Picture of Contentment.

No. 630

Life is beautiful. Three squares and a hug!

Category: Pittsburgh Legal Back Talk

Out of Uniform.

No. 629

Lindsay Starr has stirred up the radio talk shows by complaining to KDKA TV about how the North Allegheny High School administration won’t let her accept her diploma in her Marine Corps dress blues. She finished school early and attended boot camp at Parris Island. Now she wants to express her pride and patriotism by walking across the graduation stage in uniform.

It appears that PVT Starr still has a few things to learn from her military training. Orders have been issued down the chain of command by the duly constituted authority that the uniform of the day is the academic cap and gown. If PVT Starr has a problem with that, she should take it to the chaplain.

CLT

First Mansmann Professor Named at Duquesne Law School

News release from Duquesne University:

Inaugural Carol Los Mansmann Chair in Faculty Scholarship Named

May. 6, 2011

Jane Campbell Moriarty has been named the inaugural Carol Los Mansmann Chair in Faculty Scholarship at Duquesne University’s School of Law. She will begin her new role on Aug. 16.

The Mansmann chair is awarded to a faculty member who exhibits great accomplishment in legal scholarship; has the potential to contribute to the scholarly output of the law school faculty; and is acknowledged as a leader by disciplinary peers nationally and at Duquesne.

“Carol Mansmann was a devoted graduate of the law school, a prominent federal court of appeals judge and a gifted jurist who believed in the power of scholarship and mentored many young lawyers, judges and law professors,” said Law Dean Ken Gormley. “Professor Jane Moriarty likewise has a contagious enthusiasm for legal scholarship and for helping young faculty members contribute to society through cutting-edge work. She will help take our law school to higher levels of excellence. We’re honored to have a scholar with such respected credentials join our ranks, and doubly honored to have her occupy this prestigious new chair named for one of our most beloved alumnae.”

Mansmann, a 1967 graduate of Duquesne’s law school, was the first woman to be appointed to the bench in the Western District of Pennsylvania. She served for three years on the U.S. District Court before her appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Mansmann also served as an assistant district attorney and as a special assistant to the Commonwealth attorney general, and engaged in private practice. She died in 2002 at age 59 after battling breast cancer.

“I am thrilled to be joining the faculty at Duquesne law school as the Inaugural Carol Los Mansmann Chair in Faculty Scholarship,” said Moriarty. “Judge Mansmann was such a great inspiration for so many women in the Pennsylvania legal community and I feel so honored to have this position and a title that includes her name.”

Currently a professor at the University of Akron School of Law, Moriarty teaches courses on evidence, expert and scientific evidence, and professional responsibility. Other topics she has taught include family law, disability discrimination and employment discrimination, among others.

Moriarty was the 2002 Professor of the Year at Akron law school, where, in 2007, she received an Alumni Faculty Scholarship Award and a Faculty Research Award. She served as editor of Women and the Law from 1998-2010. Her articles have appeared in Behavioral Sciences & the Law, the Nebraska Law Review, the ABA Judges’ Journal and the Utah Law Review. Moriarty’s new book, Misconvictions: When Law & Science Collide, will be published in 2012 by New York University Press.

“It is an exciting time for scholarship at Duquesne Law School,” said Moriarty. “Ken Gormley has set the pace with his remarkable publications, and I believe that the appointment of a chair in faculty research signals the support that the University and the law school have for the faculty’s scholarly endeavors.”

Moriarty held visiting professor posts at Case Western Reserve University’s law school and the University of Pittsburgh’s law school. At Duquesne, she was a program chair for Does Forensic Science Need Fixing?, the Wecht Institute’s 2009 symposium. A popular speaker, Moriarty has presented at numerous conferences and symposia, including events for the Ohio State Judges’ Convention, the Association of American Law Schools’ Annual Meeting and the Pennsylvania Conference of State Court Judges.

A resident of Shadyside, Moriarty earned bachelor’s degree in philosophy and her law degree from Boston College, where she received the Bapst Philosophy Medal as an undergraduate. She served as managing editor of the Boston College Third World Law Journal.

Category: Pittsburgh Legal Back Talk

LAWYERS AND THEIR IPADS

So, the word is out. After a long loveless marriage to Microsoft, lawyers are deserting hers for a fling with you-know-who.

In particular, the iPad

According to the blog Legal iPad, iPads are reaching a tipping point. The POTUS uses one. So does Queen Elizabeth and Justice Scalia.

“iPads are the perfect device for content consumption — and content creation, in a pinch,” says Legal iPad.

And, of course, there are Apps for that. LikeiPad Deponant App, TrialPad, RLTC Evidence, Exhibit A, Jury Tracker, iJuror, Fastcase, iPleading . . .

CLT

Category: Legal Technology, Personal Productivity, Practice of Law

Encore Post: Don’t Be Bitter, Young Lawyer.

No. 548 and 626

Dear colleague:

Sometime when I wasn’t looking, a blog called Bitter Lawyer made it to the No. 2 spot on the AVVO Blogs — moving ahead of that blonde law professor from Wisconsin, Althouse. It was inevitable. Althouse has been gravitating to shorter and shorter posts for years, until she will eventually have nothing but one word to say. And Bitter Lawyer can be rather entertaining . . . for a while. Consider the classic video, broadcast under the “Living the Dream” label, currently on display: “Typo.” [No you are not going to look at it until I am done here.]

“Typo” may strike a chord with you, like it did with me. But it is a sad, yes bitter one. It subjects the classic law firm culture that has grown increasingly ugly during the last 20 years or so to devastating ridicule.

Okay, spend a few wasted hours with Bitter Lawyer. Watch all of the episodes of “Living the Dream” if you can handle the pain. But don’t go back there too often. You won’t learn anything that you don’t already know. And, eventually, it will make you bitter too.

So, get out of here! Go watch “Typo.”

Category: Blawging, Encore Post
Tags: Bitter Lawyer > Living the Dream > Typo

Encore Post: Don’t Expect Privacy when Using Your Employer’s Email.

No. 571 and No. 625

I’ve preached this sermon before, but its an important one.

Don’t use the company’s email to send a communication containing your own private business. That is, unless you don’t care whether the company and everyone else in the world finds out your secret.

This principle was illustrated once again by a case recently decided by a California appellate court called Holmes v. Petrovich Development Company, which has engendered law blog commentaries, including this one in “Inside Privacy”. In this case, an employee was disturbed by the reaction to her announcement that she was going to take maternity leave. So she did the American thing and fired off an email to her lawyer. By and by, the case came up for trial and the employer offered copies of the email exchange between ex-employee and lawyer into evidence. The objection was raised that the communication was subject to attorney-client privilege and thus inadmissible.

When the appellate court ultimately weighed in, it observed that the employee used her employer’s email system. Even though she may have expected the communication was confidential, she didn’t take ordinary precautions to assure it — like using her own email account.

Don’t ever, ever, ever use the company email to communicate private and confidential information. Not only does the company have a right to know what the message contains, but the company’s adversaries in litigation may ultimately have the right to read, use and disseminate this information to the world. I kid you not.

Lawyer privilege must be protected. It can easily be waived. The simple private act of sharing a communication to or from your lawyer with a third party may be enough to waive the privilege. Communicating with your lawyer on an email account that you share with someone else may be enough to waive the lawyer-client privilege. Throwing away a copy of such a communication (unshredded) may be enough to waive the privilege. That is because some courts have held that if you really want something to be private, you won’t leave it lying around where anyone can find it — even in the trash can on the curb. So, if you wish to keep a secret, act like you mean it. Act like you are being followed by spies. Maybe you really are.

By the way, while we are on the subject of lawyer-client privilege, there is something that has been bothering me lately. I’ve seen more than a few emails to the popular “AVVO Answers” feature of the AVVO lawyer ratings board, that disclose facts that would be very valuable to the opposing party in litigation or even confess a crime. Does anybody think that this kind of communication is safe from the eyes of the enemy? Or maybe this question should end with the word “think”.

First, asking a question on AVVO does not entitle the asker to privacy of any kind. There is no lawyer-client privilege because a lawyer-client relationship has not been formed. And if you give enough details to be recognized, well don’t be surprised if you are confronted with a copy of your question while being cross-examined on the witness stand. I hear that this has happened, although not to me.

CLT

Category: Constitutional Law, Encore Post
Tags: "Inside Privacy" > AVVO Answers > Holmes v. Petrovich Development Company > waive the lawyer-client privilege > waive the privilege

Italian Prosecutors on Shaky Ground?

No. 624

According to reports gathered and summarized by Economics Professor Tyler Cowan in his blog “Marginal Revolution”, seven Italian seismologists have been charged with manslaughter for failing to give residents of the village of L’Aquila in Central Italy adequate warning of the risk of an earthquake that struck on April 6, 2009, killing 308.

One Italian news website, Abruzzo Web stated:

“Ãˆ facile immaginare di crocifiggere il professor Bernardo De Bernardinis o il professor Enzo Boschi.” Indeed.

While crucifixion hasn’t been in vogue for a couple thousand years, we get the point. Bernardo De Bernardinis, Deputy Technical Head of Italy’s Civil Protection, recently announced the decision to prosecute, alleging that the committee issued an assessment that downplayed the risk of a quake, causing many to fail to protect themselves. A shocked spokesman for the US Geological Survey called the prosecution a witch hunt. The USGS website says that no earthquake has ever been predicted successfully.

Enzo Boschi, president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, and six other members of a committee assessing earthquake risks will stand trial beginning on September 20.

Professor Boschi, to his credit as a scientist, in the midst of the L’Aquila controversy, refused to give any credence to a prediction made by an Italian seismologist early in the last century that “the big one” was to strike in Rome on May 11, 2011.

Having charged the leading seismologists in Italy with this crime, where does the government propose to find an expert witness?

CLT

Category: Criminal Law, News Commentary
Tags: earthquakes > L'Aquila > seismology

Remembering Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes on Memorial Day — Wounded in Battle, he Lived to Fight Again.

No. 623

As we commemorate those who died in service of our Country this weekend, I wish to bring to your attention that the great Oliver Wendell Holmes was wounded three times in the Civil War, but lived to make a singular contribution to American law.

The so-called bloodiest day in American history, the Battle of Antietam saw over 20,000 soldiers wounded, including Holmes. We can only wonder how the history of our Country must have changed as others, who might have been great leaders, died of battlefield wounds.

CLT

Category: Great Lawyers
Tags: Oliver Wendell Holmes

Thinking Inside the Box.

No. 622

The mighty forces of the universe do not exceed the power of one human mind.

Who said that?

I did. Just now.

CLT

Category: News Commentary
Tags: Mississippi River

A Great Name.

No. 621

Lawyers:wouldn’t it be great to have a name that everybody knows and remembers? Some do, you know. There are lawyers who are actually named Abraham Lincoln — or at least its part of their name.

How many Abraham Lincolns do you think there among American lawyers living or dead?

How does that stack up against some other high powered American names? Which among the following is the name most given to American lawyers:

Abraham Lincoln
George Washington
Benjamin Franklin
Clarence Darrow
Perry Mason

The answer (courtesy of AVVO) is in the comments.

CLT

Category: Great Lawyers
Tags: Abraham Lincoln > Benjamin Franklin > Clarence Darrow > George Washington > Perry Mason

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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.

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