame: The Lawyers: 50 Percent; The Non-Lawyer Public: 50 Percent; The Judges: 100 Percent (December 3, 2012).]
Bumper stickers of the week:
“Your honor, we will be filing a motion this afternoon to transfer this case to an entirely different judicial system.” “The New Yorker” cartoon in office.
MSU: The motto of the American judicial system
A system of men and women not a system of laws.
The first thing we do let’s banish the American-acculturated judges.
e-commentary 