How to Defend a Deposition – Don’t Just Show Up and Play Lawyer

Uh oh. The other side is wearing a suit and saying “objection” a lot. They must be for real.

Yesterday Chris Bradley wrote a piece about how to defend a deposition. Advice? Just show up. Maybe wear a suit. And if you feel like it make an objection, but do it in a really lawyerly way. The other side will respect the fact that you’re there and put on a suit, and won’t take advantage of your witness.

Easy, right?

Errr… not so fast…

When it comes to clients, it takes more than just showing up and wearing a suit. What bothered me about this particular article is Chris decided to fake it with real clients. See, Sybil Dunlop wrote a piece last week about her “motion in lemonade“, which was funny. Why was it funny? Because it’s okay to mess up or puff yourself up before a lawyer who is supervising you. You’ll look dumb, but it won’t hurt anything except your ego.

However, that logic does not apply when you’re the attorney in charge. It is not okay to be a pretend lawyer with it comes to  clients.

You are either competent to handle an issue or you’re not. In Chris’s case, he may not have been competent to handle the issue but went ahead and decided to go ahead and fake it anyway, thinking that “showing up” was enough to do his client right.

That can get you into trouble. Because you know what’s worse than making a big mistake in a deposition? Making that mistake because your lawyer didn’t give you good advice. That can get both you, and your client, into serious trouble.

Showing up is never enough, especially when it comes to defending depositions.

So, let’s take a look at why this is awful, awful advice to a young lawyer. Because depositions are very, very important.

Customer Service

At first glance, I thought Brandon was going to be a great client for the firm. He was dressed well, had a thriving business, and had no qualms about paying our retainer. This was going to be a good relationship. Brandon wanted to hire us to help him go after about six businesses who stiffed him.

Easy enough.

James called me into his office and said to just run with the file. I’d worked for James for about three years now, and he was confident I knew the ropes when it came to handling civil litigation files. James sent Brandon an email letting him know I would be handling the file.

“Dear Brandon: My associate Jordan will be handling your cases. Please continue to copy me on emails, as I will be supervising, but Jordan will be your point of contact. Thanks. -James.”

The next morning, I got into the office after getting back from court and checked my voicemails. “Jordan, it’s Brandon. Have those lawsuits been filed? I’m eager to get started!” I returned his call quickly. I didn’t want to cost James a client. But how could I possibly review his file and initiate a lawsuit in less than one day?

Prenda Law, John Steele, and Paul Duffy file suit against Alan Cooper, his lawyer Paul Godfread, and anonymous John Does

I am reserving commentary since I haven’t had a chance to look at the pleadings in depth. The answer to most of your questions is “I don’t know.” Are they suing the blogs? Commenters? I dunno.

So, without further ado, here are the pleadings. To use a lawyer phrase, they speak for themselves:

Paul Duffy v. Godfread, at. al.

Prenda Law v. Godfread, at. al.

Steele v. Godfread, et. al.

Dockets are found here:

Duffy v. Godfread docket

Prenda v. Godfread docket

Steele v. Godfread docket

Prenda and Paul Duffy filed in Illinois. Steele filed in Florida. Again, I don’t know why. Procedurally, these appear to be state court actions that were removed into federal court.

The named defendants in Illinois are represented by Erin Russell and Jason Sweet. It looks like Paul Duffy is representing himself and Prenda is represented by counsel. (I can’t make out the name in the pleading). In the Florida action, Brad Patrick is representing the named defendants, and John Steele is representing himself.

Get your popcorn, because this is going to get interesting…

A Day Like This

“Ah, discovery court…”, I thought to myself, “where the dreams of baby lawyers go to die.” Discovery court is a funny animal. It is a giant courtroom packed with about a hundred other lawyers, most wearing suits from JC Penny or with holes in them. The actual hearing usually lasts about 10 seconds, and the judge usually accuses both sides of acting like children. It always smells faintly of cigarette smoke and cheap cologne, with a just hint of booze in there.

If you have any delusions that law is prestigious, spend a day in discovery court and you’ll quickly learn otherwise.

Today it was about 35 degrees out and rainy, and I had left my umbrella at the office. Fine Philadelphia weather, just warm enough that it’s not snowing, but cold enough to make the rain feel downright miserable. And, of course, the only way to get to the courthouse is to walk a few blocks in the weather.

I reached the courtroom cold and wet. I must have been in this courtroom a thousand times; it felt routine at this point. But discovery court is always the same. Show up at 8:45am, sign in, and then wait for your case to be called, hopefully quickly. Sometimes you are there for 20 minutes, sometimes you are there well into the afternoon watching petty discovery disputes. The issues are always the same, too… “I asked for documents and they didn’t give them to me” or “She noticed a deposition but didn’t ask me for convenient dates.” I could probably argue a discovery motion in my sleep – my wife tells me that often I do.

Finally, Judge Marshall was looked up from his crossword puzzles and told the bailiff to call my case. I couldn’t blame the judge for being uninterested – I wanted documents but the other side didn’t give them to me. Judge Marshall probably hears this problem fifty times a day. Hopefully I’d be home in time to grab soup from my favorite soup place. They were usually out of soup by 2pm. And today was a soup day.

Although the issues in my motion were simple, we had exchanged a lot of correspondence. The motion, with exhibits, totaled over two-thousand pages. I decided to print out the motion itself and the relevant exhibits. If the judge wanted to see more, the rest was stored on my iPad. I don’t see why he would need them, though. This also keeps my costs down, as it gets expensive to constantly be printing out documents.

Thankfully, technology had moved forward. There is no need to waste money on unnecessary printing costs in the digital age.

But as I’d soon learn, maybe the courts haven’t caught up yet…

Jury Duty.

I reported Monday morning to the Criminal Justice Center at 8am for Jury Duty. I think I was the only person remotely excited to be there.

I sat all day today in the Criminal Justice Center waiting to get called to a panel, watching scores of people groan as their names were called, trudging their way into voir dire. I waited for my name to be called.

And I waited straight through noon, when they let us out for lunch. And I waited when we got back from lunch at 1.00pm.

Finally, around 3.30pm, I heard my name and got my juror number — 65. We took the elevator up to the 11th floor and waited in the jury box. After sitting another 30 minutes, the crier came out and announced that we weren’t needed, and we should go back downstairs where they’d dismiss us.

Damn.

At least I got my $9.00 check to show for it. That, and a lack of sleep, since I spent another 8 hours making up for the work I missed.

Maybe I’ll have better luck next time.

Opposing Severance Is Now In Vogue – Using the Battlefield to Your Advantage in Bittorrent Litigation

Use the battlefield to your advantage. Do not simply charge the English heavy cavalry head on.

Back 100 years ago this July, Marc Randazza gained some attention for defending a bittorrent case a little differently. What was different? Randazza opposed severing all of the defendants. It was the first time anyone had opposed severance, as common knowledge dictated that one should always try and sever defendants in a mass bittorrent action.

The “anti-severance strategy” caused Randazza to get flack from Fightcopyrighttrolls and Ray Beckerman. Beckerman stated:

Said attorney has sued hundreds of BitTorrent users in the last year on behalf of copyright holder plaintiffs which raises the question of how and why he came to be making a motion, purportedly on behalf of a Doe defendant in that case, that clearly goes against the interests of the defendants in that case.

I mean, the ONLY way to defend one of these cases is to file a motion to sever, and a motion to quash, right? Right? That’s what the EFF said!!

Errrr… not so much. It looks like a few people owe Randazza an apology, because it’s becoming more and more apparent that severance may not be in the best interests of the Doe defendants in the current climate. In my opinion, it’s probably not in a Doe defendant’s best interest to sever a case in today’s climate.

Here is why.

Fun Friday Reading: Marc Randazza and Eric Turkewitz’s Latest Papers Absolutely Decimate Joseph Rakofsky

Margarita Monday anyone…?

Finally got around to reading the new papers filed in the Joseph Rakofsky v. the Internet case. Here they are:

• Defendants’ Opposition to Motion to Amend
• Eric Turkewitz’s Affidavit in Opposition to Amend Complaint
• Defendants’ Reply to Response to Motion to Dismiss
• Eric Turkewitz Affidavit in Support of Motion to Dismiss

A couple of weeks ago I did my best to try and breakdown Rakofsky’s set of papers. This week Marc Randazza and Eric Turkewitz did a much better job.

The opposition to Rakofsky’s Motion to Amend discusses Rakofsky’s endless amount of paper he has made everyone sift through, including opposing a pro hac motion, requesting a stay and then violating it by trying to file motions that were deemed “incomprehensible”, and then appealing the denial of those motions. Rakofsky also sought $5000 settlements from many of the defendants, which some actually paid. As the Defendants point out:

Once the Court granted Marc Randazza’s pro hac vice admission on September 15, 2011, Rakofsky requested and received a stay of proceedings so that he could retain new counsel. On October 24, 2011, however, Rakofsky attempted to file documents with the court in violation of this very stay that he had just requested.
…

Rakofsky again tried to receive ex parte relief from the Court on December 23, 2011, bringing an order to show cause that sought a wide range of relief ranging from a second amendment of the complaint, to court orders that involved at least one non-party, Google, Inc. On the face of these papers, it was hard to understand what, exactly, Rakofsky wanted the court to do. The filing was so awful that Justice Goodman, who handled this matter prior to her retirement, denied it on January 3, 2012 as “incomprehensible.”

Winging It

It was a boring Wednesday afternoon at about 3:45pm. I was playing on Twitter, reading the sports news, and happy to have a little downtime. My phone started to ring. I looked at the caller ID and saw it was James’s partner, Chris, my former boss at Wolf Rebman. I picked up the phone and to see what was going on.

Chris sounded worried.

Crystal Cox: Is Philly Law Blog Part of a Big Awesome Media Conspiracy, Along With AbovetheLaw and Nickelback fans? I Sure Hope So!

Chickity China the Chinese chicken, you have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin', watchin' X-Files with no lights on, we're dans la maison, I hope the Smoking Man's in this one.

Growing up, my favorite show was the X-Files. You could never tell if Fox Mulder was off his rocker, or whether the whole thing was part of a big alien conspiracy. And the Smoking Man was pretty cool.

I still like shows on the History Channel about Nostradamus, the Mayan Calendar, and the Illuminati and that sort of thing. Hell, I’ve even read the DaVinci Code. The conspiracy theory stuff is always fun and interesting.

Today, as an unabashed Nickelback fan, I’m hoping to become part of the vast conspiracy.

Now, I know you’re saying “There’s no such thing as a Nickelback fan!”

But shouldn’t the question be asked?

Are Nickelback fans trying to silence Crystal Cox on behalf of big media?

The Evolution of Crystal Cox: Anatomy of a Scammer

"Does anyone out there want me to write defamatory stuff about them and then buy my reputation management services to remove it? YOU CAN PAY ME IN STRAIGHT CASH HOMIE!"

Today I’m here to shine a little sunlight and tell you the entire story of Obsidian v. Cox, the matter touted as “bloggers aren’t journalists.”

Often, the truth is much stranger, and sicker, than fiction…

This is how Crystal Cox’s scam works generally: Cox calls herself an investigative blogger / journalist. She posts a bunch of negative stuff about you on the internet. Then she buys a bunch of domain names about you, your family, and your business to make sure all her posts are at the top of a Google search. But lucky for you, Cox also happens to be a “reputation management specialist.” Cox then offers to sell you “reputation management services” to clean it all up to the tune of $2500 a month.

As Carlos Miller aptly put it, Crystal Cox “is the cyber equivalent of the mob goons who firebomb your business, before demanding protection money.”

Not surprisingly, a court found this kind of behavior is not protected speech in Obsidian v. Cox.

You may remember that over the weekend I wrote a piece about Crystal Cox, when Cox went after Marc Randazza’s three year old daughter after offering to sell Randazza “reputation management” services which he declined.

Yes, you read that right – apparently Crystal Cox went after a three year old when Randazza wouldn’t buy reputation management services.