As any blawger who’s been at this for more than a month knows, emails start flowing in letting us know we have been “honored” by being included in some glorious list of the 100 Best, or 50 Best, or 10 Best, or whatever best of whatever they think will make us feel warm, fuzzy and important.  Unlike the emails with the subject line, “My dearest one,” they play the chord they believe no validation-denied lawyer can ignore.

The email itself is clear. that your blog has been “selected” for their list of the 100 best blogs on criminal justice.  To the new blogger, this comes as a pleasant surprise.  You didn’t know anybody was watching, no less thinking that you’re one of the top 100.  Certainly there are hundred and hundreds of criminal justice blogs, and to make the top 100 is, well, something to be proud of.  Woo hoo!  I’ve made it!!!

I hate to burst your bubble, pal, but it’s just a variation on a scam, the purpose of which is to get you to post about this great “honor” and link back to the source, usually some website with a name like Criminal Justice Degrees or Court Reporter Degrees or Legal Assistant Degrees.  They are playing on your vanity, putting out lists of blogs under varying claims of greatness to entice you to give them the backlink that other websites have to steal or gain by subterfuge.  With just the slightest vanity play, many unaware lawyers will hand them Google Juice and thank them for the opportunity.

Sucker. 

In the past week, Doug Berman posted about such a scam list, The 50 Best Blogs Discussing Capital Punishment (fear not, it’s a no follow link), which he called an “effective and telling compilation.”  Lawprofs are particularly susceptible to this scam, as they are in constant need of the affirmation of worthiness that comes from Ivory Tower isolation.  But they aren’t the only ones.  I recall David Lat at Above the Law posting about being “honored” by one of these scam websites.  He was all ferklempt about it, and I feel just awful about not being able to find the link at the moment.  But if memory serves, ATL made the list of 100 Best Blogs that describe the breasts of Article III judges.  Such an honor, right?

Berman’s point in linking to the post wasn’t to show appreciation at being flattered, but to note how many of the 50 blogs discussing capital punishment supported one side or the other.  This presupposes that it’s a real list, where someone vetted the blogs for substance and worthiness, as opposed to a quick Google search to find the 50 blogs with highest pagerank.

I call the list telling because only three of the linked blogs are listed as pro-death penalty, eight are listed as neutral (including this one), and 39 are anti-death penalty.

Making Doug’s posting about this scam list even funnier is how his pals at Crime & Consequence , where there is no crime unworthy of execution (Bill Otis may dispute this, citing something like jay-walking), have played into the hands of the scammer by repeating the link to make a point.

The reason I bring this up is to re-inforce a theme I have sounded before, namely, that there is a yawning gap between the views of ordinary citizens and those who take themselves to be  —  and sometimes actually are  —  the elite.  On the death penalty and many other things, the media and the academy are way out of step with the public.  This has a number of effects:  It allows elite-run institutions, courts among them, to get away with circumventing rules that normal people would think ought to apply to them.  It distorts the public debate.  And it creates distrust among the the governed about the intentions and fidelity of those doing the governing.

The latter effect seems to me to be closely akin to what has given rise to the Tea Party movement.  In less than five weeks, we may get the public’s verdict about the elite’s massive and sneering condescension.  My prediction:  For the elites, it ain’t gonna be pretty.

Bill got suckered.  Notice how one scam post drew in a lawprof, who took it as a meaningful list that was indicative of something rather than a scam for the easily flattered and unwary, which then slipped way down the hill to prove that lawprofs (or the Elites, as Otis calls them) have lost touch with the public who, like Otis, enjoy a good execution like nobody’s business?  Way to slide, Bill.

Unfortunately, party-pooper Kent Scheidegger, co-blogger with Otis, points out in the first comment that the list is a meaningless scam.

The same site also lists C&C among the top 50 criminal defense blogs. Really.

Kent got it.  Bill, not so much.  Sucker.  In case you’re wondering, SJ was on that list as well.  So too was The Common Scold, which has zero to do with criminal defense, as well as How Appealing, Howard Bashman’s daily aggregation of law stories in the newspapers.  Add these to some dead and worthless blogs on the list and you get the point.  The list is a joke, but the scam still catches its share of the unwary.

While these scam lists, working their magic of flattering those in need of evidence that they aren’t the ugly baby they think they are, are meaningless when it comes to proving your worth, they do serve the purpose of letting the rest of us know that others are so blind, pathetic or unaware that they post the link, bask in the “honor” and otherwise discuss it as if it was real. 

Sucker.

If there is one thing that a curmudgeon doesn’t get, it’s “cool.”  And there is nothing other than “cool” that distinguishes the online winner from everything else.  For an admitted dilettante, The Social Network shows on the screen what we could never see on our own.

This movie is spectacular in every respect.  The story, the acting, the understanding of geek cool combined with human nature and frailty.  And, as if to make this curmudgeon smile, a narrative wrapped up in depositions for the two lawsuits against core founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg.  It’s like an island for old men in a sea of youthful geekiness.

Jesse Eisenberg stars as Zuckerberg, and never falters in the performance. He plays the computer geek with poignant awkwardness and distraction, all while wearing those ridiculous looking Adidas sandals, even in the snow.  You can feel his focus, the hero-worshipping adoration of Napster founder (and loser) Sean Parker, played by former teeny-bopper idol Justin Timberlake, who not only gives an incredible performance but has matured into an actor who will be a force for many years to come.

Watching the story unfold taught me how, in an age that gives real meaning to overnight success, an idea with no greater merit than “it’s fun,” influenced to some greater or lesser extent by a bit of elitism, can produce a monster success or worthless triviality. 

In contrast to Zuckerberg’s geek was the old-guard money and jock Ivy elitism of the Winklevi (don’t ask, the movie will explain this) whose lame idea to get chicks and limited grasp gave rise to their suing Zuckerberg.  So too did Eduardo Saverin, except he was indeed a co-founder, as well as Zuckerberg’s best friend, who was unceremoniously ousted after Napster failure Parker caught hold of the intersection between geek and playboy.  Saverin, who stood by Zuckerberg when no one else could stand to be near him, bore the brunt of the crash.

Even the lawyering scenes, which were nothing more than a means of telling the story, were fun.  Zuckerberg’s snarky comments and answers during depositions were hysterically funny, particularly after the question of whether Saverin’s investment in the enterprise, consisting of $1,000 and $18,000, amounted to $19,000.  Zuckerberg interrupts, saying let me verify that. After a few scribbles, he announces that he comes up with the same number.  He reduces some of our more mind-numbing affectations to some well-deserved laughs, though be careful about the effect this will have on youth looking for yet another excuse to make fun of us.  Just because we may deserve it doesn’t mean we have to like it.

It was my misfortune that neither Klout nor the studio sought out my review of this movie, as I had to both buy tickets and pay for my own popcorn (which, I might add, was not stale this time).  But it was well worth it.  This was the best movie I’ve seen in a very long time, not only for its entertainment value, but for its ability to make a codger like me see and feel what went on in the mind of a kid who is younger than my favorite pair of shoes.

Recognizing the inexplicable impact my reviews have on media (noting that I was the only one to pan the Fox TV show Lone Star, which was canceled after the showing of a mere two episodes, while all the real TV critics hailed it as the greatest thing since Family Guy), this movie is worth both the time to see it as well as the ridiculous prices they charge these days for mediocre surround sound at the multiplex. 

See this movie.  See it now.  Expect at least three Academy Award nominations out of it, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Screenplay.  This movie is that good.

At first, I was surprised and impressed by the essays that appeared as “finalists” for the ABA Journal Legal Rebels contest.  Hey, with a $5,000 prize at stake, and a bunch of lawyers happy to write a thousand words for far less, it was a great opportunity.  The theme for the essays was “What innovation will be most valuable to you in your future practice as a solo practitioner?”  

I was blown away by the thoughtfulness of the essays that came in fifth and fourth. Not so the third and second.  A trend was developing, and its culmination, the winner of the contest, did not stray. 

The innovation that will be most valuable to me as a solo practitioner in the future is a system to integrate incoming telephone calls with outgoing voice mail messages and also allow full interaction with knowing immediate availability and scheduling future appointments.

Voicemail on steroids?  Possibly the most counterproductive, impersonal, ineffective tool in the arsenal of weapons separating one human being from another, receives the ABA Journal’s highest honor?  What a dream world, where lawyers need no longer have actual contact with clients and can use technology to pretend to cater to their clients’ needs without the need for actual communication.

The lawyer joke is that practicing law would be fun, if only we didn’t have to deal with clients.  The client joke, of course, is that the law might be useful, if only they didn’t have to deal with lawyers.

The third component of this innovation will allow existing clients to automatically schedule phone calls or in-person meetings at your office through the integration of your telephone and your electronic calendar software. If you are not available when an existing client calls, then in lieu of them leaving a voice mail message, they will have the option of entering their client number and their passcode (which you would have e-mailed to them previously) and the system would provide them with limited access to your electronic calendar software. They could enter the date and time that they would like to meet with you along with the estimated time needed for the appointment and the system will tell them if you are available at that time. If you are not available, then the system would tell them the next available time and date, and they would have the option of accepting this appointment and then indicating whether this was an in-person meeting or a phone call.

How wonderfully routine and convenient.  Except that it demonstrates the antithesis of client service.  Emergency?  A week from Tuesday.  A serious question?  Whenever.  The ten minute meeting for nothing, or for a serious discussion that requires two hours.  It’s all about what’s good for the lawyer, only appearing convenient to the client, because everyone knows how much clients want to be reduced to numbers and passcodes.

One of the “advantages” of this system is that it gives clients “a more personalized voice mail greeting.”  Is this what we have to look forward to in the future, a more personalized greeting as a substitute for a person? 

The ABA Journal has long been fanatical about technology for its own sake, promoting the tool without regard to the mechanic.  There’s no indication of thought imposed on its elevation of the shiniest new toy over such non-rebellious means as competence, ethics and old-fashioned client service.  Whatever happened to promoting lawyers who return phone calls promptly?  Way too low-tech for the digital world.  If it can’t be plugged in, it’s not worth spit.

But the question that keeps cropping up is why the ABA Journal persists in its course of blindly favoring any technological “solution” over a future of hard work and service to clients?  My guess is it’s information overload, the stress that comes of far too many voices singing the hosannas of technology without consideration of where it fits in the role lawyers should play.  It has become impossible to hear the voices of clients over the cacophony of the digital choir, or their crying at their lawyers’ failure to care about how they are being increasingly marginalized in our adoration of technology.

Can Molly McDonough see clearly with the blinding glare of the iPad in her eye?  Please, Ed Adams, give Molly some time off.  She’s a good woman, but no mere mortal can handle the stress.  This is the ABA Journal, and whether you like it or not, it carries with it the cache of the American Bar Association, leading lawyers astray for more than a century^TM.  I’m not a Luddite.  I have a computer and know (somewhat) how to use it, but if the ABA Journal can’t remember that the client is the star of the show, that’s a problem.  I’m sure this would have been Molly’s foremost thought if only she had some time to recharge after the Legal Rebels summer cross country tour.  Come on, Ed.  Do it for Molly.  She deserves it.

Congratulations to the winner of the essay contest.  You may need that $5 grand when your clients figure out that the innovation you think is most important for the future revolves around a more personal voicemail greeting.  Press 1 if you disagree.

Am I beating a dead horse?  To some, no doubt, but given the importance of the point, and the refusal of so many to acknowledge it or think it applies to them, combined with the ever-increasing pervasiveness of technological means, it’s going to bite us all in the butt soon enough. 

There’s a new contender in the online utterance search to determine what each of us has to say, this time bringing “pre-crime” to the Human Resources Department.

While background checks, which mainly look for a criminal record, and even credit checks have become more common, Social Intelligence is the first company that I’m aware of that systematically trolls social networks for evidence of bad character.

Using automation software that slogs through Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, blogs, and “thousands of other sources,” the company develops a report on the “real you” — not the carefully crafted you in your resume. The service is called Social Intelligence Hiring. The company promises a 48-hour turn-around.

This is the part that so many just can’t seem to grasp.  You want to believe that you’re only responsible for your “official” statements online, while twitting and blogging whatever idiocy you think is fun, cool or, in the case of some indiscriminate folks, trying to manipulate others to think you’re the ginchiest guy on the internet. 

Feigning friendliness to obtain the validation one’s been denied in real life can lead people to do incredibly foolish things, and both the blogosphere and twitter are about nothing if not collecting friends to the weak and pathetic soul.  It’s understandable that people seek faux friendship and affirmation, but at what price?

The reports feature a visual snapshot of what kind of person you are, evaluating you in categories like “Poor Judgment,” “Gangs,” “Drugs and Drug Lingo” and “Demonstrating Potentially Violent Behavior.” The company mines for rich nuggets of raw sewage in the form of racy photos, unguarded commentary about drugs and alcohol and much more.

“Rich nuggets of raw sewage” may be the best description I’ve read of the phenomenon. So much more is learned from the unguarded throw-away comments than the ones carefully crafted to promote the image we want others to see.  How hard is this to understand?

The trend is clear, that bots and algorithms are the wave of the future, finding and using the information tossed about mindlessly online to create an image of us for anyone who cares to look.  As Frank Pasquale notes at Concurring Opinions, there’s no due process component to all this.  People will be using our information, assessing us, without our knowledge.  So many of you respond, “Hah! Who cares. Screw ’em.”  Screw who?  Your adversary, your client, your potential client, your juror? 

To so many who use these techno-tools as a substitute for love, you keep contending that it’s just not serious.  Saying so doesn’t make it so.  It’s never serious, until it is.  It’s never a problem, until it is.  And when it is, you are likely to be unaware of it, since the folks checking up on you won’t be alerting you to their doings, or chatting you up about what they’ve found.  You’ll never know who you’ve hurt, even if it’s yourself, or the damage done.  In the best of worlds, the only person you’ve harmed is yourself, because if you’re selfish enough to mindlessly (or manipulatively) spew rich nuggets of raw sewage, then you’ve caused your own problems.

But to damage others, especially your clients, in the process is inexcusable.  There is never a need to post a funny, cool or impressive twit that trumps the interest of your clients.  This online ego boost is trivial compared with the time in prison another may serve for your playing internet bigshot and gaining a couple of admirers.

Key to understanding this is that you don’t know, YOU DON’T KNOW, what you write that may give up a piece of the puzzle that someone else needs or can use to burn someone.  None of us are capable of the self-assessment necessary to appreciate what bit of information another person needs to form an opinion or determine action.  We cannot see the line not to be crossed that others see, no matter how smart we think we are or how hard we argue to the contrary.

My pal Turk posted a review of the arguments about inappropriate twitting that included a line by Norm Pattis that I had forgotten about, following his decision to become the poster boy for inappropriate client revelations.

Or, to put it another way, beware the asshat masquerading as ethicist.

This line wasn’t written about me, but it could have been. Ignore his reduction of opposing views to an ad hominem, and consider instead that a lawyer of some experience in the courtroom, and little online, insists on his right to expose himself and his clients for the selfishness of online popularity.  Rather than help his collection of baby lawyers to understand their responsibility to their clients, this elevates narcissism over duty and sound judgment.  Even experience falters in the face of online validation, the opium of the twitterers and blawgers in search of a coterie of adoring fans.

The movie MInority Report predicted it, and I’ve already raised it here, here and here, and a few other places as well but it’s not worth the time to find them.  The point is that our online utterances are easily discoverable, and the interest in doing so is sufficient that an industry has been created for this specific purpose.  Even though I’ve heard many poo-poo the notion that anyone cares what they have to say, what they twit, what they blog, you don’t know who is looking, who is reading, who is collecting your unguarded writings. 

Stop spewing rich nuggets of raw sewage.  Your clients won’t think better of you because you weren’t disciplined for it as they sit in the prison cells wondering what went wrong.

It’s my plan to keep beating this horse until the point is made.  Sorry if this bores you.

The case of New York lawyer Raphael Golb was bizarre from the start.  It was a fight over scholarship, with Golb going underground when his father, a University of Chicago professor, was frozen out of the scholarly conversation about the Dead Sea Scrolls.  It was a ridiculous case to try.

Remember those funny parodies, where wags would scarf up names like Eric Holder and post all manner of things that would be very embarrassing, but for the fact that everyone knew them to be a game played by online jokesters?  Not so funny now, eh?  Of course, Eric Holder isn’t Lawrence Schiffman, and would likely laugh at the meme.  Schiffman apparently can’t take a joke.

The bad news is, Raphael Golb was convicted.

A scholar’s son was convicted Thursday of using online aliases to harass and discredit his father’s detractors in a heated academic debate over the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

A Manhattan jury found Raphael Golb guilty of 30 counts against him, including identity theft, forgery and harassment. He was acquitted of one count of criminal impersonation.

Stupid thing to do? Absolutely, but consider its implications for all the rest of the comedians, the angry people, the snarks, the jokesters.  This is your boat, kids.  But what about the harm, you ask?  Doesn’t impersonation require that there be some damage, some monetary gain, something?

District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance said stealing money isn’t the only type of identity fraud.

“Using fictitious identities to impersonate victims is not what open academic debate seeks to foster,” he said.

Say what?  Cy, good buddy, those two statements don’t go together.  You aren’t the arbiter of academic debate, and there’s no crime of unfostering.  Identity fraud requires that something be stolen, that someone be harmed.  When we do away with harm, and substitute empty rhetoric in its place, all the really funny jokesters are just as guilty.  And there are a lot of really funny (though some are brutal as well) people on the internet. 

My old friend Ron Kuby, Golb’s lawyer, is of the view that there was much to be desired about the trial; legal issues that were put off to trial, then never actually decided because Judge Carol Berkman said she had already denied them.  The whole First Amendment aspect of the case fell through the cracks this way.  I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think Judge Berkman has a facebook page.  Ron wasn’t impressed  by the alleged harm done here.

“Today what happened was the district attorney of New York County and the trial court made hurting somebody’s feelings a criminal act,” defense lawyer Ronald Kuby said. “In New York, hurting people’s feelings or being annoying is not a crime. We call that Monday.”

Or Friday, as the case may be. 

Much like the Lori Drew prosecution, ultimately tossed for lack of a crime, this was a case that should never have been prosecuted.  NYU professor Lawrence Schiffman, the putative victim of Golb’s impersonation, claimed that he didn’t want Golb prosecuted.  Yet after the verdict, he has this to say:

He said in a statement Thursday that he was appreciative of the work on the case.

“Let us hope that the field of Dead Sea Scrolls research can get back to its real business — interpreting the ancient scrolls and explaining their significance for the history of Judaism and the background of early Christianity,” he said.

He’s disgraced himself amongst the Dead Sea Scroll scholars by using a criminal prosecution to shut down his most vocal critic.  He’s now disgraced himself again within the academic community by ignoring that the issue arose from his having shut out Norman Golb from the scholarly dialogue, even denying Golb access to the scrolls lest he find something that undercuts Schiffman’s claims.

For those of us less concerned with the Dead Sea Scrolls per se (though who isn’t, really), the implications of this conviction are broad and disastrous.  If playing with a sockpuppet on the internet, no harm done beyond some hurt feelings, is enough to land you in prison, we’ve got a lot of potential felons out there taking some major risks for a few laughs or to get the upper hand in an argument. 

The rough and tumble of the internet is no longer an issue of free speech, but hurt feelings.  Read it and weep.  We are all in some serious trouble now.

From the New York Times’ feature, Op-Ed at 40 :

Goings On in the Barnyard

By E. B. WHITE, August 15, 1973

When The Times asked me to report on what’s being said in my barnyard about Watergate, I immediately sought an audience with the goose. She is sore at me at the moment but is always willing to talk.

ME What is your feeling about Liddy?

GOOSE G. Gordon? One of the greats — a man of enormous verve, a bungler of immense promise. Liddy should be president.

ME Should Nixon resign?

GOOSE Yes. He should resign in favor of Liddy, who is one of the greats. Liddy carries a gun, which is what the Oval Room needs.

ME But Liddy is in jail.

GOOSE I know that, and the jail has been revitalized by his presence. The inmates love him.

ME Do you think justice was obstructed?

GOOSE Of course. Justice was obstructed along with everything else. The purpose of the executive branch is to obstruct. That’s why we need Liddy in there.

                    E. B. WHITE was the author of “Charlotte’s Web.” He died in 1985.

I don’t remember this op-ed from 1973.  Of course, in 1973, I didn’t spend much time reading op-eds, so my not remembering it comes as no surprise.  But I wish I had read it.

Today, it reminds me of the way we viewed the executive branch of government, with all the power of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the imperial uniforms of the White House guards.  The harder Tricky Dick pushed his power, the harder some of us pushed back.  America, love it or leave it.  There was the silent majority long before the moral majority, and Richard Milhous Nixon was their leader.  We had long hair, love beads and went around barefooted. 

The purpose of the executive branch is to obstruct justice.  Back then, it would have sounded like a nefarious threat.  It makes more sense to me now.  Back then, it would have been a reason to riot.  Now, it clarifies what needs to be done.  The power of the Presidency is fiat, unilaterally focused on accomplishing whatever comprises its agenda.  On good days, it will benefit the people.  On bad days, Dick will rub his hands together with glee.  On many days, it won’t be quite clear whether they are good or bad.  It’s all according to who you talk to. 

But no matter which day it is, the purpose of the executive branch is to be effective, to obstruct justice.  It’s the purpose of the judicial branch to catch those functioning under the executive branch, those obstructing justice, and stop them.  Perhaps this is what’s meant by the phrase “Officer of the Court.”  This is our job.

I miss E.B. White.

The real story came out because of the diligence of Kansas City Police Detective Max Seiffert.  It started with a road rage incident.  From the Kansas City Star :

While in the latter parts of a post this morning, the power went out.  It happens with some regularly around here due to an abundance of old trees.  We love our trees, but they are very needy.  And when they fall, they often take power with them.  That’s the price of green.

I had some great posts, thing that really mattered, running through my head and coming out my fingers, but the time to write is past and other work demands my attention.  To those who inquired about my lack of posts, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.  I’m still here.  Thank you for your concern.

Anyone disappointed by my lack of fodder this morning can leave me a comment and request their money back.  Don’t worry, you won’t hurt my feelings.

Update:  The first post this morning was about the suicide of Rutgers freshman, Tyler Clementi.

It started with a Twitter message on Sept. 19: “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”

Clementi’s roomate, 18 year old Dharun Ravi, probably thought this was just hysterically funny at the time. I bet he doesn’t now.  As the young set has informed me, everything on the internet is just for fun.  Stop taking it so seriously. 

My second post was about Bennett’s post, Today Only? Negotiating pleas isn’t for the squeamish, and if someone can bulldoze you into a plea by using the “today only” ploy, chances are you don’t have the guts for this work.  On the other hand, know your adversary, including the judge.  With some people, “today only” means exactly that, and they will cut off their nose to spite their face just to keep their word. 

It’s not a job for the gutless, but better to know up front whether the person making the pitch is going to live with the consequences.  If you don’t know, it will be your client living with the consequences, whether they want to or not.

A comment here yesterday caused me to check out a website that I’d never before seen, and it scared the daylights out of me.  The concept seems not merely sound, but actually quite good.  It offered lawyers “virtual law partners”:

The VIRTUAL LAW PARTNER concept: Our BRAIN TRUST. Add the Expertise of Highly-Experienced Legal Professionals to break into new practice areas and/or crack the tough cases:

For lifestyle, personal, and family reasons, some highly experienced attorneys, paralegals, and legal consultants enjoy being semi-retired or do not prefer to launch an entire law firm or work a full time job. Having earned the right to slow down and enjoy life, occasional consulting is perfect. Some top experts are willing to step in to help you add new areas of practice to your law firm and/or tackle that impossible case that is driving you nuts. They no longer want to file a new case and be chained to that courthouse for the next 2-3 years.

Why not?  There’s a lot of merit in the idea that JAMS isn’t the only job in town for the retired judge, and that some of us who’ve done our time in the trenches would like to do some legal work without the rigors of a full time practice.  But a quick romp through the website took the wind out of my sails.

Got a criminal case, here’s what it says:

Instant Law Partner’s founder has engineered with local counsel hundreds of acquittals in criminal defense, with an astonishing record of success in defending against criminal charges. He has also over-turned convictions even after trial using very advanced techniques of criminal law. Do you have a client or someone you know already in jail? Don’t give up just yet. Instant Law Partner might be able to vacate criminal convictions, working with a locally-licensed attorney.

Wow, “very advanced techniques” is an awfully intriguing phrase.  What sort of magic are they talking about that “locally-licensed” lawyers wouldn’t know about? And who is this founder who has “engineered” hundreds of acquittals. How does one “engineer” an acquittal anyway?   

Instant Law Partner is a nation-wide network of attorneys both currently in practice and retired, paralegals, law professors, former judges, experts, consultants, mediators, and researchers.

Even more wow.  Yet a thorough search of the website fails to reveal a single name of anyone in this nation-wide network.  There’s a page of testimonials by lawyers with only a single letter for their last name, who apparently have been using this service for years with unbelievable success.  One would suspect that they would be a household name amongst lawyers, given how they win the unwinnable case, but I’ve never heard of them.

While the sales pitch appears more directed at clients than lawyers, this service states that it’s only available to lawyers:

You, the Attorney (the client of Instant Law Partner) must be licensed to practice law in any and all jurisdictions and/or Courts involved in the case. Instant Law Partner only provides support services directly to licensed attorneys. This gives you confidence that we are here to support you, and we will never compete with you. We are not going to work directly with your clients or any other clients. It also simplifies our operations so we can focus on serving you. While in many if not most situations, Instant Law Partner’s experts, associates, or researchers working on your case or project will in fact be licensed attorneys, and may even be licensed in your particular State, you the Attorney must rely 100% on your own license to practice law, business license in your State, etc.

In other words, they get paid and you bear 100% of the responsibility. Well, the attorney who represents a client always bears 100% responsibility, though it’s a bit peculiar that they feel compelled to spell this out.

With so many interesting questions, coupled with the inability to find a name anywhere on the website of this lawyer who wins hundreds of acquittals in unwinnable cases, I couldn’t help but track back the source.  It appears that the Founder of this enterprise is Norman “Storm” Bradford,  His name was once listed on the website, along with a lawyer named Jon Moseley, whose office is the same as the “virtual office” of Bradford’s, and who gives the website as his own.  Avvo doesnt list any lawyer named Jon Moseley in Virginia.

There’s no indication that there is any lawyer in the United States named Norman Bradford, though he has another business called Mortgage Fraud Examiners (the “#1 Choice of Attorneys Nationally”), also at the same virtual address.  The only name on that website comes from this testimonial :

“There’s no comparison, Mortgage Fraud Examiners provides the most exact
and comprehensive forensic services available today.” – Jon Moseley, Esq.

Where have I heard that name before?  A search of Moseley appears to show that he is, indeed, a lawyer, though apparently one with some curious views :

A lawyer who worked as the campaign treasurer to GOP Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell in the 2008 race thinks that President Barack Obama is a secret Muslim.

“Yes, actually, I do,” Jonathan Moseley told TPM on Monday when asked if he still believes that Obama secretly practiced the Islamic faith.

What the search failed to reveal is that Moseley has any “very advanced techniques” for obtaining post-conviction dismissal.  It does, however, appear that he’s got some darn sweet techniques, along with Storm Bradford, for persuading overworked or underqualified lawyers to send them a payment to win that unwinnable case using their nation-wide network of experts, retired judges and law professors.  Any law professors want to fess up that they’re moonlighting for these guys?

On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog.  Thanks to Storm for leaving me a comment and putting this on my radar, and Mark Bennett for running down some of the background on this enterprise.  If anyone decides to avail themselves of this service as a result of this post, I expect a check in the mail for a third. 

Every once in a while, a defendant in search of a lawyer comes in to talk and asks the question, “what guarantee can you give me?”  This may be out of concern that he’s getting his money’s worth, just as one would ask about the guarantee for a dishwasher.  Sometimes, however, they are really asking a very different question: “Who are you going to ‘reach’ with my money to assure my freedom?” 

There’s a belief that this whole criminal justice system is a stacked game, a scam, where money talks and somebody walks.  Judges, prosecutors and witnesses get bribed, and the smart defendant waves and smiles as he walks happily out of the courthouse.  Stories like this feed this lie.

Clifford Minor, a former Essex County, N.J., prosecutor and Newark chief judge, has been indicted on charges of accepting a $3,500 bribe for arranging a false confession in a gun possession case, federal officials announced on Thursday.

Minor, 67, who runs a criminal defense practice in Newark, was part of a plan to have one man serve as the “fall guy” for another, officials said.

Minor was also a Newark police officer beforehand.  And now he’s a defendant, playing essentially every possible role in the system other than court clerk.  It appears that Minor was never exactly a straight shooter.

Minor was a controversial figure in Essex County both before and after becoming Essex County prosecutor in 1992. When Gov. Jim Florio nominated him, the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Judicial and County Prosecutor Appointments Committee refused to give him a “qualified” rating, partly because of a lack of trial experience. The committee reconsidered and Minor was appointed. He served as prosecutor for a five-year term, ending a month early in 1997.

In 1998, a state attorney general audit showed that Minor had distributed $200,000 from the state’s asset forfeiture program to community groups, businesses and churches — largely to assist urban youths — rather than the city or the police department and that he used $2,300 for staff golf outings from July 1992 to November 1997.

None of this, however, led inexorably to the conclusion that as a criminal defense lawyer, Minor would be party to bribing a witness, though it calls into question the sort of person who manages to wend his way into positions of relative power. 

Like television fiction that teaches people that cops have some magical sense that allows them to know who is guilty in the absence of evidence, or to tell when someone is lying because of a twitch in their upper left cheek, this story gives the impression that criminal defense is dirty business.  It’s not. 

The problem is that a defendant, inclined toward finding a lawyer with the juice to make a solid case disappear, will believe this is how it’s done.  When the answer to the question is that their legal fee goes toward “the time and hard work of defending them” against the accusation, they lose interest fast.  The answer of “hard work” answer doesn’t interest them in the slightest, because they believe that you’re just not the right lawyer, the one with the connections to the judge that can fix all problems with a brown paper bag filled with green.

Every now and then, a story of a judge, prosecutor or witness looking for, or willing to accept, a bribe appears.  In my time in the trenches, no judge or prosecutor has ever suggested any such possibility.  Not even close.  Nor has any fellow defense lawyer told drunken stories of how he took care of things in that fashion.  Not a whisper.

The closest it’s ever come are stories of lawyers playing defendants by telling them they would, and could, do so, and getting both the case, as well as a bag filled with extra cash, out of the deal.  No, they never bribed anyone and would make up some story about getting burned or some intervening disaster to cover their inability to perform, with the defendant none the wiser.  They scammed their client by playing on their belief that the system was dirty.  It wasn’t the system at fault, but the lawyer and client.

Bribing witnesses is another matter.  Over the years, many a defendant has suggested that the case could be fixed by a cash infusion to a witness.  Not a few witnesses have made it known that they would be happy to change their story for a price.  Some defendants have offered up others, willing to do some time for the right price, ready to confess to the crime.  Variations on this theme are fairly common.

No reputable criminal defense lawyer would ever become involved in any scheme of this sort.  It’s insane.  It’s wrong.

Criminal defense lawyers are presented with myriad opportunities to do wrong.  We represent people, some of whom are criminals.  They present us with opportunities to be criminals too.  It’s a slippery slope, and once we start the slide there is no ledge to stop our fall to the bottom.  We defend criminals.  We do not do what our clients do.  We are not criminals.  As much as our clients may not always have a firm appreciation of right and wrong, they generally expect their lawyer to be a person of higher integrity than they are.

From a pragmatic perspective, it’s just foolish to think that lawyers can play in the gutter and get away with it.  Our clients may need us for a brief period of time, but they don’t love us.  When lawyers play dirty, clients will give us up to save their own skin in a flash.  Given what we do, we’re targets from the outset, and most cops and prosecutors would like nothing better than to bag a dirty criminal defense lawyer. 

There have been times when I’ve been asked by newly-minted criminal defense lawyers about such things.  Almost to a person, they were on their way out the door of the district attorney’s office and seeking to establish themselves in a new practice.  These were stories, tall tales, they brought with them from their prosecutor days, that criminal defense lawyers were dirty, as much criminals as the people they represented.  Bizarrely, as they left behind their self-righteousness as prosecutors, they believed that they were about to join the dirty team and had no particular qualms.  Indeed, they chose to take the dirty lawyer route as the next step in their career.

When told that “no, we don’t do that,” they would be shocked and amazed.  I’ve long believed that if anyone was inclined to go south, it was the former prosecutor who was schooled in the myth that criminal defense lawyers were criminal lawyers.  No legal aid lawyer ever suggested such a thing.

Despite the fact that the criminal defense lawyers who I’ve worked with, drank with, loved, hated and known over the years have often been flawed human beings, occasionally challenged lawyers, they remain one of the most honorable, well-intended group of people around.  They do not commit crimes.

There are, unfortunately, exceptions, but this is not how criminal defense lawyers do their job.  And if it is, they deserve to be caught and prosecuted.  We are lawyers who defend people accused of crimes.  We are not criminals.