Pittsburgh Legal Newslog:CAN-SPAM Statute Does Not Create Private Cause of Action for Spam Recipients, 9th Circuit Says.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle

August 8, 2009 Jurist

Category: Uncategorized

Rivers Casino Opens Sunday. You Don’t Have To Go There. Ever.

Local news broadcasters are providing a great deal of free advertising to the grand opening of the Rivers Casino. The City, County and State can’t wait to start receiving their share of the take. The excitement is growing by the minute. The financial success of this enterprise is guaranteed whether or not you and I participate. So let’s not.

Except, of course, to watch the fireworks. That’s free.

On the other hand, there is one good thing that may have been overlooked: It will provide lots and lots of work for lawyers.

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

The Anonymous Lawyer is Having a Field Day with Jones Day and Other Biglaw Interoffice Literature.

After a steady diet of depressing news, you may need a good belly laugh. Quit reading about Biglaw and its transparent attempts to pass off austerity measures as farsightedness in Above the Law. Read about them in The Anonymous Lawyer in our blogroll (look right, scroll down). You’ll find the AL version much funnier.

And to get you started laughing, here’s an internal memo that appeared today in the WSJ Law Blog. No, its not a real law firm internal memo — it just has the look and feel of one.

By the way, if you are a managing partner thinking about writing a memo to the yearlings, read a few Anonymous Lawyer posts. It may protect your memo from getting top billing tomorrow morning in Above the Law, followed by immortality in Anonymous Lawyer.

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

LA Fitness Shootings

Nobody was suspicious when a gym bag was brought into a health club by a man dressed in workout clothes. Chances are, most of the people at LA Fitness were carrying them. This made the shooting spree that occurred at the Collier Township facility for all practical purposes, unpreventable.

It has been only a few months since three City of Pittsburgh Police officers were gunned down while responding to a routine domestic dispute call. And this latest event took place not far from the site of some of the Baumhammer multiple killings, still fresh in the memory of Pittsburghers. Is this going to become a regular event? Will we cease to feel that wave of shock and disgust when we first hear about it? Will it become so common that it will effect too many of our lives, like casualties in a war of attrition?

Security stations have multiplied. You cannot go into the courthouse or PNC Park or Heinz Field without passing through some kind of security check. But there are many more places where people congregate by the hundreds or thousands. Too many to cover them all.

So, what else are we to do about security? Put in metal detectors everywhere? Search bags at the door everywhere?

The truth is, that as devastating as such a tragedy is, the chances of it happening at this or at any other specific location are incredibly small. We will just have to live with the risk and go on with our lives.

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

Pittsburgh Legal Newslog: Congratulations to Judge Marmo

Posted by Cliff Tuttle

Michael Marmo, an Allegheny County lawyer who has served on the Board of Viewers for several years, has been appointed a judge of the Court of Common Pleas by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate. According to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Judge Marmo will begin to serve on September 1.

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

A Short Sermon from the Foothills of the Beer Summit.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle

Perhaps this has been stated elsewhere. But I haven’t seen it in anything I’ve read, so I’m saying it now.

“Skip” Gates, a Harvard professor who is on a first name basis with the President of the United States and has a world class academic reputation couldn’t do it. Neither can you.

No matter what the situation, hold your temper when in the presence of a police officer. Speak politely and quietly. Do not become indignant, even if the officer’s conduct is outrageous. Do not attempt to take control of the situation in any way.

Otherwise, please carry a lawyer’s card in your wallet and call him or her from jail.

End of Sermon.

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

He Said, She Said.

I am not the only writer who is having problems accommodating the rapid change in the role of the sexes. In my law school graduating class of 1973 (deep in the last century) there were only a handful of women. Today, law school classes everywhere are about equally divided. The profession as a whole has already reflected that change. Exactly half of the judges in Philadelphia are members of the fair sex. (Are we still allowed to say that?)

So, it is with considerable justification that many writers are dropping the word “he” as the default designation for an unnamed lawyer or other role that was once primarily a male preserve. When a writer wants to refer to some lawyer, any lawyer, in the third person, she may decide to use the feminine version of the adverb, at least some of the time.

But which “some of the time”?

Am I the only male who worries that I may be perceived as making a sexist comment if I use “she” in a context that may be stereotypical or derogatory?

“Every practitioner must be concerned about whether she is dividing her time properly between work and family.”

“Maybe nobody has ever told her that she is an insufferable bore.”

Now try those sentences with the traditional “he/she” designation we sometimes like to use:

“Every practitioner must be concerned about whether he or she is dividing his or her time properly between work and family.”

“Maybe nobody has ever told him or her that he or she is an insufferable bore.”

Pretty awkward, huh? Now try the non-specific “they” that is a common place-holder, with the grammar corrected:

“Practitioners must be concerned about whether they are dividing their time properly between work and family.”

“Maybe nobody has ever told them that they are insufferable bores.”

Well, kind of, but not quite the same. People don’t make work-family decisions as a group. Being boring is not usually a group activity — although I can think of several exceptions. Using the plural when you mean the singular is sometimes satisfactory and sometimes not. Usually, we rewrite the sentence to eliminate the problem.

But we shouldn’t have to do this. We need, by common consent, to develop a third person singular pronoun (other than the neuter “it” that could stand for both he or she, as well as his or hers. One legal blogger I read this morning (a female) seems to have resolved the matter by using “she” all of the time. That is one solution, but I don’t like it. Reverse discrimination.

I have seen a few tentative uses of the word “s/he”. You might need a footnote for a while to explain the meaning, which is “he or she”, or more correctly, “she or he”. Will this work? Can you say the following phrase with a straight face?

“S/he said, s/he said.”

Now, what about “his” and hers”? “Hirs”?

Then there’s “him”/”her” and “himself/herself” to truncate. Any ideas?

Oh, well. Maybe I’ll try “s/he” out occasionally, together with an asterisk. After all, if somebody doesn’t like it, what can s/he* do about it?

CLT

*he or she

Category: Uncategorized

Dumb Media Question of the Day: Sports Edition.

The TV personalities who report sports are running around at the Steeler’s training camp this week, sticking microphones in front of any player in sight and asking something like: “Will the civil suit against Roethlisberger be a distraction this camp/season/year?”

The only thing more predictable than the answer is the question.

CLT

PS: For the answer, look in the comments.

Category: Uncategorized

If You Want Me To Read Your Book . . .

. . . publish a Kindle edition.

Books take up room on the shelf, in a carrying case, everywhere.

If I download your book to my Kindle, it won’t stay on the shelf. I won’t have to remember to take it with me to a place and time when I can read. If I have my Kindle, I have your book with me. I’ll read it. Probably not today, but I’ll read it.

Books cost real money and take real time to read. Kindle gives me a free sample so I can decide whether to commit scarce time and money to a particular book. While the Kindle price of $9.99 is still a significant investment (especially when I may be able to buy a used paperback on Amazon.com for much less), I’ll pay it for a book I have made a definite commitment to read.

When I want to read a book, the first thing I do is check the Kindle website. If its not a Kindle book, I send Amazon an email from the box provided in the lower left hand corner.

I may also check with Audible.com (another Amazon.com franchise) to see if there is an audiobook. Audiobooks are great time utilizers. You can listen at many times when you cannot read. This includes time spent on dog walking, driving, housework and other mindless activities we all must do.

CLT

FOOTNOTE: One of my favorite blogs has a sidebar called something like “Things we were not paid to endorse.” Consider this post in that category. Jeff Bezos deserves mega-accolades for making the world a better place than he found it. Atta Boy, Jeff!

FOOTNOTE #2: Kindle offered the book “Free” by Chris Anderson free of charge for a little while recently. It will cost its regular Kindle price if you look for it now. As part of the same special event, I was able to download a number of old classics like Anna Karenina by Tolstoy and the Sherlock Holmes stories, also free. Thanks to this, I now have a nice little library on Kindle, assuring that there will always be something to read if I have waiting time, dead time, down time or just want to read something a little different.

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

Message to Scotland: There are Defences to the Driving Ban, Laddies and Lassies!

Among the more interesting (pronounced weird) robotic comments I have been getting these days from across the Atlantic are a series of short messages in the form of advertising copy from a group of lawyers in Scotland who specialize in assisting ex-motorists whose driving licenses (or whatever they call them there) have been suspended.

I’ve been flushing all of them, of course. (Not the licenses, the comments) But I decided to save one in case there is a Scotsman or woman reading this blog who would be interested in learning whether a defence could be argued by an enterprising barrister that might lift the driving ban against him or her.

The only Scottish lawyer I know is James Boswell, but he hasn’t taken a case since his “Life of Samuel Johnson” became a best seller and the last address I have for him is a little old. So, if you live in Scotland and would like to drive again, send me a comment and I will put you in touch with somebody (not Boswell) who just might be able to help. (But maybe not, no guarantees.)

I have, however, met a few Irish lawyers. Or more correctly, I have spoken to them on the telephone. I once tried to hire a notary public in a little village in central Ireland to drive about a mile outside of town and obtain a signature on a deed from a lady in a nursing home. Either every lawyer-notary in the town was fully employed (it was the now-expired era of the Celtic Tiger) or none of them cared to work that hard. I suspect the latter. By the time I called, it was mid day in Ireland and I noticed that most of the bar had usually left for the day. They were probably all gathered round at Clancey’s Pub, trading stories about the dumb solicitor from Pittsburgh who was calling all over town trying to hire a notary.

So, anyway, Paddy was driving down an Irish road when a police constable stopped him.

“Did ye know that your wife fell out the door of your car about a mile back?” the constable inquired.

“Praise the Lord!” Paddy exclaimed in a loud voice. “I thought I had gone deaf!”

CLT

Category: Uncategorized

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Welcome

CLIFF TUTTLE has been a Pennsylvania lawyer for over 45 years and (inter alia) is a real estate litigator and legal writer. The posts in this blog are intended to provide general information about legal topics of interest to lawyers and consumers with a Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania focus. However, this information does not constitute legal advice and there is no lawyer-client relationship created when you read this blog. You are encouraged to leave comments but be aware that posted comments can be read by others. If you wish to contact me in privacy, please use the Contact Form located immediately below this message. I will reply promptly and in strict confidence.

Pittsburgh Legal Back Talk

Legal topics of interest to lawyers and consumers with a Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania focus.

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Categories

Pittsburgh Legal Newslog:CAN-SPAM Statute Does Not Create Private Cause of Action for Spam Recipients, 9th Circuit Says.

Rivers Casino Opens Sunday. You Don’t Have To Go There. Ever.

The Anonymous Lawyer is Having a Field Day with Jones Day and Other Biglaw Interoffice Literature.

LA Fitness Shootings

Pittsburgh Legal Newslog: Congratulations to Judge Marmo

A Short Sermon from the Foothills of the Beer Summit.

He Said, She Said.

Dumb Media Question of the Day: Sports Edition.

If You Want Me To Read Your Book . . .

Message to Scotland: There are Defences to the Driving Ban, Laddies and Lassies!

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