2010 Legal Wrap Up Part II
This is the year that twitter legal went mainstream I’ll start the follow-up to the Legal Wrap Up Part I with two exceptional legal Twitter profiles:
Attorney Andy Miofsky ends his 140 character bio with “Let’s go kill something.” Love his twitter picture as well.
Anerio Altman – self described “short angry little bankruptcy Attorney. . . .”. I’d like him to meet the attorney who writes this blog: The Angry Redheaded Lawyer and propagate the industry with Short Angry Little Redheaded Tweeting Blogging Lawyers.
Not to miss a chance for an end of your list, Paris Hilton live tweeted a home invasion by a man armed with “two big knifes” and even used her cell camera to bring you the image below:
Facebook Ooopsie
If you are going to practice bigamy, may I suggest not posting your second wedding photos on Facebook like John France did. (Or perhaps its just a little known custom for a groom to wear white on his second wedding?)
Worst Cosmetic Surgery Billboard
I’m not sure what I like least about this drive by ad – the cat, the tuxedo, the champagne, the cat in the tuxedo, or the questionable tagline.
Cosemetic Surgery I Didn’t Know About
Want to look even cuter? Try a “totally adjustable cosmetic dimple” from surgeon Dr. Gal Aharonov. Change your mind . . . don’t worry, its reversible.
Worst Legal Team Building Exercise
Attorney Steven Eggleston, was prepared for trust falls and toasted marshmallows for the firm retreat, but not hiking naked with other men, sharing sexual history with your boss, and passing around wooden dildos. When he refused to go to the ManKind Project campground, Eggleston alleges his boss, John Bisnar had his salary slashed to zero. Eggleston is filing suit and is now at a new law firm where he looks forward to business casual Fridays.
Lamest Lawyer Photo
Not to be outdone by the easy-to-reach bottled water and velvet (yes velvet) walls of his home office, Steven Gibson was so important he didn’t even have time to remove his headset for his photo op. Check out more about the “Legal Attack Dog” whose business model consists of buying copyrights from newspapers and then suing copyright violators.
Legal Typo
According to a lawsuit filed against 5 Hour Energy, the company was responsible for the death of a man who drank a 5 Hour Energy drink six months after his death. When typos meet marketing copy it can get even worse . . . consider the case of South Dakota lawyer Manny De Castro who took out a Yellowbook ad reading “The Trial Lawyer Fighting For Your Justics.” He’s suing Yellowbook for lost revenue and humiliation.
Finally on to the year end awards . . .
Google Ambulance Chasing Award
The award is shared by the lawyers who bid on terms like “BP Oil Spill” and “BP Lawsuit” and to BP who spent an estimated one million a month buying those same terms in an attempt to divert traffic to their “Learn More about How BP is Helping” pages. I can only imagine the click fraud coming out of the EPA offices.
I Hate My Customers Award
How do you respond to customer feedback? If you are AT&T you get your legal department to threaten litigation – which is just what happened to Giorgio Galante who had the temerity to send two emails to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson in one week. Galante was threatened with a cease and desist order if he dared email Stephenson again.
December 16th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Good read. I’m glad to hear that Avvo I’d continuing to grow. It has been an interesting past three years for many of us. It has been nice to have a site like Avvo along the way.
Best,
Jason Beahm
December 16th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
I enjoyed reading all the stories in this post, but the one that really stands out is that about Steve Gibson who is using the law solely to make money – without any moral/ethical legitimacy. To simply start a federal law suit for every copyright infringement is ludicrous, despite the fact that its legal to do so. So many people have no idea of what the applicable law is that, to me, its incumbent upon the newspaper and their legal staff to at least give fair warning and a fair opportunity to take down the offensive posting of their material.
Of course, it won’t result in as much money for Mr. Gibson and his firm, but he wasn’t really entitled to it anyway in my view. He is unfortunately giving lawyers a bad name with what I consider his hypervigilant greedy attitude that is purposefully tailored to collect as much money as possible for even the slightest infringment – even from those who have no monetary gain – just for the purpose of making money.
This is my viewpoint, but its copyrighted, so don’t make copies or I’ll sue you.