Pittsburgh Legal Back Talk

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

1410 Posts and Counting

No. 600 and Going Strong.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| March 16, 2011 | © 2025

No. 600.

Another landmark.  It was only a little over 6 months ago (August 28, to be exact) that I interviewed Lance Godard of 22 Tweets on Twitter for Post No. 500. Godard had been interviewing lawyers who tweet from around the world about their practice on Twitter. This means that the answers must be brief: 140 characters or less to be exact.  We turned it around, interviewing the master using the format he invented.

Since then, we have had a lot to talk about on PLBT.

First off, we relayed some practical suggestions on how to avoid bringing home bedbugs from your next trip.[ Post No. 501.]

On September 6, for Labor Day, we talked about the unusual work lawyers sometimes do on the way to their careers and how it helps make them better lawyers.[No. 504]

On October 1, we looked at the controversy over robosigners. [No. 509].

We continued to explore the title-related issues that were being generated with foreclosure problems. [513], [514] and [515].

On October 10, we talked about how Pittsburghers would soon be able to attend the World Series — as the only known copy of the TV broadcast of the Seventh game of the 1960 World Series turned up in Bing Crosby ‘s( a minority owner of the team) basement. [517]

On October 15, I wrote about what I had learned in a CMU study designed to determine whether computer games can improve mental function [519]  — a fascinating subject, more about that later.

“A Typical Day in Motions Court” [520]

“Mark Twain in the Electronic Age” [529] is about the publication of Mark Twain’s autobiography, an unexpected best seller. He instructed that it was not to be published until 100 years after his death, so it happened in our era, a very different time.

“Tenant Protection in Foreclosure Applies to Deed in Lieu” [524],November 6, 2011.

On November 30, we kicked off the Christmas season with a cautionary tale about business Christmas presents. “What a Thoughtless Christmas Gift!” [534]

On December 4, we reported on a case against foreclosure firm Goldbeck, McCafferty and McKeever that ties into the robo-signing controversy. [539]

On December 7 [540] we reported on an important decision in the Superior Court, holding that a complaint may be dismissed on preliminary objections when it doesn’t explain how an assignee came to own the mortgage.

On December 13, we reported about a major case in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court involving a suit by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh against J P Morgan Chase alleging that the mega-firm sold a portfolio of syndicated mortgages to the Bank that it knew had been deliberately selected because they were likely to fail. [541]

“Maintaining Secrecy in an Age of Transparency” [546] (Perhaps the best sermon of the season)

And of course, there was Governor Rendell:  “A Nation of Wussies!” [549] on December 28, as he exhorted Philadelphians to tough it out at the Eagle’s Game — to no avail.

And as 2010 drew to a close, we are only half finished.

TO BE CONTINUED

CLT

Category: Blawging

Tips From The Time Management Ninja. Ten Things to Stop Doing to Increase Productivity.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| March 11, 2011 | © 2025

No. 599

10 Things to Stop Doing Now… to Get More Done! by Time Management Ninja.

Sometimes our own actions and behaviors can be counter productive to getting things done.  Here are 10 non-productive behaviors that you need to stop doing…

Things You Need to Stop Doing Now!

  1. Procrastinating – Do you ignore deadlines? Why don’t you try finishing that next project early? Tasks left undone can actually create more work for you.
  2. Wasting Time Surfing the Web or Watching TV – No one every became a success sitting in front of their TV or aimlessly surfing the Net.  Get up!  And do something thatmoves you closer to your goals, or teaches you something new.
  3. Taking on Too Many Obligations –  If you cannot say no, you will quickly find yourselfoverloaded with obligations. Learn to limit what you take on so that you have not spent all your available time before you even begin.
  4. Letting Email Run Your Life – Stop checking email every 5 minutes.  Don’t let email run your life. Email is not your work.
  5. Responding to Last Minute Fire Drills – Get proactive.  Don’t let others’ last minute fire drills derail your priorities.  Sometimes you just have to say no to the fire drill.
  6. Showing Up Late –  Believe it or not, but showing up early actually saves you time.  Are you constantly late to appointments? This could be one of your biggest time wasters.
  7. Starting Your Day Unprepared – Being prepared for your day is key to maximizing your time.  Preparing for your day in advance, will keep you ahead of the pack.
  8. Letting Important Information Get Away – Don’t waste time searching for pieces of information that you already had.  Ensure that you have a tool to take notes, and that you capture contact information.
  9. Going to Unnecessary Meetings – Next to email, meetings are one of the top time wasters in the workplace.  Make sure your meetings have an agenda, start on time, and end with actionable items with due dates.  If not, you should probably skip that meeting in the first place.
  10. Letting Others Steal Your Time – Time is your most valuable asset.  Don’t let others selfishly steal it.  Defend your time, and “block out” your calendar for your priorities first.

You will be able to find the link for Time Management Ninja from now forward in the Blogroll on the left margin of this blog. Plus, if you didn’t notice, there are links to past TMN articles all through the post reproduced above. Here’s that link again:

Time Management Ninja.

Category: Personal Productivity
Tags:

Introducing the Pear Cares.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| March 11, 2011 | © 2025

No. 598

I just received a follow on Twitter from the Pear Cares: a designated driving service in Pittsburgh.  I don’t know what they cost, but they have to be cheaper than the lawyer you’ll have to hire after you are hauled into the slammer for the night. Just click on the link below to their web site for PEAR CARES.

CLT

Category: Pittsburgh

ORIEGATE: The Case of the Annotated Exhibits.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| March 10, 2011 | © 2025

Jane Orie is a fierce fighter.

No. 597.

Prosecutors filed a search warrant application on March 8 that indicates their strategy in phase II of this case.

The warrant seeks to obtain a group of defense exhibits presently in custody of the court, containing handwritten notes by Senator Orie. The handwritten comments were exculpatory, in that they indicated that Senator Orie gave instructions such as that employees doing campaign work during regular working hours should do “comp time”.

Several documents containing handwritten comments and/or messages in the margins of typewritten documents were shown by defense counsel while cross-examining prosecution witnesses.  The witnesses recognized the typewritten documents, as well as Jane Orie’s handwriting, but none of them remembered seeing any of the documents containing Senator Orie’s handwritten message.

Later, when Senator Orie testified that she had written and sent these and other documents, they were introduced into evidence.

What the prosecution hopes to do is to prove my scientific testing that the handwritten notes were not written at the time of the original documents, but close to the time of trial.

The search warrant application states that the discrepancy was discovered while the prosecution was putting their copies of defense exhibits in order while the jury was deliberating.

The prosecution intends to submit the documents to the US Secret Service to test the ink, paper and handwriting.

CLT

Category: Criminal Law, Oriegate
Tags: >

The Pro Bono Case Next Door.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| March 7, 2011 | © 2025

No. 596

Corinne A. Tampas, the Philadelphia lawyer who calls herself “an Onshore Outsource Attorney”, tells the story in her blog about her attempt to volunteer to provide free legal services.  The most recent issue of the Attorney Disciplinary Board’s Newsletter focused on Chief Justice Castille’s call for Pennsylvania attorneys to volunteer free legal service to those who need counsel but cannot afford to pay the going rate.  Fired-up with enthusiasm, Corinne (who is a very experience lawyer) dropped in at the office of an organization providing assistance to indigent debtors (a tautology?) in bankruptcy cases. The doorman wouldn’t let her in, saying that she should leave a resume so that they could determine whether she was qualified.  Corinne, however, is nothing if not persistent. She managed to talk to the director of the organization on the phone while still standing at the door.  After she explained that she was an experienced lawyer who had volunteered before, the director told her to leave a resume with the doorman so that they could determine whether she was qualified.

Pro bono services by lawyers to poor clients are nothing new.  Every lawyer in private practice has encountered many potential clients who need a lawyer but can’t afford it and most of them have responded generously.  County Bar Associations have had programs in this area for many years.  I encountered an interesting one in Butler County recently.  When an indigent litigant needs a lawyer for a court date, the Bar Association appoints a volunteer to assist with that court appearance only.  In most small cases, that will be enough. The truth is, we all have seen pro-se litigants in court who are out of their depth, literally gumming up the process of an orderly trial.  Some are so hapless that they require constant prompting by the judge or arbitrators, just to get through it.

Organized efforts to provide lawyers for those who cannot afford it are essential. But we lawyers do not need to affiliate with such organizations to help. People who need lawyers they can’t afford are everywhere.  They can’t qualify for Neighborhood Legal Services or that organization is unable to provide a specific type of assistance due to budgetary limitations. In the real world, the available choices are rarely all or nothing. Many can afford to pay something and for them a modest flat fee could serve the purpose well.

Oh yes, one more thing.  As Corinne points out, pro bono work should not be a marketing strategy.  It should be a kindness given by one human being to another — quietly and confidentially.

CLT

Category: Practice of Law
Tags:

Electronic Discovery Update: “We’ll Need Just One of You.”

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| March 6, 2011 | © 2025

Why is this book still being printed on paper?

No. 595.

Dear young (or maybe not so young) lawyer:

Don’t count on making a career out of working on electronic discovery projects.  Unless, of course, you are the boss.

You may have seen articles recently about software that does the work of hundreds of document coders, only more efficiently, quickly and accurately.  Well, its not coming ten years from now or even next year.  Its here.  The New York Times Magazine gives some sickening interesting details.

CLT

Category: Civil Litigation, Legal Technology
Tags: >

ORIEGATE: Giving Forgery a Bad Name — Worst Cut and Paste Job Ever?

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| March 6, 2011 | © 2025

Photo credit: WTAE TV, Pittsburgh

No. 594

If you are not tired of the Oriegate scandal yet, here’s a commentary by That’s Church, the relatively new venue of the former famed Pittgirl.  Read the comments, too.

Also, here’s a report by WTAE TV about the kind of expert testimony that may soon be playing on a witness stand near you.

Category: Criminal Law, Oriegate
Tags: > >

Weekend Book Review: “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| March 6, 2011 | © 2025

No. 593

Please read “Unbroken” soon, before the movie comes out.

Louis Zamperini was an American Olympic runner from USC who competed in the 1936 Berlin Games. By the 1940 games, Zamperini was predicted to be among the world’s best milers. World War II came and Lt. Zamperini found himself as the bombardier on the crew of a B45 in the Pacific in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.

After surviving a series of harrowing air battles, Zamperini and his crew crashed into the open sea while on a rescue mission.  The three survivors drifted westward over two thousand miles, surviving shark attacks, starvation, enemy strafing and a long series of setbacks by their wits and will to live.  But when the raft finally drifted into the Japanese-controlled Marshall Islands, the tests of his will to survive were just beginning.

Despite the inhuman conditions, Zamperini and many of his colleagues came home after Japan surrendered.  The atomic bomb may have saved the surviving prisoners of war in Japan, as a “kill all order”, anticipating an invasion, was scheduled almost exactly when Hiroshima was bombed.

But even then, the story was not over. Hillenbrand follows the lives of Louis and his friends and family, as well as some leading Japanese players, up to the present day.  This post-war saga turns out, in some ways, to be just as revealing as what preceded it.  In truth, the message is only understood by examining the full lives of the characters.

If you are facing overwhelming challenges in your life, challenges which you worry are more than you can bear, you may find inspiration in the life of Louis Zamperini. Perhaps you are much stronger than you think.

CLT

Category: Weekend Book Review
Tags: > >

Beating China. It Can Be Done. But Not That Way.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| March 5, 2011 | © 2025

ABC News ran a series this week called “Made in America“. It began by exploring  the origin of goods found in a typical American Household. After everything made in China was removed, the  house was empty except for a small glass flower pot.

So far, nothing new.

Then, on the second night, the producers began searching for American products to replace  all of the Chinese stuff.  They were able to find “Made in America” versions of everything  except an electric coffee maker.

The best news, however, was that the American goods cost a little less, at least in the    aggregate. This was followed by a certain amount of whooping, which ignored the obvious question.  If American made goods are cheaper, why has China conquered the market?  No answer was attempted for that one.

During the course of the report and for that matter, the whole newscast, the word “jobs” was repeated constantly.  We Americans are obsessed with the idea that employment Americans used to enjoy  has been exported to China, India and other East-Asian countries.Robert Reich, an economist who was once Secretary of the Treasury, argues persuasively that manufacturing jobs are not coming back. But that does not mean that manufacturing cannot come back.

Americans can take back a sizable share of the consumer goods market, but only if we are willing to pay the price.  No — not low wages. Actually, the wages will probably be better, but the jobs will be quite different.

Future technology is being developed, much of it in Pittsburgh, that will soon produce consumer goods more cheaply and of better quality than Chinese.  But don’t start getting excited about the return of all of those manufacturing jobs. Those are not coming back.  America can take back the cost advantage it lost in manufacturing if and only if we are willing to invest in new generations of robotic workers.

The idea that Americans should pay more for consumer goods to enable other Americans to compete with Chinese workers is simply backwards.  To win this game, we  need to employ technology that makes goods more cheaply than can be made with low cost human labor.  This increases wealth and in the long run, employment.  If you focus on creating employment, in the long run, you lose.

CLT

No. 592

Category: News Commentary
Tags: >

Bloodied but Unbowed. Orie Legal Team Prepares to Argue Double Jeopardy.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| March 5, 2011 | © 2025

________________________________________________

PHOTO CREDIT: KDKA TV

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Senator Jane Orie and her attorney, William Costopoulos.

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Everybody is counting them out.  Don’t.

CLT

No. 591

Category: Criminal Law, Oriegate
Tags: >
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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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