Walter Olson at Overlawyered posts about a letter from Los Angeles attorney Martin Singer to photographer Anthony Citrano over the monumental issue of whether Demi Moore’s hips were retouched in a cover photo for some magazine. Who cares, right? Well, apparently, Demi cares, and therefore Singer cares.
Brooklyn native Singer, who stands 6 foot 10 inches and 270 pounds in writing, begins his lawyer letter ominously:
Confidential Legal Notice
Publication or Dissemination is Prohibited
So serious. So strong. So…so…lawyerly. The rest of the letter is just as funny, especially the last paragraph, which not only reiterates Singer’s confidentiality demand but incorporates a bunch of other typical lawyerisms that state the obvious as if it mattered.
On one level, you would think that an LA lawyer would have a clue that this letter, which has cousins sent to Boing Boing and Jezebel, was not only going to go public, but that it would serve as a vehicle to make Singer a laughingstock and embarrass lawyers everywhere. Isn’t Streisand from LA, Marty?
It’s not like Singer is unaware of what can happen when you send out letters with incredibly stupid, pompous, overbearing demands like this. Singer did the same thing last summer, and got his butt handed to him for being such a jerk. Back then, he claimed his demand letters were copyrighted, which naturally gave rise to ridicule for making such an absurd claim. Singer, a self-described “pit bull,” was revealed as a “chihuahua.” But the little dogs aren’t this stupid. They learn after getting a smack on the behind. It looks like Singer doesn’t learn. Or maybe the smack wasn’t hard enough to make him realize what an idiot he looks like.
For those non-lawyers who might read this, be aware that the reason this is so goofy is that a lawyer letter can’t tell you that it’s confidential. It’s just a bluff, a gambit by the lawyer to find out how stupid and easily scared the other guy is. Tell your mother, your friends, or put it online. It’s yours to do with as you please.
But what about Marty Singer? Is he ever going to figure out that his launching these facacta missiles keeps coming around to hit him in pinstriped-clad touchy? Must he continue to make lawyers look like foolish oafs. Will he ever figure out that the Streisand Effect applies to him (not to mention his celebrity clients) like anybody else?
And who cares if Demi Moore’s hips were retouched anyway?
Fuggedaboutit.
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I get emails almost every day from lawyers (mostly friendly) which have the automatic threat of legal death they’ve attached. I’m sure we all do. Goota love the “How’s your Mom, dude?” followed by “This email is the property of Big, Pompous, & Overbearing LLC, and is intended solely for the legal use of our clients. If you have received this email in error delete it immediately and notify the sender so that we can send out a hit squad and lobotomize you before you can tell anyone of the arcane secrets we are dispensing to our clients.”
They are so ubiquitous that I don’t even notice the silly footers on emails. My solution, by the way, is to not send emails to people I don’t want to see them. This admission could get me bounced from the fraternity pub.
It’s amazing how many lawyers assume that us lowly bloggers have no clue about our rights. I deal with the confidentiality notices in my site’s privacy policy, which says, in part:
“Similarly, if you send any legal, quasi-legal, or just downright nutty threats via email, do not expect any privacy of your email. I will publish it on the site or share it as I see fit regardless of any confidentiality sigfiles you may attach. By emailing me, you accept these terms. Please note that I do not scare easily. I have kids, and there’s nothing you can say in email that will even come remotely close to scaring me as much as the day they both got their driver’s licenses.”
Very nonlawyerly, I know. 🙂 In my next life, maybe I’ll go to Acme Law School where I can learn in the convenience of my home while they give me all the tools and books I need to start my own successful law practice.
Are you kidding? That’s a great disclaimer. There’s no magic to most of this crap lawyers write. It’s just a gambit to take advantage of those afraid of us. Tell a lawyer to suck eggs and watch him crumble.
You’ve obviously missed the point, Scott. If you carefully read the disclaimer/threat which you reprinted in your post, you’ll see that it reads “CONFIDENT” Legal Notice, NOT “confidential”! Not having seen the full content of Singer’s letter, I’m not in a position to say whether or not that is an accurate characterization.
Don’t you just love nitpickers???
If only I could attribute that to Singer, but it’s my typo (Freudian slip?). And without nitpickers, who would tell me when I screwed something up?
Sometimes it’s just blatant, then we nitpickers are superfluous.
I could be misremembering, but I have a vague recollection from when I was in law school that those warnings on email resulted from court opinions. My recollection is that they were useful supposedly to prevent admissibility of materials erroneously sent to parties not entitled to have them.
Of course, even if I am remebering that correctly, it doesn’t explain what good it does criminal defense attorneys.
I think some of us do it because we inherited the practice from those we interned under.
Now I’m going to have to investigate if California courts recognize any benefit to this practice!
The post is about Marty Singer’s letter, not the caselaw behind email notices. Let’s not go further down the tangential road, no matter how enjoyable memory lane or what fascinating caselaw you find.
That the article was about a letter, but the comments were about emails must be why I clicked the “respond to this comment” link instead of responding directly to the article.
Being versatile, however, I believe I’ve hit on a new solution that will keep us both happy.
I wish you all the best.
Glad that we’ve solved this problem.
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