Pittsburgh Legal Back Talk

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

1410 Posts and Counting

Murder, Hypothetically Speaking.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| February 17, 2011 | © 2025

No. 580

A tenured Weidner University Law Professor has been suspended and banned from campus because students complained about using the name of the black female dean in a hypothetical classroom murder scenario.  So reports Volokh Conspiracy.

CLT

Category: Criminal Law, Practice of Law
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Going Out on a High Note.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| February 14, 2011 | © 2025

No. 579

There has been a great deal of discussion of Christina Agulara’s multi-faceted poor performance of the Star Spangled Banner in Dallas. Sally Kalson wrote a full article about it in the Post Gazette this Sunday.

Miss A. usually gets a pass around here for musical mediocrity because she grew up in the neighborhood. Super Bowl XLV was no exception.  Local news commentators have attempted to excuse her on the grounds that Our National Anthem is difficult to sing and many others have done worse at public exhibitions.  No doubt, but no excuse.

Yes, it is hard for you and me to hit those notes on pitch.  So what?  There are millions of Americans with a modicum of voice training who can do it.  The whole cast of Glee can do it.  The cantors and choir members at my church can do it.

Why then, do so many celebrity vocalists fail this test? As Learned Hand, a great judge, once wrote: “To ask the question is to answer it.”

Next time, hold auditions. Performers with a voice range of one octave or a tin ear will be quickly culled.

CLT

Category: News Commentary
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Linky, linky, linky, link me. I want to feel dirty.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| February 13, 2011 | © 2025

No. 578

Did you ever hear of a “black hat link?”

Well, you can’t ever answer that question with a “no” again.  A black hat link is the kind disapproved by Google, the cheatin’ kind. When Google discovers so-called  paid links being used to enhance page rank, it takes action — sometimes to make the website vanish  from the Google search entirely.  The New York Times contained an interesting article about the extraordinary case of J C Penney.  Search “dresses” until recently and J C Penney came up first.  And so it was with a host of other items, some not so obvious.  The times stated:

The company bested millions of sites — and not just in searches for dresses, bedding and area rugs. For months, it was consistently at or near the top in searches for “skinny jeans,” “home decor,” “comforter sets,” “furniture” and dozens of other words and phrases, from the blandly generic (“tablecloths”) to the strangely specific (“grommet top curtains”).

This striking performance lasted for months, most crucially through the holiday season, when there is a huge spike in online shopping. J. C. Penney even beat out the sites of manufacturers in searches for the products of those manufacturers. Type in “Samsonite carry on luggage,” for instance, and Penney for months was first on the list, ahead of Samsonite.com.

Penneys claim to have no idea who placed the links, which included low value sites all over the world.  Nor does anybody else know for sure.  No one will publicly claim such an honor.  While not illegal, paid links will earn you an all-expenses paid one-way ticket to Google Siberia.

By the way, if you Google “Pittsburgh Legal”, the first two listings belong to the Pittsburgh Legal Journal.  The number three listing is Pittsburgh Legal Back Talk.  No fooling.  And we came by it the old fashioned way.  We earned it.

CLT

Category: News Commentary
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Where Did the Century Go?

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

No. 577

Duquesne University Law School is celebrating its centennial this year.  Its enormous contribution to our region cannot be overstated.

CLT

Category: News Commentary
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Lost Weekend.

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

No. 576

How can I write about law when everybody in town is totally distracted by football?

And why not?  Its February and distractions are welcome.  If the Steelers win (sorry, when the Steelers win) and the euphoria extends for a another week or two, we may all wake up to springtime, just as Punxytawney Phil predicted.  Meanwhile, if your stream of consciousness runs in an endless loop — “blackandyellowblackandyellowblackandyellow …” you’re normal.  Pittsburgh normal, that is.

CLT

Category: News Commentary
Tags: > >

The Daily.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| February 4, 2011 | © 2025

No. 575

If you have an iPad, you’ve probably looked at The Daily.  As the name suggests, it is a daily publication, more like a magazine than a newspaper, produced for the iPad. It is a bit like Time, Life and Sports Illustrated wrapped up in an electronic media format. Very slick, fabulous photography, lots of interactive stuff. Perhaps you can find everything in the Daily somewhere else on the web, but as an assembled package, it is a phenomenon.

I watched several videos, including an interview with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords from shortly before the shooting in which she talks about how useful her iPad has been, especially on the long flight from Arizona to Washington.  According to the article, she has been using it lately as well.

The importance of the Daily is that it illustrates how far we’ve come and the direction we’re going. Apps (there’s a word that didn’t exist not too long ago) for iPad alone are becoming a trend.  A daily trend.

Category: News Commentary
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Dumb Pizza, Smart Pizza

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| February 2, 2011 | © 2025

No. 574

The movable letterboard in front of a Pizza Hut Takeout that I pass fairly often has had the same message posted for months: “New Prices Coming Soon.”  Every time I pass it, I have the same two thoughts.  (1) Are the new prices lower?  Probably, or they wouldn’t advertise it. (2) I think I’ll wait for the new prices.

No doubt there are others who react the same way, which is why this advertising is dumb, dumb, dumb.

On the other hand, consider the Superbowl special being offered by Papa John’s.  Order on line, a free order will be processed every 45 seconds.  Brilliant!  On line orders are much cheaper for Papa John to process.  And the lure of a potential free order is too much for some of us.  It has the allure of a slot machine.  But Papa John doesn’t say how many Pizzas they plan to sell every 45 seconds.  If its a million, the the odd of winning are . . . yes, that’s right.  And it is a great promotion that will be remembered. Smart, smart, smart.

CLT

Category: News Commentary
Tags: >

Still Bitter, but Nothing New.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| January 31, 2011 | © 2025

No. 573

Will someone please explain why Bitter Lawyer continues to hold the number two slot in the AVVO rankings when it apparently hasn’t posted this year?  Typo was funny, but only the first time.

CLT

Category: Blawging
Tags:

The Super Bowl Effect.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| January 30, 2011 | © 2025

No. 572

Judge Jeffrey Manning ordered jury selection in the Orie trial delayed from February 7 to February 8 because the Steelers play in the Super Bowl the night before. The Judge’s stated reason was that there might be celebrations occurring that day. The unstated reason, of course, is that there might be celebrations occurring the night before and it is hard enough to get up on a cold February Monday when you haven’t been drinking and raising hell the night before. That applies to judges and court personnel as well as jurors.

But now that he’s brought up the subject, what effect will the Super Bowl have on this and other trials?  Bear in mind that (shudder!) the Steelers could lose.  Will the euphoria of a win or the black funk of a loss carry over to the outcome of trials?  If so, who benefits?  Would a Steeler victory put jurors in a kindly frame of mind?  Or would the frustration of a loss cause them to punish whoever is unlucky enough to get in their way?

If there is a victory celebration, it will happen on Tuesday or Wednesday.  The parade will pass the court house. Jurors will have a hard time getting to and from the courthouse.  At lunch time, the restaurants will be overcrowded.  There will be bullhorns and amplification systems.  What kind of distraction will this be?  Will courts adjourn while all this commotion is going on? Should they?

CLT

Category: Civil Litigation, Criminal Law, Oriegate, Practice of Law
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Don’t Expect Privacy for Messages Sent on Your Employer’s Email System.

Posted by Cliff Tuttle| January 23, 2011 | © 2025

No. 571

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, Practice of Law
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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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