If you only read the faux small law columns at Above the Law, you would assume that anyone dragging them into court would be because of murder by stupidity.  But the real beef, the only beef, is in revealing the sordid details of the law.  Whether judicial hotties or nasty lawyers, this is how Lat made his mark. 

As Lat went on to build his empire, his number 2, Elie Mystal, took up the slack.  The problem with slack, of course, is that it sometimes results in, well, mistakes. And apparently Elie made one. From Jeff Bercovici at Forbes :

Getting publicly accused of committing rape is bad enough. Getting publicly accused of committing multiple rapes is considerably worse. Is the difference between the first and the second worth $50 million?

That’s how much Chicago attorney Meanith Huon is seeking in damages from Above The Law, a legal-industry gossip blog, and its parent company, Breaking Media.

Fortunately for former Newark, New Jersey, AUSA cum media mogul Lat, also named as a defendant, it’s just chump change. 

At issue is a story published May 6, 2010 — the suit was filed exactly one year later to fall within the statute of limitations — titled “Rape Potpourri.”The author, Elie Mystal, linked to a story about Huon, who was arrested and charged with sexual assault and unlawful restraint after a woman accused him of picking her up under false pretenses — he allegedly told her he was recruiting models to do alcohol promotions — and groping her in a moving car.

If ever there was a lawyer story custom made for the lurid-junkies, this was it.  But that wasn’t good enough for Elie, who put to his his mad-internet skills.

“And this, people, is why God invented Google,” wrote Mystal. “Had the victim Googled Huon, she would have found stories like this.” Mystal then linked to two other articles, one about Huon being charged with sexual assault and another about him being charged with cyber-stalking.

In 8.2 seconds, Huon went from being model groper to super-creep.

What Mystal failed to make clear — apparently because he didn’t realize it — was that all three articles were about the same incident and victim.

Harvard. Harvard Law.  And he didn’t realize that all three articles were about the same “victim”?  Don’t they teach them anything about cite-checking?

And the obligatory net-net:  Meanith Huon was found not guilty of sexual assault.

I’m a regular reader and big fan of Above the Law, even though Lat and Elie think I hate it because I occasionally have unpleasant things to say about some of the mind-numblingly stupid stuff that gets posted.  Still, it gives me all the sordid details of lawyer-life I would never otherwise know about, and insight into the things that concern both Biglaw associate wannabes and those who pretend that they didn’t waste three years of their life by going to law school.  They don’t come here too often, so I would never know about them otherwise.

But when your media conglomerate is grounded in lurid stories of legal licentiousness. you really need to get your facts straight.  You just can’t have a blast calling lawyers serial rapists because it makes interesting copy.  One of the things that I’ve noted at ATL is the inability to distinguish between things that are fair game for snark, and really serious matters that should be the subject of trifles.  They tend to treat everything like it’s a big joke, and invariably a joke with some infantile sexual connotation.

Is it all funny as can be?  Not necessarily.  We can all enjoy a good laugh.  But grownups use their heads to know when to draw the line, when something is serious, hurtful and just not a good topic for humor.

Elie, I realize that the soul of ATL is all about making a joke out of anything sexual involving lawyers.  I get it, and I understand that you’re catering to a huge following of law-babies who are titillated by the knowledge that there are other lawyers who have it worse than they do.  I really do get it.

But raising allegations of sexual assault against a lawyer, just for the opportunity to crack funny, actually involves a real person.  If you have to turn it into fodder for the sexually frustrated, at least do the legwork to get it right.  Don’t smear lawyers, actually anyone, if you can’t be bothered with making sure that your info is at minimum reasonably accurate.

That said, this complaint is going nowhere.  There was no malice, just laziness.  Whether there was probable cause for the cops to arrest, and the prosecutors to try, these allegations against Huon is unclear.  Huon argued the sex was consensual, and  he’s suing the cops for going low in building their case against him:

Huon’s suit, filed in federal court in Chicago, alleges that the state’s attorney’s office put an illegal wiretap on his cell phone and submitted false affidavits to obtain a search warrant of his home computers.

The lawsuit charges false arrest, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, defamation, civil conspiracy, and violations of due process, among others.

Maybe Huon’s got the goods. Maybe not.  In the meantime, maybe Elie and Lat will consider the possibility that not everything that can be the target of their ridicule is worth pursuing, even if there is no liability.  Or, just hang around waiting for some judge to take the bench with his fly down and go to town on it.  Because really, isn’t this what the law is all about?