moist breeeze
the novel’s soft cover
curls up
dozing off–
the soft drone
of mosquito flutter
tidepool
the many stars sink
into the sand
from dagosan:
the widow’s
dead rosebush
so many thorns
[May 20, 2005]
potluck
MyShingle‘s Carolyn Elephant, chief counsel for LilliputianLaw firms everywhere,
thinks she’s had a Eureka! Moment. Carolyn has noticed that M. Ellen Carpenter,
the hearing examiner who recently proposed disbarment for three prominent Boston
for the disbarment story) Carolyn jumps from that s[h]ingle fact to asking:
“Could including more solo and small firm lawyers on discipline
panels be what it takes to ensure that complaints against prominent
attorneys are treated as seriously as those against solo and small firm
lawyers? Or is this just all a coincidence?”
As John Steele suggests in a Comment at MyShingle, it is unlikely that the Shingler
Factor has “any explanatory power”. It appears Carolyn is still haunted by the
notion that bar counsel unfairly discriminate against small-firm lawyers, especially
solos. As we discussed here, there are many good reasons why we would expect
that the Lilliputians would comprise a large portion of all disciplined lawyers — not
the least of which is that there are so many of them (40 to 60 percent of lawyers in
many states are in firms of 5 lawyers or less); that they suffer far more financial
distress (almost by definition) than prominent lawyers, and have less intra-office
monitoring, making them more likely to be tempted to bend or break rules related
to defrauding clients; and that they seem to have noisier clients and less subtle
modus operandi.
In the case in question, it’s probably also worth pointing out that M. Ellen Carpenter
is herself, by any definition, a “prominent” lawyer in her State. For example, she served
as President of the Boston Bar Association in 2003. (see more in the BBA press release)
You’ll have to ask Ms. Carpenter if she still considers herself a “shingler.”
I wonder if the folks at the Phosita weblog (who have an interesting
post on the already-robust pirating of Revenge of the Sith), or other intellectual property
The Da Vinci Crock. Perdue is suing for alleged copyright infringement by the super-
selling The Da Vinci Code, relating to novels written by Perdue — especially Daughter of
God (2000) and The Da Vinci Legacy (1983). At DVCrock, Perdue wonders how
Random House’s lawyers can get away with (purportedly) twisting the facts and putting
words in his mouth, in their submissions to the court. Take a look at, for example, this
I believe there is far too much bending of the truth by lawyers in our system, where it often
seems that truth is the adversary. The problem is diminished a bit, of course, because our
judges are aware of what is going on — both the use of selective “facts” and the use of
hyperbolic conclusions and terms of art by both sides.
