As I contemplated the bounty of another Thanksgiving, I paused to reflect and give thanks for the many blessings given to me: a loving family, good health, a successful career, and an abundance of idiots and oddballs in the legal system to give me a steady supply of material for my column.

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Yes, if it weren’t for people like that providing grist for this literary mill, what would I have to write about?

If you don’t believe me, just look at some of the stranger defenses that litigants have been resorting to lately.

The “You Got My Name Wrong” Defense

California defense attorney Debra Bogaards threw everything but the kitchen sink at San Francisco Superior Court Judge Wallace Douglass recently, all in an effort to win a new trial after her client — the California Academy of Sciences — was hit with a $1.4 million personal injury verdict.

An employee of the Academy rear-ended plaintiff Susanne Ice-Dunnigan, causing her back injuries. Bogaards methodically went through 14 possible grounds for granting a new trial, over the course of hearings lasting two days.

Her most creative reason?  According to Ms. Bogaards, the judge “impugned” her credibility with the jury and revealed bias against her by twice calling her “Ms. Bogus” in front of the jurors (on one occasion, the judge apologized for getting the name wrong).

While this “Bogus” defense was certainly a novel one, it didn’t work: the judge refused to toss the verdict.

It Was My Other Personality That Did It

Holy, Sybil, Batman!  Can you really blame an alternate personality to escape responsibility for a crime?  That’s what New York doctor Diana Williamson tried when facing Medicaid fraud charges last month.

The 56-year-old doctor, who had pleaded guilty, was seeking a more lenient sentence for writing phony prescriptions that cost Medicaid $300,000.

Dr. Williamson claimed that one of her multiple personalities, “Nala,” carried out the scheme unbeknownst to her.  According to her attorney, Dr. Williamson developed multiple personality disorder more than 25 years ago, following years of childhood sexual abuse.

The federal judge considering the sentencing request delayed making a decision to evaluate other medical issues facing Dr. Williamson as well.

Blame It on the Mayan Apocalypse

A man in Kemerovo, Russia, is challenging the payment of a traffic fine, citing those who claim that the Mayan calendar predicts that the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012.

And, hey, if the world is going to end anyway, why should you have to pay a traffic ticket, right?

The defendant says the impending apocalypse makes paying the fine pointless, and he even provided charts detailing the “imminent” end of the world.

It looks like the “Doomsday defense” isn’t just on a football field.  Just to play it safe, maybe the court should schedule his hearing for Dec. 22, 2012.

Because I’m Going Through a Divorce

The people of Jacksonville, Fla., have a spanking-new, $350 million courthouse.

Of course, it looks a little less new after a Florida woman upset with her divorce went on a graffiti rampage.

Thirty-five-year-old Aubrey Dostie, caught up in a messy divorce and custody proceedings, vented with the help of cans of spray paint.  She spray painted broken hearts, the words “free us,” the message “F_ Judge James Ruth,” and “$300 million courthouse.”

And the rampage didn’t stop at the courthouse.  Dostie allegedly went to the corporate headquarters of her estranged husband’s business and spray painted more messages.

The “Because I’m An Idiot” Defense

Some labels you choose yourself, while others are thrust upon you.  Thirty-two-year-old Shena Hardin of Cleveland, Ohio, decided she was simply too busy to stop for a stopped school bus or to wait patiently to use the street.

So, she passed the school bus and drove on the sidewalk instead (right in front of a day care center, no less).

After police caught her and charged her with reckless operation of a motor vehicle and failing to stop for a school bus, the Cleveland municipal judge suspended her license for 30 days and imposed a $250 fine.

The judge also ordered Hardin to return to the scene of her crime the following Tuesday and Wednesday, and to publicly wear a sign that read “Only an idiot would drive on the sidewalk to avoid the school bus.”

The “I’m the Dumbest Robber Ever” Defense

There are several worthy contenders for using this defense.  The first is Amanda Ringler of Payne, Ind., who pointed an umbrella at an employee working the drive-through window of a fast food restaurant and demanded money.

The employee hit the panic alarm, and Ringler drove away empty-handed—but not before witnesses took down her license plate number.

Ringler was sentenced to three years for attempted theft; that’s a lot of rainy days to think about.

Another contender is 31-year-old Kerri Ann Heffernan of Bridgewater, Mass.  Heffernan is accused of robbing four banks in the vicinity of Brockton, Mass.

During one robbery, the teller actually recognized her, called her by name, and asked if she wanted to make a deposit.  When you’re recognized in mid-robbery attempt, it’s time to find another source of cash.

Finally, there’s Eric Lee Siggins, who was found passed out on a bench outside of a bank in Framingham, Mass.  Onlookers who were going to use the ATM alerted police to the man when they saw a handgun in the waistband of his pants.

Police found him unresponsive, but with duct tape, handcuffs, a knife and a gun.  Siggins might be released after the judge noted that no crime had actually been attempted, much less committed, due to Siggins’ passed-out condition.

As a lawyer, you’re a member of a profession that’s held to a higher standard in your work life.

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Unfortunately, in their personal lives, lawyers are just like everyone else dealing with human foibles and frailties.  Even more unfortunate, sometimes the problems in one’s personal life spill over into the lawyer’s career activities in situations that range from the comic to the tragic.

Take Jason Cantrell, for example.  The 43-year-old assistant New Orleans city attorney was in the courtroom of the Orleans Parish Magistrate Court in early October, chatting with a couple of police officers, when a marijuana cigarette fell out of his pocket.

The two cops looked at each other, the floor and then led Cantrell out of the courtroom in what had to be the easiest arrest they’d made in a long time.  Cantrell was charged with a low level offense, simple marijuana possession, and given a summons.

However, having a joint fall out of your pocket when you’re a lawyer—in court, no less—has major consequences.  Cantrell was suspended from, and then resigned from, his city job.

Even his wife, who was running for a city council seat, publicly criticized him.  That little episode certainly qualifies as one of those Southwest Airlines “Wanna get away?” commercials.

You’ve heard of athletes, celebrities and even the occasional politician who have forwarded naughty photos of themselves to the wrong person with embarrassing results.  But a judge?

That was the case with Philadelphia traffic court judge Willie Singletary, who was allegedly showing family photos to a government contractor when the slideshow included two photos of his genitals.

Singletary claimed he had forgotten about those photos, and the display was unintentional.  But the Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline was not so understanding, and ruled that Singletary’s “photo session featuring the judicial penis” brought the judicial office into disrepute.

The court said “We hold that a judge who intentionally grooms his penis for photography, and then intentionally photographs his penis for the purpose of display to others, had better remember that the photographs are in his phone lest they ‘slip out’ at some inopportune (albeit unplanned) time under circumstances which are likely to offend another person or persons.”

The court suspended Willie for being too casual with his willy, and Singletary resigned shortly thereafter.

Maybe one day, Singletary will have to hold a press conference like the one held this November by Cortland County (New York) District Attorney Mark Suben.  During a heated election campaign, Suben’s opponent claimed that Suben had acted in porn films during the 1970s, a charge the D.A. denied.

But after the election was over, the 69-year-old Suben announced that he had indeed been an actor in adult films.  Appearing under the stage name “Gus Thomas,” the then-young actor (who was also doing commercials, soap operas and off-Broadway productions), appeared in such porn films as “The Devil’s Due,” “Bedroom Bedlam,” “The Love Witch,” and “Deep Throat 2.”

Later, the actor enrolled in law school, and Suben’s career would go on to feature stints as an assistant prosecutor, as a city court judge, a county attorney and as a city corporation counsel.  Imagine how the campaign commercials could have been livened up had Suben confessed his part before the election—you could have added a bad 70s porn music soundtrack and a booming announcer’s voiceover proclaiming “Mark Suben Is the Long Arm of the Law.”

While it’s not quite the same as accusing the D.A. of being a porn star, the campaign for Hocking County (Ohio) Prosecutor did get nasty enough to involve discussion of incumbent Laina Fetherolf’s panties, or lack thereof.

During the campaign, Fetherolf filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission over lies allegedly being spread by her opponent, attorney Jason Sarver.  According to the complaint, Sarver was telling third parties a salacious tale about a time in court when Fetherolf had committed the fashion faux pas of wearing very visible dark panties under a light-colored dress.

Supposedly, the judge directed her to fix the problem, prompting Fetherolf to go to the restroom, remove her panties, and then return to the courtroom and place the undergarment in evidence before the judge while proclaiming “Problem solved.”

Fetherolf said she was willing to laugh it off until the story began to spread, a story that both she and the judge in question say is an outright lie.

The complaint, which was initially dismissed on technical grounds, was a unique one for the Ohio Elections Commission.  Phillip Richter, executive director of the commission, noted that “This is one of the more interesting complaints we’ve ever received.”

Yes, lawyers are human.  We make mistakes, sometimes very publicly: a recently-published lawbook, the 2013 edition of the New Jersey Federal Practice Rules, unfortunately spelled “Practice” as “Pracitce.” (oops!).

Sometimes we snap a little, like the lawyer for rapper/accused domestic abuser Chris Brown did when his celebrity client wouldn’t stop talking over his lawyer during a recent court appearance.  The lawyer warned Brown, “I don’t dance—you don’t talk.”

And, sometimes we go a little crazy.  In fact, a recent study compared traits that characterize psychopaths (things like stress tolerance, coldheartedness, egocentricity, manipulativeness, and “antisocial behaviors such as a parasitic lifestyle”), and tried to match them up with professions.

What profession was most likely to feature people with psychopathic personality disorders, according to this study?  Being a CEO was number one, followed by lawyer at number two (journalist was a distant sixth, right behind surgeon).

Every year, it seems there are high-profile civil liberties lawsuits in which municipalities are criticized for supposedly blurring the lines between church and state with Nativity scenes on government property.  But agitating for equal time for “Festivus,” the made-up holiday immortalized by TVs “Seinfeld”?

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That was the case in Deerfield Beach, Fla., where for five years, local activist Chaz Stevens tried to get the city to get rid of a Nativity scene prominently displayed on the lawn of a city firehouse.  So, Stevens applied for permission to have a “Festivus Pole” next to the Nativity scene—and got it.

As depicted on the “Seinfeld” comedy, Festivus (for the rest of us) is a Dec. 23 holiday marked by the “airing of grievances,” feats of strength between family members, and the display of a simple, unadorned aluminum pole.  The Deerfield Beach city attorney had no comment on the city’s decision to approve putting an aluminum pole inspired by a sitcom 6 feet away from a depiction of the birth of Christ, but it’s not the first time “Festivus” has gained official recognition.

A couple of years ago, a California judge acceded to a prison inmate’s request for special meals on the “holiday” and recognized “Festivus” as a legitimate religious celebration.  Ah, your tax dollars at work.

Want to get even with government?  One man upset over a traffic ticket he received in a small town appeared not long ago to pay the $137 fine in cash.  He brought 137 intricately folded (origami style) dollar bills in the shape of pigs, packed up neatly in Dunkin Donuts boxes.  The city was not amused, and made him unfold his work of art/act of political protest.

Some people don’t know when to leave well enough alone.  Ernest Pagels Jr. of Wisconsin really wanted his day in court to contest a disorderly conduct citation—REALLY, REALLY wanted it.  When prosecutors dropped the charges, Pagels objected to the case against him being dismissed and even filed an appeal when the judge ignored his plea to let the trial go on.  Alas, the appeals court disagreed with Pagels too, ending the case.

And speaking of seeing the justice system at work, that’s what some 20 San Diego high school students thought they were going to see on a field trip to the courthouse to watch a trial.  The Grossmont High School students were in Superior Court Judge Peter Deddeh’s courtroom watching testimony in an attempted murder and conspiracy case against three defendants alleged to be members of the Mexican Mafia prison gang.

Suddenly, one of the defendants, Eduardo Macias, slashed his lawyer in the face with a razor blade that Macias had smuggled in.  The teens watched as the lawyer was taken from the courtroom on a stretcher, as the judge pondered whether to declare a mistrial.

It wasn’t exactly the civics lesson that was planned, but it will probably make some of these kids think twice about becoming a lawyer.

Insurance companies can be tough to deal with, and no one knows that better than George Johannesen.  The 59-year-old Canadian recently received a letter, addressed to “The Estate of George Johannesen,” from his insurance company informing him that he had “died” in October. In addition, based on the erroneous information from the carrier, Johannesen’s driver’s license was cancelled.

The Canadian wrote back to inform the company that he was very much alive.  As Mark Twain would have said, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

Fake deaths and insurance companies just seem to go together.  Recently, Seattle newspapers reported a case straight out of a Monty Python sketch involving a Mr. Samsonov, who had filed a $20,000 claim with an insurance company for the death of a parrot.

Suspicions were aroused when investigators noted that the photo of the dead “parrot” was actually that of a parakeet.  Things got even more suspicious when it was learned that Samsonov had filed a claim (also for $20,000) with PEMCO Insurance over the death of a cat.

Claims investigators asked the man for another photo of the cat; when Samsonov complied, the investigator ran a Google image search and determined that the cat pictures actually came from the Internet, not Samsonov’s camera.  After the state Insurance Commission got involved, Samsonov was charged with and convicted of insurance fraud.

Mr. Samsonov clearly isn’t the only person who appreciates a good Internet photo of kittens.  Writer David Galbraith recently went public with his tongue-in-cheek battle with lawyers from Lockheed Martin after they wrote him about a domain name he had registered, “designskunkworks.com.”

As it turns out, Lockheed Martin has an actual, trademarked facility named Skunkworks.  Galbraith’s registration prompted a “take this down or else” letter, at which point Galbraith sent the lawyers a picture of a cute kitten.

The lawyers were not amused.  After they sent another letter demanding that he turn over the domain name registration, Galbraith replied with a letter agreeing to do so on one condition: that the lawyers send him “a link to a picture of a really cute puppy.”

The lawyers weren’t amused.  After receiving another cold, nasty letter from them, Galbraith repeated his demand, saying “The picture of a puppy will be much cheaper and fill me with the joy that money simply cannot buy.”

While Galbraith understood that “puppy picture payment must be a more demanding logistical problem,” he also felt that “the world would be a better place if eminently solvable legal disputes were resolved by the ludicrous ritual exchange of somewhat cloyingly saccharine pictures.”

If only legal disputes really could be resolved that way!

Finally, I’ve taken over a few cases for clients that I would have described as ticking time bombs.  But I never had that happen literally.

Recently, the Palm Beach County bomb squad was called to the office of Florida lawyer John McDivitt to deal with a surprise McDivitt had found when clearing out the papers of a recently-deceased client: two hand grenades!

The late client had been a World War II veteran.  The explosive devices were removed from the attorney’s office and safely detonated.

All’s well that ends well.

Another year down, another year to look forward to the good, the bad, the ugly, and the just plain weird of the legal world.

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But before we get too deep into the start of 2013, let’s pause to acknowledge the strangest moments from the justice system during 2012 with what I like to call the “Justie Awards.”

The “It’s the End of the World, and I Feel Fine” Award

This one goes out to Montana attorney Duncan Scott, who in mid-December filed a “Notice of Non-Availability” with the court in which he had a case, citing the Mayan apocalypse as his excuse.

The pleading simply stated “Plaintiffs’ counsel hereby gives notice he will not be available any time after December 21, 2012, due to the end of the world,” and Scott even attached a December 13, 2012, newspaper article about the Mayan apocalypse as Exhibit A.

Was Scott being tongue-in-cheek, or does he belong on a show like “Doomsday Preppers” instead?

The veteran lawyer of over 30 years apparently wasn’t counting on the accuracy of that supposed Mayan doomsday prediction since he spent a full day enduring continuing legal education classes in order to keep his law license current, and since he paid for non-refundable tickets to the Rose Bowl—scheduled for 10 days after the Mayan “end of the world.”

The “Gimme That Old Time Religion” Award

If Tennessee death row inmate Lemaricus Davidson has his way, this one will go to the jury that he says wrongly convicted him of the slayings of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom.  Davidson’s lawyer has filed a motion for a new trial, claiming his client was denied his right to a fair trial and an impartial jury by the religious zeal of the jurors.

According to the motion, jurors spent four hours during deliberations singing hymns, praying and reading the Bible.  A bailiff allegedly observed this behavior, including the members of the jury reading Psalm 90, verse 12 (“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom”).

Given the nature of the crimes, Mr. Davidson might be well advised to spend a little time getting closer to the Lord himself.

The “Accidental Juror” Award

A funny thing happened during the Dec. 4, 2012, assault trial of 29-year-old Donald Campbell in Springfield, Mass.  A man with a limited grasp of the English language was at the courthouse that day to take care of a traffic ticket.

But when a bailiff brought a group of jurors back to the courtroom (following a lunch recess) for the resumption of Campbell’s trial, this confused gentleman wandered along with the group and joined them in the jury box.

With no one noticing—not the judge, the lawyers, or even any of the real jurors—this “accidental juror” sat in on the testimony of two witnesses, closing arguments by both sides and even instructions from the judge.  The juror he “replaced” was apparently late returning from lunch and then went to an unused deliberation room to wait for instructions.

Meanwhile, the jury—plus one uninvited visitor—returned a guilty verdict.  As soon as the mistake was noticed, the trial judge declared a mistrial.

The incident has led to not just a new March 27 trial for Campbell, but has also resulted in the state trial court revamping their procedures for how court officers check in jurors following recesses (seated jurors now report to the jury pool room after a recess, and court officers identify them by using numbered cards that each juror receives).

Judge William J. Boyle, presiding justice of the Springfield District Court, says “Given our volume of criminal cases—we are the number one busiest district court in the entire commonwealth of Massachusetts—every now and then something completely unexpected happens.”

The “Wash Your Mouth Out With Soap” Award

This one should be presented to the person seeking a trademark for a novelty lollipop aimed at fans of the University of South Carolina and Jacksonville State University.

Both schools feature the gamecock as their athletic mascots, and the maker of a rooster-shaped chocolate lollipops sought a federal trademark for the confection’s risqué name—which we can’t print in a family publication, but let’s just say it rhymes with “rock pucker.”

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied the trademark registration on the grounds that it was “immoral or scandalous matter,” and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision, noting that just because “something is funny does not mean that it cannot be scandalous.”

The “You Can’t Arrest Me, I’m Already Going to Jail” Award

Sometimes the first defense that comes to mind is not a good one—especially if you’re drunk.  On Dec. 26, 2012, 25-year-old Thomasine Harjo allegedly was driving drunk in Oklahoma City when she crashed through police barricades into the scene of an earlier, fatal accident.

When police at the crime scene stopped Harjo and placed her under arrest for DUI, she told police that she couldn’t be put in jail because she had a court appearance in the morning.

What was her court appearance for?  Why, an earlier driving under the influence charge, of course.

The “You’re Too Hot—So You’re Fired” Award

This award is presented to Fort Dodge, Iowa, dentist James Knight, with an “Honorable Mention for Most Inane Decision” going to the all-male Iowa Supreme Court.

In December, the court ruled that the 53-year-old Dr. Knight acted legally when he fired his attractive and much younger assistant because he and his wife considered the woman a threat to their marriage.

Knight had complained to the assistant, Melissa Nelson, that her looks and tight clothing were “distracting,” and that if he had a bulge in his pants then her clothes were too revealing.

After she was fired, Nelson sued, alleging that she was wrongfully discriminated against because of her gender.  The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled that employers can fire employees they consider to be an “irresistible attraction” without being guilty of unlawful discrimination.

Not surprisingly, the ruling has come under fire from many legal observers who say it ignores the conduct women often see in the workplace.

There are many problems with legal education, ranging from its costs to its lack of emphasis on the practical skills a school’s graduates will need in the real world to the comparative lack of transparency of many law schools’ placement efforts.

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One of the most persistent complaints has to do with legal scholarship, and whether law professors (and the schools themselves) place an inordinate emphasis on publishing scholarly articles in law reviews compared with actual teaching.

No less a figure than the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John G. Roberts, took a potshot at legal scholarship when he said “Pick up a copy of any law review that you see, and the first article is likely to be, you know, the influence of Immanuel Kant on evidentiary approaches in 18^th-century Bulgaria, or something which I’m sure was of great interest to the academic that wrote it, but isn’t of much help to the bar.”

And the Chief Justice is far from alone in his critiques.  Another member of our highest court, Justice Stephen Breyer, once observed that “There is evidence that law review articles have left terra firma to soar into outer space.”

Law reviews ostensibly exist for two main reasons: to provide academic articles that can guide and influence judges, lawmakers and practitioners and to give student editors valuable editing, research and writing experience (not to mention a credential to add to their resumes).

Yet most law review articles are rarely if ever cited.  In fact, one study demonstrated that 43 percent of the law review articles in the Lexis-Nexis database had never been cited anywhere—not in appellate opinions, not by trial courts, not even in other law review articles.

Despite this, law reviews are proliferating.  According to the Current Index to Legal Periodicals, in 1960, there were 118 law reviews in the United States.  Today, there are over 600.

Georgetown alone has 11 scholarly law journals, while my alma mater, the University of Texas School of Law, has nine.

Each year, over 10,000 articles are published by the nation’s law reviews, the overwhelming majority of which are rarely if ever cited.  Only a tiny fraction will be of practical value to lawyers or influence a court or legislature.  Most will simply pad the resumes of the law professors authoring them. This is nothing new.

Fifty years ago, legal educator Harold Havighurst keenly observed that “Whereas most periodicals are published primarily in order that they may be read, the law reviews are published primarily in order that they may be written.”

For most law professors, publishing is less a tool for influencing judges or lawmakers than a means to professional advancement along the academic ladder in the “publish or perish” world of those seeking tenure.

While appellate courts do cite to law review articles (particularly if they address a growing trend in the law or a split in authority among courts confronting an issue in common), the infrequency of this has led professors to adopt other benchmarks of their own influence.

A kind of pecking order has evolved, with law professors measuring themselves by the prestige of the institution publishing them (a top-ranked law school counts for more than, say, the Western Podunk State Law Review); by whether their work appears in the school’s “flagship” law review as opposed to a “specialty” law journal; and even by the number of pages and citations featured in their articles.  Whether or not the work is well-written and has something timely or meaningful to say seems to be mere afterthoughts.

In addition, most law professors look down upon publishing in “practitioner-oriented” publications like bar journals—despite the fact that such journals almost invariably reach a wider audience (the Texas Bar Journal, for example, has a readership of over 90,000, while the venerated Harvard Law Review had 1,896 subscribers during the 2010–2011 academic year) and therefore have a much better chance of actually being read by lawyers and judges.

Even as a part-time law professor, I have to confess to feeling that little thrill at seeing my work being mentioned.  To date, my writings have been cited in more than three dozen law review articles, from flagship law reviews at top tier schools like the Duke Law Journal to specialty journals like the Rutgers Computer and Technology Law Journal.  Although most of the time I’m cited in the field for which I’m best known (social media and the law, and other Internet-related legal issues), there have been a few surprising recognitions of my work.

A “Legally Speaking” column I wrote about a controversial court decision banning inmate use of the “Dungeons and Dragons” roleplaying game was cited in an article on censorship in prisons appearing in a 2012 issue of the Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy.

Another “Legally Speaking” column on compensation for exonerated prisoners was cited in a Western New England Law Review article examining how best to compensate the wrongfully imprisoned.

A story I did on restaurant critics getting sued for bad reviews wound up being cited as authority in the University of Missouri (Kansas City) Law Review article “The Good, the Bad, and the Gross: A Critical Review of Food Review Defamation Law.”

A column I did on governmental response to Arizona’s “show us your papers” law was cited in a Duke Law Journal article on federal preemption and state regulation of immigration, while pieces on lawyer misconduct have found their way into articles on legal ethics in the New Mexico Law Review, the Maryland Law Review and the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law.

Perhaps the biggest surprise for me was when I saw a magazine article I wrote on traditional Irish law being cited in an article on Ireland’s blasphemy law in the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law.

Since I’m not a full-time law professor, I’m not constrained by the looming shadow of tenure, and I don’t feel compelled to engage in an academic version of “counting coup” by only publishing in the most prestigious law reviews.

I like my work to be read, and to matter by adding to a body of thought about a particular subject, such that other lawyers, judges, and even lawmakers can benefit.  After all, isn’t that what really counts?

Lance Armstrong’s long-awaited confession to Oprah Winfrey that he doped during his years of competitive cycling—years that saw him win the Tour de France seven times—will have far-ranging repercussions. 

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They will likely have a seismic effect on the sport of cycling itself, as the full details of how Armstrong alternately bullied and cajoled teammates on the U.S. Postal Service team into supporting his scheme emerge, and as the story behind Armstrong and his advisers’ manipulation of the drug testing protocols is revealed.

Armstrong’s reputation and the good the cancer survivor did through his Livestrong Foundation are irrevocably damaged as well. 

But one area in which the effects of Armstrong’s sudden about-face are already being felt, and will continue to be felt for some time, is in the legal arena and not just the court of public opinion.

Armstrong may be poised to reap the legal whirlwind brought on by years of his vehement denials and outright litigiousness.  One clear example is that of SCA Promotions, a Dallas-based insurance company that insured $12 million in bonuses paid to the disgraced cyclist.

Pursuant to an insurance policy taken out by Tailwind Sports (owner of the U.S. Postal Service team) to cover performance bonuses owed to Armstrong if he won his fourth, fifth, and sixth Tour de France titles, SCA was obligated to pay the money if Armstrong was the “official winner” of the sport’s premier race.  But SCA had had its suspicions about Armstrong’s use of performance-enhancing drugs for a while and, at first, refused to pay the bonus for Armstrong’s sixth Tour de France win in 2004.

Armstrong took the company to a binding arbitration hearing in Dallas in 2005 over the $5 million owed under the contract, and won.  Now, however, SCA and its lawyer, Jeff Tillotson, want their $12 million back.

After the Oprah interview and Armstrong’s admission, SCA announced its plan to file a lawsuit.

As Tillotson stated, Armstrong “doped during all those races, and USADA and UCI have stripped him of his official title status.  So, under those circumstances, my client naturally wants his money back.  We have made a demand for return of the $12 million and if that money is not returned to us, my client will pursue litigation.  He feels Lance Armstrong neither has the legal right, nor frankly the moral right, to keep those funds.”

Tillotson professes to being shocked at Armstrong’s admissions during the Oprah interview, saying “it was pretty clear from the first few minutes of the interview that he had committed perjury in our legal proceedings in the U.S.”

That brings up an interesting question: will Armstrong be charged with perjury?  Armstrong has made a number of declarations under oath denying engaging in doping, but he may not face perjury charges on all of them since criminal perjury allegations are subject to statutes of limitations that vary by state.

It’s likely that only the more recent admissions could result in perjury charges.  Federal perjury is subject to a five-year statute of limitations.

However, even if Armstrong doesn’t face as many perjury charges as some might expect, charges of obstruction of justice and making false statements to government officials remain a distinct possibility.  Among other investigations, Armstrong was the subject of a federal grand jury investigation in 2011 and 2012.

There are other potential legal battles facing Armstrong.  He’s already a defendant in a whistleblower lawsuit brought by former teammate Floyd Landis, who maintains that Armstrong and others breached contractual and fiduciary duties to the Postal Service team by cheating.  Landis’ suit seeks the approximately $30 million that the USPS paid to the team, plus potential trebling of damages that could bring the total to $90 million.

In addition, Armstrong was fairly litigious as he sought to protect and perpetuate the story he had created about himself, suing individuals who dared to accuse him of doping for libel.  This includes USADA executives, Emma O’Reilly (a former assistant to the Postal Service team), and others.

One likely plaintiff is London’s Sunday Times newspaper, which paid Armstrong a reported $1.5 million to settle the libel lawsuit he brought against it, following a June 2004 article accusing him of using banned substances.

In 2006, Armstrong dropped defamation lawsuits in France; at the time, Armstrong rather cockily referred to his track record in the courtroom of winning defamation lawsuits, saying “I think we’re 10-0 in lawsuits right now.  My life is not about that anymore.  I’ve answered all the questions.”

Actually, even in the wake of his admissions to Oprah Winfrey, Lance Armstrong has not “answered all the questions.”  Depending on the extent to which he comes clean with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, the cyclist may face more litigation and more charges.

Some of the people he sued for defamation are likely to give Armstrong a taste of being on the receiving end of a defamation claim.  And, although the Livestrong Foundation that Armstrong started may suffer fundraising losses in the wake of his confession, it is doubtful that the charity will face allegations of fundraising fraud.  Besides Armstrong’s recent distancing himself from the foundation, there has never been any claim that Livestrong violated any applicable tax or charitable fundraising laws.

Even Armstrong’s writings have come back to haunt him.  Amidst jokes that Armstrong’s autobiography would have to be moved to the “fiction” section of libraries and bookstores, two readers have filed a federal lawsuit in Sacramento, Calif., seeking class action status.

They allege that they wouldn’t have purchased Armstrong’s bestseller, It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life, had they known the true facts concerning the cyclist’s doping.  They seek refunds and, of course, attorneys’ fees.

Armstrong’s visit to the electronic confessional of the Oprah Winfrey show and his belated admissions hastened the fall from grace of someone once regarded as a true American hero and an iconic Texas personality.

Sadly, the last races Lance Armstrong will compete in and likely lose will be races to the courthouse.

As many readers know, many of my columns point out the stranger goings-on in our legal system, with an occasional sprinkling of the odder moments in civil and criminal cases in foreign countries thrown in for a little international flavor.

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But this week, just to show you that legal weirdness is truly global in scope, I’d like to feature nothing but the strangest from legal systems other than our own.

Several of these examples echo similar cases in the U.S., proving that when it comes to bizarre cases, laws, and litigants, it’s a small world after all.

The Sleeping Judge

There have been numerous instances in U.S. courts of judges falling asleep on the bench.  But recently, a Russian judge caught napping on the job made national headlines.

Judge Yevgeny Makhno of Blagoveshschensk City Court in far east Russia was caught sleeping on the bench just before he woke up and sentenced an outraged defendant to five years in jail for fraud.

The defense lawyer posted several videos online of Judge Makhno asleep in court, and the videos went viral, making their way onto Russian state television.

In his defense, Judge Makhno claimed he was not sleeping, only “listening with his eyes closed” (Yevgeny, I’ve tried that excuse with my wife, and it doesn’t work).

The judge was fired, but under Russia’s system, he can be reinstated after taking an exam.  Fortunately for the defendant, justice may be blind but she at least stays alert: he will get a new trial.

Let’s hope he also gets a well-rested judge.

Medical Malpractice, German Style

One common stereotype is that Germans are very efficient about everything.  Apparently, their medical malpractice cases are bigger and better than everyone else’s, too.

The family of a man who died following a routine surgery for prostate cancer is suing, claiming surgeons left 16 different items inside his body during the surgery.  Sixteen objects—that’s practically a hardware store!

Seventy-four-year old Dirk Schroeder complained of extreme pain for months after the operation, and went to another hospital during a visit with relatives in Hanover, Germany, where a shocked nurse saw a large gauze pad protruding from his wound.

Surgeons then removed a total of 16 items, including a needle, a 6-inch roll of bandage, a 6-inch long compress, several swabs and a piece of a surgical mask.

Schroeder passed away in 2012, after his cancer had spread, and his family is now suing for over 80,000 euros.

The hospital claims the objects must have entered his body “post-operatively,” but that seems pretty hard to believe.

I don’t think I’ve seen that many objects in one patient since my siblings and I played that old Milton-Bradley board game “Operation” growing up.

Too bad Mr. Schroeder’s nose couldn’t light up red and buzz to let his doctors know they’d erred.

Mortgage Reform, Swiss Style

A farm owner in the northeastern canton (state) of Glarus, Switzerland, is breathing a sigh of relief these days.  That’s because a court recently wiped out an ancient debt attached to the farm, requiring an annual payment of 70 Swiss francs (about $76) stemming from 1357.

That year, a previous landowner named Konrad Mueller killed a man and, in atonement, he promised the local Catholic church he would keep an eternal lamp lit.  The obligation was handed down through the centuries in the form of an annual payment for oil and candles.

But the current owner finally balked at the yearly payment and took the church to court over it.  The Swiss court agreed that Swiss mortgage reforms back in the mid-19th century had invalidated the procedure, so now the church will have to “get its flame on” some other way.

Canada’s Beauty Queen is a Riot–Literally

Everyone knows that Canadians take their hockey seriously, and apparently their beauty pageant contestants are no different.

After the Vancouver Canucks lost to the Boston Bruins in the 2011 NHL Finals, rioting broke out in Vancouver with cars being set on fire, widespread looting and violence.  So far 173 people have been charged with crimes related to the riots, and over 100 have already pleaded guilty.

Among them is 21 year-old Sophie Laboissonniere, who competed in the 2011 Miss Coastal Vancouver pageant.  The beauty queen entered a guilty plea in January to a charge of “participating in a riot” (another charge of breaking and entering will likely be suspended).

What makes this especially ironic is the title that Ms. Laboissonniere won at the Vancouver beauty pageant—“Miss Congeniality.”

That’s irony for you, eh?

From Ireland, A License to Drive Drunk

I know—it sounds like the punchline of a joke, perpetuating the stereotype of the Irish and their love of drinking (and I’m Irish myself).  But I can’t make this stuff up: the City Council in County Kerry (located in southern Ireland) passed an ordinance in late January allowing rural drivers to legally drive while under the influence of alcohol.

Now, in all fairness to my Irish cousins, Irish authorities in recent years have made dramatic improvements in reducing drunk driving by lowering the legal blood alcohol limit (it’s now .08 like in many U.S. states), increasing the number of mandatory checkpoints and adopting other stringent laws. As a result, the overall number of road deaths has fallen by 56 percent over the last five years.

But the County Kerry Council passed its measure, arguing that citizens driving while intoxicated in rural areas don’t present the same risk; one council member even defended the law, saying that it would prevent loneliness and lower the risk of suicide in Ireland’s rural areas.

The council’s measure would give special permits to individuals living in rural areas who want permission to have a few pints at the local pub and then drive home on Kerry’s remote countryside roads.

The Irish Department of Transport, Alcohol Action Ireland, and Ireland’s Road Safety Authority have all voiced opposition to the law.

A Girl, By Any Other Name, Is Still a Girl in Iceland

Fifteen-year-old Blaer Bjarkardottir of Iceland was, until recently, a girl with no name—literally.

Iceland has official rules about what a baby can be named, since names are supposed to fit Icelandic grammar and pronunciation rules (for example, names like “Caroline” would not be allowed because the Icelandic alphabet has no letter “c”).

The name “Blaer” (meaning “light breeze”) was not on Iceland’s official list as a proper feminine name.  Blaer’s mother, Bjork Eidsdottier, waged a legal battle that culminated in a recent ruling from the Reykjavik District Court that her daughter and other girls could now use the name “Blaer.”

The court rejected the government’s argument that the request should be denied in the interests of “protecting the Icelandic language.”

It sounds like when a determined mother stepped in, this “light breeze” became a “fierce storm” instead!

Last week, we looked at some of the odder laws and lawsuits in courts around the globe.

This week, however, we return home for a survey of some of the lighter moments in our legal system.

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The following examples illustrate that no one appreciates legal strangeness quite like we do here in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

You Have the Right to Wear a Fake Moustache

Remember those fake nose, glasses and moustache disguises you could get as a kid? Well, believe it or not, your right to wear a disguise is protected by law.

Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit tackled the issue of whether having a witness testify while incognito violates a criminal defendant’s right under the Sixth Amendment to confront the witnesses against him.

The case involved a confidential informant testifying in a public courtroom against an alleged member of a powerful Mexican drug cartel accused of weapons smuggling.  While the witness understandably wanted to remain in disguise, defense lawyers argued that the jury might prejudge their client if a prosecution witness showed up in court with a fake moustache and wig.  The appellate court came down in favor of false moustaches.

You Have the Right to Remain Stupid

Thirty-two-year-old Brandon “Mickey Vegas” Gadson vehemently denied charges of flying three women to Alaska and advertising them as prostitutes in 2010 during a recent sex-trafficking trial. But then, the mounting evidence to the contrary began to undermine Gadson’s statements that he wasn’t a pimp.

First, there was the little matter of being caught in an undercover prostitution sting with three women and $10,000 in cash.  Then, there was the annoying fact that Gadson had posted ads on Craigslist.org and Backpage.com offering the women as “available for commercial sex acts.”

Finally, it’s really hard to maintain credibility when denying you’re a pimp when you have the word “Pimp” tattooed on your neck, as Gadson does.

Not surprisingly, Gadson will be spending the next year and a half behind bars.

You Have the Right to the Breast Defense Available

Fifty-year-old Donna Lange of Everett, Wash., stands accused of murdering her boyfriend.

The act of murder isn’t itself all that unusual, but her alleged choice of weapon is. Witnesses claim that Lange smothered her lover to death with her breasts.

Police have recommended charges of second-degree manslaughter (maybe they should throw in motorboating without a license, for good measure).

This isn’t an isolated incident, either; in November 2012, a German woman was accused of trying to murder her boyfriend with her 38DDs.

For some criminal defendants, I suppose, their cups runneth over.

You Have the Right to Blame the Zombie Apocalypse

Twenty-six-year-old Jared Gurman of Long Island, N.Y., is accused of the attempted second-degree murder of his girlfriend Jessica Gelderman.

Gurman allegedly shot her in the back with a .22 caliber assault rifle.  The couple had apparently had a heated argument over whether a “zombie apocalypse” could happen in real life, with Gelderman disagreeing with Gurman’s position that it could.

Sounds like someone’s taking those episodes of “The Walking Dead” way too seriously.

You Have the Right to Become a Walking Lawyer Joke

Fifty-eight-year-old Minnesota lawyer Thomas Lowe was just disbarred.

What caused the Minnesota Supreme Court to revoke his law license?  According to the order disbarring Lowe, he had admittedly had an affair with a client he was representing in a divorce case.

As bad as that may be, it gets worse: Lowe actually billed her for the time they spent having sex!

Some critics of the legal profession would say that’s like getting charged twice for the same service.

You Have the Right to Think Creatively, But Don’t Expect the Court to Agree

There have been several instances around the country of pregnant women trying to beat traffic tickets for using the High Occupancy Vehicle or carpool lane by explaining that there were indeed two people in the car.

But 56-year-old Jonathan Frieman of San Rafael, Calif., recently got very creative in trying the same argument.

After being pulled over by a California Highway Patrol officer for an apparent vehicle-occupancy violation, Frieman showed the patrol officer incorporation papers as his passenger, saying that, legally, a corporation occupied his car and should be counted as a passenger since under the law a corporation is considered a “person.”

Yet, despite Frieman’s lawyer arguing that highway signs requiring “two or more persons” are unconstitutionally vague, traffic court judge Frank Drago would have none of it.

“Common sense says carrying a sheaf of paper in the front seat does not relieve traffic congestion.”

Frieman was found guilty.

Common sense – 1, creative excuses – 0.

You Have the Right to Petition the Government For Anything, Even If It’s Based on a Bad Sylvester Stallone Movie

The White House’s “We the People . . .” website allows citizens to petition the administration for just about anything; of course, to get an official White House response, a petition has to garner at least 25,000 signatures.

Earlier this year, a petition for Texas to secede from the Union got a lot of media attention.

But what about some of the lesser-known petitions?

One such petition asks the Obama administration to secure funding for and begin construction on a Death Star (yes, just like in “Star Wars”) by 2016.  That petition was signed by 1,428 people who left their parents’ basements long enough to sign it.

Another petition, with 2,972 people signing on, calls for the government to “dissolve the current legal system and replace it with a single Hall of Justice, run by Judges; motorcycle-riding law officers who act as police, judge, jury, and executioner.”

That’s right: there are 2,972 people out there who would like to replace the rule of law with something straight out of the abysmally bad Sylvester Stallone movie “Judge Dredd.”

I fear for the future of this great nation.

You Have the Right to Have an App for Just About Anything

We’ve all heard the phrase “there’s an app for that.”  Well, if your marriage is on the rocks, now divorce advice is no farther away than your iPad.

The app “iSplitlite,” is an iPad based tool that “helps divorcing couples split up their marital assets/debts” and assists in making “visual decisions about ‘who gets what’ more quickly, with less adversity and acrimony.”

Wow—an app to assist in the dissolution of a marriage.

For those of you who feel we’ve let technology run amok, consider this: you still have to fight over who gets the iPad itself.

In February 2013—African-American Heritage Month—it’s easy to grow complacent about the strides made by blacks in the legal profession.  After all, the president of the United States is African-American and a former president of the Harvard Law Review. The U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, is African-American, as is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

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But the trail that has culminated in seats of power and influence in Washington, D.C., began more than 160 years ago with the first African-Americans to enter the American legal profession, overcoming incredible barriers that no white aspiring lawyer had to conquer.

In his groundbreaking 1999 book Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844–1944, J. Clay Smith Jr. (a former dean of the Howard University School of Law who served in both the Carter and Reagan administrations, and a biographer of Thurgood Marshall) sheds light on the earliest African-American attorneys.

The first African-American to be admitted to the bar in the U.S. was Macon Bolling Allen of Portland, Maine.  An article in the Sept. 14, 1844 Portland American newspaper describes how Allen (who was born a free man in Indiana in 1816), initially applied for admission to the Maine bar but was “refused on the ground that the applicant was not a citizen of Maine” (at the time, under the U.S. Constitution, no black was considered a citizen of the United States).

But Allen, a former schoolteacher who had studied the law under the tutelage of local abolitionist and attorney Gen. Samuel Fessenden, would not be turned away.  He applied to be admitted by examination, and as the newspaper account states, “He was thereupon called before the examiners, a committee of the Cumberland bar, and sustained a satisfactory examination—the committee recommending him to the Court as a fit candidate—and accordingly he was admitted in the District Court to practice as an attorney and counsellor at law in the courts of this state.”

But being admitted to practice and making a living as an attorney are two different things.  Allen found few whites willing to have a black lawyer, and Maine had a tiny African-American population whose legal needs couldn’t sustain him.

So, he relocated to Boston, Mass., in 1845, and he would again have to seek admission by passing a bar examination.  This time, however, his physical stamina was needed as much as his legal acumen: the site of the examination was 50 miles away in Worcester, Mass., and Allen couldn’t afford transportation.

He walked the entire distance, and though physically exhausted, passed the exam, becoming the first African-American attorney in Massachusetts.  Allen would also become, just three years later, the first black to hold judicial office in the United States when he became justice of the peace for Middlesex County, Mass.

After the Civil War, Allen moved to Charleston, S.C.  There, in 1873, he briefly held one judgeship before being elected a probate court judge in 1874.  After Reconstruction, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he became an attorney for the Land and Improvement Association.  Allen died in 1894 at the age of 77, but his legacy lives on in one particularly meaningful way: a Boston civil rights law clinic bears his name.

Allen’s rough road to bar admission was traveled by other early African-American lawyers.  At the age of 15, Robert Morris was hired as a house servant by a wealthy white Boston lawyer.  Impressed with Morris’ aptitude, the lawyer encouraged his employee to “read the law” and pursue a legal career.

In 1847, Robert Morris became the second black lawyer in the United States.  He would go on to file the first civil rights lawsuit challenging segregation in public schools, in the 1848 case of Roberts v. Boston.

In 1850, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled against Morris and his client in a decision that would later be cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the highest court in the land upheld segregation under the doctrine of “separate but equal” (a doctrine that stood until the landmark 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education).

In 1857, Edward Garrison Draper became the first African-American admitted to practice law in Maryland.  It wasn’t easy—Maryland law at the time limited admission to the bar to “free white citizens,” leaving Draper ineligible with two strikes against him—he was black and therefore not considered a citizen.

But Draper was undaunted, and he convinced the authorities to admit him to practice by stating that he didn’t plan to practice law in Maryland, but instead needed to be admitted as a lawyer so that he could practice in Liberia, where he intended to emigrate.  Texas wouldn’t have an African-American attorney until 1877, when A.W. Wilder was admitted to practice.

These earliest African-American lawyers became members of the bar the way most white lawyers did at the time, by “reading the law” under the guidance of an older attorney and then passing an examination (usually oral) by members of the local bar.

John Mercer Langston was no exception.  Born free in 1829 in Virginia to a former slave, Lucy Langston, and the white plantation owner, Ralph Quarles, who freed her and then fathered three sons with her over the course of a 25-year relationship, Langston was raised in Ohio after both his parents died.

After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Oberlin College, Langston applied for admission to law schools in New York and Ohio but was denied because of his race.  So, he “read the law” under the guidance of an attorney and U.S. congressman, Philemon Bliss, and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1854.

Langston became active in the abolitionist movement, and helped runaway slaves escape to freedom through Ohio’s segment of the Underground Railroad.  After the Civil War, he served as president of the National Equal Rights League and in 1868 became dean of Howard University’s law school—the first black law school in the United States.

In 1870, he assisted in the drafting of what would eventually become the Civil Rights Act of 1875, signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1875.  He later became, during a period of increasing disenfranchisement for blacks in the Jim Crow South, the first African- American to be elected to Congress from Virginia (and one of only five blacks in Congress during that turbulent period).

These early African-American attorneys overcame incredible obstacles in their quest to join this profession.  They gained their legal knowledge through countless hours of self-study at a time when law schools would not admit them, vowed to uphold a Constitution under which they weren’t even considered citizens, and plied their trade in courtrooms where blacks could not even serve on juries.

Lawyers like Macon Bolling Allen, Robert Morris, and John Mercer Langston blazed a trail that legal giants like Thurgood Marshall would later follow, and their legacy deserves to be remembered and honored.

(For more information on early African-American legal pioneers, I recommend the work of the Just the Beginning Foundation, a multiracial nonprofit organization whose goal is to increase racial diversity in the legal profession and on the bench; its website is www.jtbf.org).

As a trial lawyer who makes his living in the courtroom, I know and appreciate the sacrifice made by the people in the jury box.

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For a pittance (jury compensation in Texas was raised a few years ago from $6 to $50 per day, with the higher figure kicking in on the second day of service), every week, people answer the summons and show up at their local courthouse ready to do their civic duty.

Once there, they patiently put up with civil or criminal lawyers asking them questions during jury selection and, if chosen, they can count on stints ranging from one day to months on end away from their jobs, their friends, and their families—all in the name of doing justice.

Jury duty is a sacrifice, one which some hesitate to make.  The problem of “no shows” for jury duty has plagued many courts in Texas, to the point where a number of judges have had to resort to direct and sometimes drastic measures in order to combat the issue.

In April 2010, 19-year-old Houston college freshman Kelsey Gloston not only failed to show up for jury duty in federal court; she actually was rude and hung up on the court clerk who called and offered to pick her up.

That didn’t sit well with U.S. District Court Judge David Hittner.  He ordered federal marshals to pick up Gloston and bring her to the courthouse in chains, so she could explain why he shouldn’t hold the pre-nursing student in contempt (ultimately, Gloston returned to be part of a 60-member panel of potential jurors in a health care fraud case).

Several Texas counties have begun adopting measures to address the problem of “no show” jurors.  In 2005, El Paso County started a pilot project of summoning “scofflaw” jurors to court and imposing fines.  In one year alone, the program netted the county $300,000 in revenue from fines.

In 2012, frustrated by the fact that only one out of every five Dallas County residents who were summoned to jury duty actually showed up, Dallas adopted a similar pilot program at the urging of Dallas Civil District Court Judge Martin Lowy.

Dallas takes a somewhat kinder, more gentle approach: jury duty no-shows are summoned to appear two afternoons a week before an associate judge, where they are chided for their prior failure to appear and given a chance to reschedule their jury service.  Anywhere from 60 to 80 such wayward souls are given a chance to redeem themselves in Dallas County each week.  Those summoned for a second chance like this but who again fail to appear can be fined $1,000 or even arrested.

For many people working lower-paying jobs, jury duty represents a financial sacrifice.  Although employers are barred under Texas law from firing an employee for serving on a jury, the prospect of time away from work and the wages lost as a result is daunting enough, especially in a still-fragile economy.

But Texas lawmakers may soon pass legislation addressing these concerns.  House Bill 433, authored by Republican State Rep. Debbie Riddle of the Spring/Tomball area, would provide an incentive for businesses to pay their employees for jury service.  The bill allows businesses to be compensated through a reduction in the state margins franchise tax.

According to the proposed measure, an employer (or “taxable entity” in the legislation’s terms) would be entitled to a credit equal to 15 percent of the franchise tax due, so long as it pays at least one employee that worker’s regular salary or daily wage for each day or fraction of a day that the employee is absent from work “to attend jury selection or jury service.”  The bill, if passed and signed into law, would take effect Jan. 1, 2014.

The proposed law could make a big difference, both in terms of encouraging jury service and in the trickle-down economic effect on counties struggling to meet the demand for jurors.

Look at Harris County, for example.  Last year, the county mailed out over 400,000 notifications for jury service in an effort to fill the needs of 82 courts for jurors.  Harris County District Clerk Chris Daniel estimates that his office would save about $100,000 in taxes for every 5 percent increase in the jury pool.

Fewer jury notices would need to be mailed, he says, and with more people appearing for jury service, residents would be called to service less often.  In addition, without a disproportionate share of those least impacted by time away (such as retirees or the unemployed), jury service would feature a more representative cross-section of society.

Yes, jury service is the cornerstone of our system of justice, and measures like HB 433 represent a long-overdue recognition of that importance.  The State Bar of Texas’s Jury Service Committee (on which I’m proud to serve) is also doing its part to remind Texans of their civic duty.

The committee recently spearheaded the filming of public service announcements featuring justices of the Supreme Court of Texas (Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson stars in the English language version, while the Spanish language version features Justice Eva Guzman).

The PSAs, which spotlight how jury duty is vital to the administration of justice and integral to safeguarding constitutional rights, end with the tagline “Let’s do justice—for Texas.”  They will air later this year on television and radio stations throughout the state.

Sure, jury duty is a responsibility, and some people try to either avoid it or rationalize that their other obligations somehow take precedence.

But how much confidence can you have in a system of justice when you fail to take accountability for it?  How much faith would you place in the protection of your rights when you abdicate any role in safeguarding everyone else’s rights?

The next time that jury summons appears in your mailbox, answer the call of duty, and be a part of doing justice—for Texas.

Sometimes, it seems as though the cases that move through the criminal and the civil sides of the legal system run from the sublime to the ridiculous.

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As strange as a lawsuit or a criminal charge may sound, I can practically guarantee that there’s an even more bizarre one right around the corner.

Here are some of the more recent examples of the oddest moments recently in the justice system:

An Eyepopping Day of Trial

I’ve seen a lot of verdicts described as “eyepopping,”  but that description became a literal one for the jurors in an assault trial going on in a Philadelphia-area Court of Common Pleas in early February.  The defendant, Matthew Brunelli, was on trial for his role in an August 2011 fight outside of the New Princeton Tavern; during the fight, Brunelli allegedly struck John Huttick, causing the loss of Huttick’s eye.

While Huttick was testifying on the witness stand, his $3,000 prosthetic left eye popped out.  He caught it, crying out as he did so, as several jurors gasped and started to rise.

Judge Robert Coleman, who called the moment an “unfortunate, unfortunate incident” declared a mistrial and dismissed the shaken jurors.

Shouldn’t She Just Wait for the Lindsay Lohan Designer Ankle Monitor?

Twenty-two-year-old Rebecca Gallanagh of Staffordshire, England, may have gotten in trouble with the law, but that wasn’t going to keep her from getting her bling on.

The young woman was convicted of being disorderly in public for her role in a fight outside a nightclub last November, and as part of her punishment, the court ordered her to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet and observe a strict curfew.

But, Gallanagh thought, the court never suspended her fashion sense, so she “bedazzled” the ankle monitor by decorating it with fake diamonds.

She says she got the idea from a reality show, “Big Fat Gypsy Weddings,” and that she did it “to make me feel better about wearing it. . . . It just matched my style.”

But Gallanagh’s act of decorating defiance didn’t sit well with either the monitor’s manufacturer or the presiding judge, who slapped her with a $220 fine for her action (which the manufacturer said could hamper the electronic ankle bracelet’s effectiveness).

The Force is Strong With This One

Better cast David Canterbury in the next “Star Wars” film.  The 33-year-old Oregon man was arrested in 2011 after an incident in a Portland Toys R Us store, in which he allegedly assaulted three customers with toy “Star Wars” light sabers.

When police arrived, they saw Canterbury swinging two of the light sabers.  First, one officer tried to subdue the man with a Taser, but Canterbury must have learned from a Jedi master, because he used the light sabers to sweep aside the device’s wires.

Another officer similarly tried to use his Taser, only to face the same result.  Finally, officers rushed Canterbury and wrestled him to the ground.

Evidently, the Jedi mind trick didn’t work either: Canterbury was taken into custody on charges of assault and resisting arrest.

The Problem With Disability Pensions

The New Jersey Police and Firemen’s Retirement System (PFRS) paid out $175 million to 5,067 disabled retirees in 2011, much of which undoubtedly went to deserving former police officers and firefighters injured in the line of duty.

But some of it went to Timothy Carroll, who retired at age 33 from his job as a sheriff’s officer in Morris County, N.J.  Carroll claimed to suffer from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, emotionally crippled by flashbacks of responding to crime scenes, suicides and car accidents.  On his disability application, Carroll described the “crime scene flashbacks and hallucinations” that haunted him.

It was successful—he began receiving disability checks after his retirement was approved, effective May 1999.  He currently gets $23,284 annually plus health coverage and his disability payouts could exceed $1 million.

But, just a few years after the checks started rolling in, Carroll started a business, Tragic Solutions LLC of Linden, N.J.  What does this business do?  Why, it cleans up gory crime scenes, specializing (according to its website) in taking care of “bloody and/or messy” scenes, including “murder, suicide, accidental, natural and decomposing deaths.”

Yes, this is the same environment that so traumatized Carroll, and yes, there is something very wrong with New Jersey’s pension system.

Lawyers Behaving Badly, Part One

Most attorneys take cash, check or credit card payments for their legal fees.  Thirty-three-year-old Wynnewood, Okla., attorney Jeremy Oliver allegedly had a different payment plan in mind for one client.

In February, he was arrested after allegedly offering to reduce a client’s legal fees in exchange for sexual favors from, and/or nude photos of, that client’s two teenage daughters (ages 13 and 18).

Lawyers Behaving Badly, Part Two

Manhattan lawyer Ted McCullough had an unusual reaction to assault allegations against him by his wife’s sister, Adrienne Mesko.

Mesko claimed in family court that McCullough sexually assaulted her (according to police, there is still an active police investigation although no arrests have been made).

McCullough’s response was to file a $7 million defamation suit against his sister-in-law, maintaining that she wanted to get pregnant and that he was simply doing her and her husband a favor by having sex with her.

“Zero Tolerance” Goes Too Far

School shootings are a serious subject, but zero tolerance policies have been taken to a ridiculous extreme.  Case in point: 7-year-old Colorado second-grader Alex Evans, who was recently suspended for throwing an imaginary hand grenade on the playground during recess.

School policies at Mary Blair Elementary School in Loveland, Colo., prohibit “play weapons,” but don’t say anything about imaginary ones in the mind of a little boy who was “pretending to be a hero saving the world.”

If only the world could be saved from idiotic bureaucrats and school administrators who are so busy playing “thought police” that they can’t distinguish real threats from nonexistent ones.

Someday, I’ll be tempted to write a book full of practical advice for young lawyers just starting out in their careers.

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But until then, I’m content to pass along some legal pointers from people who learned the hard way, as the following examples illustrate.

Tip No. 1 – There are Creative Defenses, and Then There are Just Plain Stupid Defenses

A man in Iran charged with bank robbery tried to mitigate his responsibility by claiming that he had made the mistake of trusting a “sorcerer.”  The would-be bank robber paid this would-be wizard the equivalent of about $500 for a set of spells that would render him invisible and enable him to rob all the banks he wanted.

Unfortunately for the aspiring holdup man, the spells didn’t work and he was apprehended (I hear he didn’t fare too well with these magic beans from someone named Jack, either).

Moral of the story: don’t trust strangers.

James M. Seehaus of Brevard County, Fla., didn’t do too well in the excuses department either.  He told police that he robbed a 7-Eleven convenience store on June 28, 2012, because he was upset that his fiancée refused to have sex with him.  Not surprisingly, Seehaus didn’t get a very receptive audience.

Tip No. 2 – Don’t Claim “Ineffective Assistance of Counsel” If You Represented Yourself

Christopher Clark was convicted last November in Memphis, Tenn., of 12 felonies ranging from carjackings to weapons charges to assaulting a police officer.

Clark went 0-for-12, in part because he insisted on representing himself despite the fact that the court had appointed counsel for him.  Now, Clark wants a new trial, citing as a basis ineffective assistance of counsel.

While the judge hasn’t ruled yet, I’m going to go out on a limb here and state that you shouldn’t get a second trip to the salad bar of justice on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel when you were stupid enough to represent yourself (and have a fool for a client).  Get used to prison food, Mr. Clark.

Tip No. 3 – Don’t Be Surprised by Disappearing Acts, Especially When You Sue a Magician

Illusionist and entertainer Raymond Teller—best known as the silent half of the “Penn & Teller” performing duo—sued a Dutch magician, Gerald Dogge, for copyright infringement.

Apparently, Teller holds the copyright (registered since 1983) for a magic trick entitled “Shadows,” and Dogge allegedly ripped off the illusion by posting a video of it to YouTube and offering to reveal the secrets behind it for $3,050.

Teller has sued Dogge in federal court in Nevada, but he’s having trouble serving the Dutchman with legal process, reporting to the court that Dogge has “evaded personal service and cannot be located in Belgium, Spain, or in any country in Europe.”

Teller has, however, managed to email the legal paperwork to Dogge and prove that he opened it.  So, sleight of hand, Houdini-like escape artistry, and the ability to disappear in a puff of smoke only count for so much when the long arm of the law (with plenty up its sleeve) is after you.

Tip No. 4 – Ask a Stupid Question and You are Almost Guaranteed to Get a Stupid (But Entertaining) Answer

The rather humorless, rigid prosecutors with Great Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service may need to become a little more flexible when it comes to their official paperwork.

After a recent arrest of a suspect whose apprehension was facilitated by a police K-9 unit, the prosecutors insisted on getting written statements from all officers involved, including one “P.D. Peach.”

Even after they were informed that “P.D.” stood for “Police Dog,” and that Peach was in fact a canine, the prosecutors maintained that they needed a statement from everyone—no exceptions.

Exasperated, Peach’s handler filled out a witness statement form that reads as though the Alsatian itself had dictated it: it says “I chase him—I bite him—Bad Man—He Tasty—Good boy—Good Boy Peach.”

The form was even “signed” with a pawprint.

A photo of the form was posted on Facebook and on several police Twitter accounts by a West Midlands Police constable.  Let’s hope the Crown Prosecution Service learns to lighten up.

Tip No. 5 – Say It With a Straight Face No Matter How Ridiculous You Sound

Lawyers, as advocates for their clients, sometimes have to make some silly statements.  It helps to have a poker face, perhaps like the attorneys representing several San Antonio, Texas, strip clubs who are embroiled in a federal court lawsuit against the city of San Antonio over new restrictions on sexually oriented businesses.

Recent city council moves have tightened zoning regulations, addressed how much skin must be covered up, and restricted just who qualifies as a sexually oriented business.

The gentleman’s clubs’ lawyers have argued that these measures interfere with constitutionally protected free speech (an argument that has succeeded before).

But in extolling the benefits of strip clubs, the lawyers venture out onto much thinner ice, claiming that dancing in topless bars “creates an improved self-image for the dancer,” improves her self-esteem, and leads to “a socially fulfilling experience for both performers and patrons.”

I suppose that if the daughters of any of these lawyers started “working the pole,” the news would be welcomed because of all that “improved self-esteem.”

Yeah—I didn’t think so.

Tip No. 6 – Be Careful When You’re Put on a Pedestal, Because You May Fall Off (Literally)

It helps to keep your wits about you when people put you on a pedestal; not only does it keep you grounded, but it just may save you from literally falling off and causing a lawsuit.

George Washington University law professor Dinah Shelton could have used this advice in 2011, when she was delivering a lecture at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, part of being honored with the law school’s Myres S. McDougal Distinguished Lecturer in International Law award.

Shelton fell as she stepped back from the podium, breaking her heel.  She’s filed a lawsuit, claiming that the lecture platform was “unreasonably small in width and depth” and that it didn’t account for “the expected, planned, reasonable and foreseeable movements of Professor Shelton as she gave her lecture.”

Perhaps the law school should either invest in a bigger stage, or at least vet its future honorees with a simple question: “If we give you this award, do you promise not to sue us?”

There seems to be a never-ending flow of weirdness permeating the justice system, as regular readers of “Legally Speaking” know.

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Strange litigants, odd lawsuits, bizarre crimes and even judges who are anything but conventional—all of these (and more) regularly inhabit the legal system, as the following examples illustrate.

For Goodness’ Sake, Hide the Red Bull!

A 56-year-old slaughterhouse worker in Bruges, Belgium, recently went on a rampage.  Armed with two knives, a pistol and a lead pipe, he attacked a motorist, tried to beat down the door of a former boss and injured two policemen who tried to subdue him.

After spending a couple of months in jail, the defendant had a pre-trial hearing at which his lawyer, Mathieu Langerock, asked for his client to be released on bail.

The judge agreed, but with one surprising condition: that the defendant refrain from drinking Red Bull!

Allegedly, the rampage began after the defendant downed multiple cans of the energy drink while neglecting to take some prescriptive tranquilizers.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

They say there’s no such thing as “bad” publicity, but Thomas Lewis Edwards might want to disagree.  The Gainesville, Fla., lawyer defends people accused of drunk driving and other crimes, and his law firm advertises these services in various media outlets, including internet-based ones.

But it must have come as quite a surprise to see Mr. Edwards’ smiling face in his law firm ad online, right next to Edwards’ mugshot from a recent alleged drunk driving incident that ended in a hit-and-run crash!

There, right next to Edwards the dapper attorney in a suit and tie is a different, less happy Edwards in a jail-issue shirt from the Alachua County Sheriffs Department’s mugshots.  Edwards has six charges pending against him, but maintains his innocence.

Talk about marketing efforts gone horribly wrong!

Look Out, He’s Got Toy Soldiers!

I’ve written before about the “political correctness police” who run amok in our society, particularly in our nation’s schools, where “zero tolerance” policies have been taken to absurd extremes.

The latest example of this comes from a small town in Michigan, where the parents of third-grader Hunter Fountain brought homemade cupcakes to school to celebrate Hunter’s birthday with his class.  The cupcakes were topped with green plastic army men (representing WWII soldiers).

The school initially refused to serve the cupcakes at all because of the school’s “zero tolerance” for guns—not just the kind that actually kill, but apparently the tiny green molded plastic ones carried by toy soldiers as well.

Schall Elementary School principal Susan Wright tried to downplay her school’s absurdity, saying “the school offered to replace the soldiers with another item and the soldiers were returned home with the student.”

This is just the latest example of idiocy running wild among school teachers and administrators, who think that keeping kids from having toy soldiers or pointing a finger at another child and going “bang” will somehow prevent another Newtown or Columbine.

Want to Be a Better Judge?  Just Go to the Movies

Huang Quifan, mayor of one of China’s largest cities, Chongquing, has some career advice for judges: watch more movies.

Speaking at the National People’s Congress in Beijing recently, Huang urged Chinese jurists to not only watch Western courtroom dramas complete with cunning plaintiffs and defendants trying to persuade juries, but also hero-driven action films.

Such action movies, Huang says, will serve as reminders that “justice always prevails over evil.”

But, Stay Away from Comedy . . .

Enjoying pop culture on the big screen is one thing for judges, but becoming part of it is another—at least according to a judicial ethics proceeding pending before the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Forty-three-year-old Vince Sicari, who serves as a part-time municipal court judge, is appealing a 2008 state ethics committee ruling (and a 2010 decision by New Jersey’s Advisory Committee on Extra-Judicial Activities affirming the lower ruling) forbidding him from indulging in his side job as a standup comic.

Sicari says the $13,000 income from hearing traffic ticket and misdemeanor cases in South Hackensack is okay, but it’s hardly enough to live on.  So, for years, he’s made most of his money working standup gigs at comedy clubs, warming up the crowd before tapings of “The Colbert Report,” or appearing on ABC’s “Primetime: What Would You Do?”

Sicari says he’s never had a problem balancing either his work as a comedian or his part-time law practice with his judicial duties.  Nevertheless, N.J. ethics authorities say Sicari’s entertainment career could “negatively affect the dignity of the Judiciary,” and could make defendants appearing before him question his impartiality.

Noted ethics scholar Geoffrey Hazard believes the judicial authorities should lighten up, pointing out that plenty of judges do things on the side like writing books or teaching.

Unfortunately, New Jersey’s powers that be are notoriously strict.  They ordered Superior Court Judge Nelson Johnson, author of the book that inspired the hit HBO series, Boardwalk Empire, to quit promoting the show.

Hey, New Jersey—lighten up.  Anyone who comes into contact with our judicial system knows that we could use a little humor.

There are days when things proceed with the same dreary predictable pace in the legal world.  Mundane pleadings are filed, arguments made dozens if not hundreds of times before are recited as if by rote, and a judge processes the case in an almost assembly-line fashion before disposing of it with the bang of a gavel.

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Then, of course, there are the strange days where it can sometimes seems like you’re in a bizarre alternative universe where what is being said and done gets weirder as you go along.

Consider the following examples:

You Put a Spell on Me 

Romance writers like to fancifully describe how a young woman can “bewitch” her boyfriend, or how a man can become “enchanted” with his latest paramour.

But, according to Mychia Vang of Winder, Ga., her ex-husband, Bruce Lor, literally cast a spell on her.  Vang and her mother filed a police report in March claiming that Lor had cast spells and used magic enabling him “to know what they do and where they go.”

Listen up, ladies—it’s called a GPS.

Wardrobe Matters, Part 1

Quick tip for everyone defending a murder suspect—it helps when you don’t allow your client to wear a T-shirt that says “Killer” to his next court appearance.

Eighteen-year-old T.J. Lane plead guilty to the Feb. 27, 2012, fatal shootings of three students in the Chardon (Ohio) High School cafeteria.

At a March 2013 sentencing hearing, Lane’s attorney Ian Friedman was shocked when his client removed his button-down shirt to reveal a T-shirt with the word “Killer” on it.

Lane went on to shock onlookers when he made a disgusting statement about the shootings and made an obscene gesture in the courtroom.

Lane was later sentenced to three life sentences without parole; his attorney described Lane’s choice of shirt as “something that was not expected.”

Gee, you think?

Wardrobe Matters, Part 2

Recently, a fugitive from justice living in the town of Huwei, Taiwan, made the mistake of wearing a shirt that had been a gift from his son.

The shirt read “Wanted” (in English) in the style of an old-style wanted poster; the fugitive, Wu, didn’t understand English and so didn’t appreciate the meaning of the shirt.

But a quick-thinking police officer with some limited English proficiency noticed the shirt, checked Wu’s status on his law enforcement computer, and arrested him.

No “Bingo” For You! 

Eighteen-year-old Austin Whaley of Covington, Ky., wandered into a bingo hall on Feb 9 and yelled “Bingo.”

Game operators stopped the game, and a number of the elderly patrons were upset, thinking someone had actually won.

Whaley was charged with second-degree disorderly conduct, a charge that could have brought him 90 days in jail.

But Kenton District Judge Douglas Grothaus had a different sentence he ordered Whaley not to say the word “bingo” for six months.

As arresting officer Richard Webster observed, “Just like you can’t run into a theater and yell ‘fire’ when it’s not on fire, you can’t run into a crowded bingo hall and yell ‘bingo’ when there isn’t one.”

I’m not sure that’s what Oliver Wendell Holmes had in mind.

Groundhog Day in Jail

Authorities in southwestern Ohio’s Butler County aren’t too happy with the still-frigid weather they’re enduring, contrary to the early spring “prediction” of famed groundhog/prognosticator Punxsutawney Phil of western Pennsylvania.

So unhappy, in fact, that in an official-looking “indictment,” Butler County prosecutor Mike Gmoser has charged the famed groundhog with “misrepresentation of spring.”

The indictment reads “Punxsutawney Phil did purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the people to believe that spring would come early.”

Bill Dealey, president of the Punxsutawney club that organizes Groundhog Day, says Phil has a lawyer and will fight any extradition attempts by Ohio authorities.  Does Bill Murray know about this?

In the Name of the Force, I Now Pronounce You Man and Wife

Legislation has been proposed in Scotland that would allow leaders of “Jedism” (and other alternative religious movements) to officiate at weddings.

According to the 2011 U.K. census, 176,632 people listed their religion as “Jedi” (more than 14,000 of these are in Scotland), so apparently some people feel there’s a need to have “Jedi Knights” who can preside over weddings for the Star Wars faithful.

The bill goes to parliament later this year.

As Han Solo might say, hokey religions are no substitute for a good blaster by your side, kid.

Bringing Out the Worst in People—Law School Style

Finally, here are two items that illustrate why you have to be a little different from the norm to consider law school.

First, we have the tale of 22-year-old Paul McDermott of Londonderry, Northern Ireland.  McDermott was studying to be a mechanic in 2010 when he was involved in a horrific car accident that left him with brain damage and severe memory loss.

With his auto repair dreams now dashed, what does McDermott hope to do for a living?

Why, become a lawyer, he says.

Brain-damaged and going to law school—it’s the joke that tells itself.

Meanwhile, at the University of New Mexico Law School, one student is taking her lessons a little too seriously.

Jennifer McCabe has filed a lawsuit against the law school, claiming that she was injured when the “Think Chair” she was sitting in collapsed when she leaned back in it during a class.

Fellow law students are skeptical, with one student observing that “it’s kind of stupid that you fell out of the chair, so you’re going to blame someone else for it.”

A lawsuit brought by a law student against the law school over a chair—I hope the law school doesn’t take this one sitting down.

We’ve been deluged lately with weighty, thought-provoking cases in the legal system: the George Zimmerman trial over the shooting death of Trayvon Martin and what it says about race relations in America; the fight over abortion legislation in Texas; and a series of potentially far-reaching U.S. Supreme Court decisions on everything from voting rights to affirmative action to same-sex marriage.  At some point, the mind practically begs for some relief—isn’t there anything out there to lighten things up just a bit?  Well, search no more, faithful readers: here is a roundup of the cute, the funny, and the just plain odd of the legal system.

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Wackiest Warning Labels

In June, the Center for America selected their finalists for the Wackiest Warning Label of the Year.  My favorites include the label on a common indoor extension cord—“Wash hands after using” (for those of us for whom the interaction between water and electrical outlets is still a mystery); the warning on a package of rubber worms made for fishing—“Not for human consumption” (thanks for the tip—I thought they were like Gummi Worms, just chewier and without flavor); and the warning on a bottle of spray-on anti-fog cleaner—“Not for contact lenses or direct use in the eyes.”

Having Fun with Lawyers

Perhaps the best way to get back at angry lawyers is to do what Chris Shepherd recently did.  The Houston chef operates Underbelly, a local restaurant that until recently offered a burger called the “UB Double Double.”  When lawyers for California-based fast food chain In-N-Out sent him a letter threatening litigation over the similarity to In-N-Out’s “Double Double,” Shepherd decided not to play David and try to fight Goliath and his army of humorless lawyers.  Instead, he complied with the cease and desist letter by re-naming the burger the “Cease and Desist Burger.”  It consists of two hamburger patties (all of Underbelly’s meat is butchered on-site at the restaurant), two slices of cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles (Underbelly’s vegetables are locally grown), and just a bit of wry (humor, that is).  Since the controversy, the Cease and Desist burger has become one of the most popular items on the menu.

The Happiest Court on Earth

A family court judge in Arizona recently found the best way to deal with an ex-husband who opposed his ex-wife’s request to take their children out of state to Disneyland.  In granting the mother’s request, the judge wrote “The Court cannot think of any good reason why any parent would refuse to agree in writing for his or her children to go to Disneyland . . . . If in fact Father has refused Mother’s travel requests, then Father’s refusal for the sake of refusal is nothing more than a Mickey Mouse litigation tactic, and just plain Goofy.”  Well said, judge!

I Don’t Know Why She Didn’t See This Coming

Self-professed psychic Jennifer Williams and her Los Angeles company Psychic Readings by Yana have been sued.  The lawsuit by Klarissa Castro claims that the self-styled medium fraudulently took $11,000 from Castro, promising to lift a “love curse.”  The purported psychic was the one who alerted Castro to the “curse” on her love life, and offered to fix it with a series of psychic sessions and the commissioning of a $5,000 painting (to be done by Williams) that would aid in lifting the curse.  Unfortunately, according to the lawsuit, the only thing that got lifted was money from Ms. Castro’s wallet.

Too Stupid to be a Criminal

There are entrance exams for a lot of jobs, setting a minimum standard of proficiency.  Maybe there needs to be one for would-be criminals as well.  Zachary Tentoni of Southington, Connecticut was recently arrested for the theft of a woman’s wallet in Dorchester, Massachusetts.  How did the police track down the alleged thief—forensic investigation like “CSI,” old-fashioned detective work, or an anonymous informant?  Nope.  It seems that in snatching the wallet, the thief dropped a bag he was holding; in it was the birth certificate of 26 year-old Tentoni and a letter addressed to him from his mother.  Don’t worry, Zachary; you may be too stupid to be a thief, but there’s always the TSA.

I’ve Heard of Taking a Haircut on Fees, But This is Ridiculous

Have you ever needed to get legal advice, but also needed to stop by a barbershop?  Then search no more, my friends, “Legal Cuts” is open for business as a combination barbershop/law office in New Britain, Connecticut.  Attorney Don Howard, who does criminal defense and personal injury law, has an office in the back of the shop.  The Chicago native went to barber school in Illinois before his studies took him to Mississippi State and Wyoming, where he cut hair while studying.  After relocating to Connecticut, he decided to combine his two passions.  Howard says “I love cutting hair and people often talk about their problems in a barbershop.  I think the barbershop is the perfect place to marry law with hair cutting.”  Good luck, Mr. Howard—hopefully no clients will ask you to trim back your legal fees.

Coincidence, or Shrewd Business Development?

The stereotype of the sleazy lawyer is the one who chases ambulances and shows up at accident scenes, pressing business cards into the hands of victims.  But what if the accidents keep coming to you?  For the seventh time (over the past 10 years), the small Iowa City, Iowa law firm of Bray & Klockau has been the victim of a traffic accident.  In the latest incident, an errant taxi cab swerved onto the law firm’s property and crashed into its front porch, damaging it and the foundation.  Previous incidents have resulted in pedestrian injuries and power outages.  The building itself was built in 1902, and sits at what has become a busy intersection.  While the law firm partners have asked the city to put in a four-way stop sign, the city to date has declined.

Now That’s Dedication

How far would a lawyer go to make sure he doesn’t miss a crucial hearing where his client’s interests are at stake.?  Well, if you’re Toronto attorney Howard Levitt, the answer is “pretty far.”  The prominent Canadian employment lawyer was on his way to catch a flight for an important hearing in Ottawa in early July.  Driving through heavy rain that quickly led to a freak storm and flooding, Levitt tried to follow several other cars through an area that looked like a puddle.  Unfortunately, because his $200,000 Ferrari California rides extremely close to the ground, it took just a few inches of water to stop the beautiful machine dead in its tracks.  As the flood water rose, and realizing the tow truck he’d called wasn’t going to arrive in time, Levitt abandoned the vehicle and took a cab to the airport.  After finding out that all flights had been cancelled, Levitt went to a different airport where he got “the last seat of the day” to Ottawa.  He won the next morning in court, though.  Levitt said, “It’s a good ending, except for my poor car.  I guess that’s what insurance companies are for.  But the bottom line was, I had a case to get to.  You can’t let the client down, no matter what personal emergencies you might have.”

One of the things I look forward to is bringing readers news of the annual “Wackiest Warning Labels” contest sponsored by the Roswell, Ga.-based Center for America.

Since 1997, the Center and its founder, Bob Dorigo Jones, have been using this humorous approach to convey a very serious message: that because of lawsuit abuse and fear of lawsuits, manufacturers selling products in the U.S. often go to ridiculous and unnecessary lengths with the warnings and instructions accompanying their goods.

Here are the top five finalists (the top three will receive cash prizes, and the winner will be chosen in June).

Hometown boy Alex Saenz of Dallas submitted the label on a common dust mask, which reads “Does not supply oxygen.” Good to know—I won’t take that scuba diving with me.

Another finalist is the warning label that appears on a hot tub cover, which says, “Warning: Avoid Drowning. Remove safety cover from spa when in use.”

Okay, fellas, time for some tough love—if you have to be admonished to “avoid drowning” and you have to be reminded that the cover comes off the hot tub in order to use it, then it’s time that you crawled out of the hot tub and, for that matter, out of the gene pool as well (you’re clearly in the shallow end as it is).

Yet another contender is the label appearing on the advertisement for a leather handgun holster designed to look like a daily planner, very subtle and professional-looking. Unfortunately, the makers felt they needed to cater to the lowest common denominator by affixing the cautionary statement “For gun only, not a functional day planner.”

If you really need that warning, perhaps you shouldn’t be trusted with a firearm in the first place.

Another finalist is the warning emblazoned on a bicycle brochure that reads “Warning: The action depicted in this brochure is potentially dangerous. The riders seen are experienced experts or professionals.”

While that may superficially seem like a responsible message, its seriousness is undermined by the photos in the brochure itself, which depict not Hollywood stuntmen or X Games professional riders, but little kids riding their bikes.

“Experienced experts or professionals,” indeed!

One of my favorites, though, is the label appearing on the packaging for a ballpoint pen. It reads “Warning: Pen caps can obstruct breathing. Keep out of mouth.”

As silly as it may seem to place a common sense caution like this, consider this observation.

The pen’s instruction manual is printed in four different languages: English, Spanish, German and French. All four translations discuss the same features, instructions, and warnings—except the warning about swallowing the cap appears only in the English version.

Why? Not because people in Germany, France, or Spanish-speaking countries are any smarter than us or any less accident-prone, but rather because they are less likely to run to the courthouse and file a lawsuit over something that was their own fault.

While these warning labels are amusing to read and poke fun at, they’re also a sad commentary on the litigious nature of our society and our unwillingness to accept responsibility for our own actions.

But that is not all the weirdness in the legal world of late.

In previous columns, I’ve discussed how not to get out of jury duty.

Here’s another one to add to that list—don’t ask for a cut of the verdict. Fifty-three-year-old Deonarine Persaud has been arrested and charged with felony bribe receiving and misdemeanor jury misconduct.

While serving as a juror in a New York medical malpractice trial, Persaud allegedly approached the plaintiff’s father and offered to sway fellow jurors in exchange for 5 percent of the verdict. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison.

I’ve also written about strange names for children and bizarre 911 calls. Here are two more for those lists.

In Israel, a couple have decided to name their newborn daughter after the Facebook “like” button. Lior and Vardit Adler said they chose the name because it was “modern and innovative.” Let’s hope the little girl grows up with lots of “friends.”

On the 911 front, 18-year-old Daniel Moore of Gainesville, Ga., will probably be a lot more careful in the future with his cell phone—once he gets out of jail and can use one again, that is.

Moore allegedly “pocket-dialed” 911, enabling the police dispatcher to hear him discussing a drug deal about to go down at a local Waffle House.

The 911 operator sent police to the restaurant where they arrested Moore and charged him with possession of illegal prescription narcotics. I wonder if he had to pay roaming charges as well.

I also have some additions to past columns I’ve written about judges who get creative in their sentencing and young prodigies headed to law school.

Ohio Judge Michael Cicconetti is known for his creative, “let the punishment fit the crime” approach to sentencing.

Grace Nash and Bruce Crawford pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of misconduct during an emergency; during flooding, the couple boarded a raft without life preservers, resulting in a rescue operation that involved two helicopters and nine police and fire departments (they also lied about it to the emergency responders).

Judge Cicconetti could have just left it at the 100 hours of community service and the written apology to all the rescue personnel that he imposed as a sentence. But he also gave Nash and Crawford a choice: serve jail time or stand in a wading pool at a local outdoor festival wearing bathing suits and flotation devices, while handing out water safety brochures to passersby.

Needless to say, the penitent couple got out their swimsuits and their sunblock for a day of public service.

Finally, there’s another would-be “Doogie Howser, J.D.” to report. Fifteen-year-old Ty Hobson-Powell is the youngest person ever to graduate from the University of Baltimore, and he’s already been accepted to three law schools: Howard University, William & Mary and North Carolina Central.

The wünderkind’s father teaches at Howard’s medical school, while his mother is an officer for U.S. Public Health Service. According to his mother, ever since Ty was 4, “he’s always said he wanted to be attorney general.”

Ty, read my columns and see for yourself how bizarre the legal system can be. It’s not too late to go to medical school.

Readers of “Legally Speaking” know that I’m particularly fond of illustrating the quirkiness of the legal system, from the oddest of its litigants to the craziest criminals and the strangest cases.

As long as there are examples like those below, I’ll never run out of material.

And You Thought Your Singing was Bad . . .

The United Kingdom has “human rights” laws that embody political correctness run amok. No one knows that better now than Simon Ledger.

The 34 year-old singer and his band were recently performing the 1970s hit “Kung Fu Fighting” at the Driftwood Beach Bar on the Isle of Wight (off England’s southern coast), when an Asian man passing by screamed an expletive and made an obscene hand gesture.

But this was more than just a case of a disgruntled audience member; the man filed a police complaint against Ledger for being “subjected to racial abuse.”

Police arrested Ledger (ironically, shortly after his dinner at a Chinese restaurant).

“I thought it was a joke but they were serious,” said Ledger.

According to the BBC, police would say little other than that “an investigation into this allegation is continuing to establish the full circumstances surrounding what happened.”

See what can happen without a First Amendment?

If the Name Fits, Don’t Acquit

Police in Fairfax County, Va., recently arrested a man on suspicion of drug dealing. The defendant may want to change his name, though, before trial.

Twenty-four-year-old Kevin Lee Cokayne faces two felony counts of distributing marijuana after police found a safe and other containers filled with pot at his house, along with a digital scale and other equipment.

Although no cocaine was found (except on Cokayne’s Facebook page), it may be tough to overcome a name like that and give him a presumption of innocence.

Worst Restaurant Critics. Ever

Chad Baxa and Rhonda Wilson of Lincoln, Neb., probably should have quit while they were ahead. It was bad enough that they paid for a pizza with forged $5 bills.

But when they called up the restaurant to complain that it was “too doughy” and demand a replacement pizza, the Pizza Hut manager investigated, noticed the suspicious bills, and alerted police. The cops paid them a visit, and found more fake currency.

Baxa and Wilson have been charged with first-degree forgery. But maybe their restaurant criticism was valid—after all, who would know more about “fake dough” than a forger?

Best Jury Duty Excuse. Ever

A prospective juror in the retrial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges gave the judge a pretty compelling reason to be excused from jury service.

The woman known only as “Juror 137″ told the judge she had a ticket for the final taping of “the Oprah Winfrey Show,” and that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The judge agreed, and dismissed her from jury duty.

Rod Blagojevich himself was less than pleased, though, especially when reporters sarcastically asked if he considered that a “golden ticket” ( a reference to the phrase Blagojevich himself allegedly used to refer to the chance to appoint someone to Barack Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat).

Best Excuse For a Continuance. Ever

Virginia lawyer Chad Dorsk was recently appointed to defend the accused in a heroin distribution case after another attorney withdrew. But he took the case without knowing when the trial date was.

As soon as he found out that it conflicted with another milestone—his wedding day—Dorsk filed a motion for continuance with U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar.

In his motion, Dorsk pointed out his planned May 28 wedding and subsequent honeymoon, and asked for a continuance “in order to preserve and ensure a future of marital harmony and bliss.”

As it turns out, we’ll never know if Judge Doumar has a romantic streak or soft spot—trial was put off when Dorsk’s client elected to plead guilty on May 16.

Last week, I brought you a roundup of some of the legal system’s recent strange cases, criminals, and litigants. As the following cases demonstrate, there’s a lot more where that came from.

Crime Doesn’t Pay, And Neither Does Being a Celtics Fan

Eric Torpy is a Boston Celtics fan—a big one. So big, in fact, that when he was going to be sentenced in 2005 for the armed robbery of a pizzeria during which two employees were shot, he asked the judge to do him a favor.

Torpy, facing a 30 year prison sentence, asked the judge to add three more years, so that his 33-year sentence would match Larry Bird’s jersey number. The judge was only too happy to oblige.

Now older (Torpy turns 33 this year), presumably wiser, and not eligible for parole until—you guessed it—2033, the convicted felon and rabid Celtics fan is having second thoughts.

“I’ve wisened up. That three is a big deal, you know? Three years matters,” he says.

We Need More Judges Like This

A 25-year-old Spaniard, with a law degree no less, recently took his parents to family court in Malaga after they cut him off financially unless he tried to find a job. The young man, who was living with his parents, sued them demanding that they provide him with a monthly allowance of 400 euros.

But he found no sympathy from the judge, who ordered him to “leave home and get a job.”

In Spain, which suffers from over 20 percent unemployment (even higher among youth), it is common for grown children to still live with their parents. In fact, there have been several other cases of young men suing their parents for allowance money in Spanish courts.

The judge ruled that the 25 year old in question had “sufficient ability to work” and needed to learn to stand on his own two feet.

Now if only I could talk to that judge about my brother . . . .

A Case for Justice Felix Frankfurter, Perhaps?

Jim Andrews owns a hot dog restaurant in Chicago, and he’s literally making a federal case out of a sign for his establishment. The city and Alderman Bob Fioretti don’t like the name of his business and have withheld permission for a sign for the restaurant.

The hot dog emporium is called “Felony Franks,” and Andrews’ chosen sign features the shop’s logo, a cartoon hot dog in convict garb with ball and chain.

While Andrews feels the design is inoffensive and an exercise of his free speech (he also says he provides jobs for ex-cons), Alderman Fioretti says the sign “just doesn’t fit in” with the city’s aesthetics. He also says the name is inappropriate, and makes light of crime.

Personally, I think Fioretti’s excuses don’t cut the mustard; Chicago residents deserve the chance to try a “misdemeanor wiener.”

A Lawsuit That Passes the Smell Test

The University of Colorado has filed a lawsuit against a toilet paper manufacturer and supplier, blaming them for more than $40,000 in plumbing damages, including “bubbling and flooding in 27 academic and research buildings.”

I’ve heard of students complaining about toilet paper quality before (hey, you can’t always get two-ply), but this is the first time I’ve heard of the college itself raising a stink.

Whoever prevails in the courtroom will no doubt be flush with success.

I Can See the Lawsuit Coming . . .

In many lawsuits, the key element is whether or not the accident was foreseeable or not. That may not be an issue with the collapse of a building floor in 2010 in Vaxjo, in southern Sweden.

The building was the site of the meeting room for the local Weight Watchers chapter. A group of approximately 20 members had gathered to compare readings on the scales, when the floor suddenly collapsed.

According to one eyewitness, “We suddenly heard a huge thud—we thought it was an earthquake and everything flew up in the air. The floor collapsed in one corner of the room and along the walls.”

Luckily, no one was injured, and the weigh-ins continued in a nearby corridor (bruised egos don’t count).

A floor collapses at a Weight Watchers meeting—insert your own punchline here.

Let’s Hope This Isn’t a Trend

Here in the U.S., it’s become almost routine to see lawyers competing in (and sometimes even winning) reality shows like “Survivor,” “The Bachelor,” “The Apprentice,” “The Amazing Race,” and others. But in India, one of the top-rated TV shows features nothing but lawyers.

On “The Firm: Corporate Law in India,” viewers are treated to a half-hour news and discussion program in which corporate lawyers talk about their work, technical details and all. The three-year-old show is the top rated in its timeslot, and it often includes American legal figures as well, such as former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt and Harvard Law professor David Wilkins.

The show frequently examines and compares Indian law and regulatory structures with their Western counterparts. But even though CNBC has an affiliation with the channel offering this show, don’t expect to see an American version hit our airwaves anytime soon.

After all, don’t we get enough of lawyers as it is?

On a large bulletin board in the crowded hallway of one of the courthouses in Bexar County, Texas, there is what I refer to as the “Monument to the Unknown Father.”

It consists of public notices about a whole host of paternity, custody, and child support orders directed toward fathers who have simply disappeared and cannot be served through more conventional means – their last known address is no good or unknown, and service by public notice is the last resort in informing them about the family law proceeding in which they were named.

As I looked over the long stretch of notices, I couldn’t help but think of the children who would grow up without a father in their lives. Not only would such children lack a source of tangible financial support, but chances were good that they’d also miss out on a crucial part of knowing their own identity and learning many of life’s lessons. On another wall, years ago in a museum and cultural center in Ireland, I had seen a sign inscribed with a bit of Irish wisdom; it read “Cuimhnigi ar na daoine a dtainigh sibh uathu,” a Gaelic saying that means “Remember the people you came from.”

This Father’s Day, I remember the people I came from, particularly my father Walter W. Browning, Jr. I won’t go into how I’m a better person because of the lessons learned from my father; although that’s certainly true, in keeping with the spirit of this column I’ll focus instead on how what my father taught me made me a better lawyer. For a lot of lawyers, we find our moral touchstone in the iconic character of Atticus Finch from Harper Lee’s book and film To Kill a Mockingbird. In many ways, my father was my Atticus Finch, despite the fact that he’s not a lawyer.

My dad was a pharmacist. He considered it more than just a way of paying the mortgage and putting food on the table. To him it was a noble calling, one in which you should help the sick or infirm, unsullied by the sidelines of selling candy or greeting cards. In his perspective, people were patients rather than customers, individuals rather than the numbers they would have been to a large chain pharmacy. In his independently-owned corner apothecary, he greeted them by name, asked about their families and jobs, and spent large chunks of his time patiently answering their myriad health questions. At times, this frustrated me; I’d point out to my father how many people came in without buying anything or even getting a prescription filled, only to take up his time getting medical advice for which a doctor would charge dearly.

On each of these occasions, he would simply smile and patiently tell me, “It’s not about the money, Johnny.” Illness and injury scare people, he told me; when they strike, people have questions and they need reassurance. To this day, when the pimply-faced kid (with the grandiose title “pharmacy technician,” no less) at the pharmacy I go to (because it’s conveniently located within our supermarket) shoves my prescription at me and asks me to check the box marked “Declined Counseling,” I have to laugh. Many of the people working in pharmacies today don’t know the meaning of patient counseling.

Yes, my father taught me that my meter doesn’t always have to be on, and that there are things more important than money. Because people don’t get sick or go to the hospital just during normal working hours, he kept his pharmacy open 7 days a week, until midnight every night – he was even open Christmas morning (a source of considerable frustration for me and my siblings as we impatiently waited to open presents).

He carried people when they couldn’t afford to pay, even when some of these very same people would make the fickle decision to go to one of the chain pharmacies because they charged a nickel less. Frequently, his late night customers were people who normally got their prescriptions filled somewhere else but which wasn’t open. When I would deliver a prescription (or an oxygen tank, or a hospital bed) to a patient who was behind on their bills, my father would again remind me that it wasn’t always about the money.

His words have come back to guide me in every pro bono case I’ve taken on. When I’ve volunteered at a legal aid clinic, staffed a telephone hotline, or represented members of the armed forces and their families in civil litigation, I remember that “it’s not always about the money.”

When a sergeant getting ready to ship out overseas told me that his allotment would barely cover the household bills for his wife and daughter, and he couldn’t really afford to either fight or settle the lawsuit his family was facing, I found my father’s words coming out of my mouth – “It’s not about the money.” He answered the call to defend our country, I reasoned; what kind of lawyer would I be if I didn’t defend him and his family?

My father, the non-lawyer, taught me more than just the importance of serving the underserved and the indigent. He also imparted to me the importance of knowing your craft. On a number of occasions, he would correct a prescribing doctor about an incorrect dosage or a drug that was contra-indicated; I’m sure he saved a few lives (and medical careers) in his time. My dad was zealous about his continuing education hours and keeping up with professional journals. To this day, when I err on the side of being overly prepared for court, or when I find the brand new court decision that was just handed down and could make the difference in my case, I know I am my father’s son.

He also stressed the importance of giving back to one’s profession and community. My dad was a sought-after speaker who gave of his time to teach and consult about narcotics for local law enforcement, drug task forces, state police academies, and even the DEA. Yet he did so with humility. A state trooper who pulled him over to give him a ticket once sheepishly realized my father had been one of his instructors, and gave him the “pass” that my dad never would have demanded for himself.

Because of my father’s example of giving back, I find myself boarding planes or taking long drives to speak to audiences of government attorneys, judges, lawyers in private practice, and even elementary students as part of a “law in the schools” initiative. I serve on state and local bar committees, because my dad instilled in me the importance of giving back to a profession that has given so much to me.

This month, within days of Father’s Day, my dad will turn 84 years old. He’s part of the “Greatest Generation” that fought a world war against global tyranny and returned to build America into the giant it is today, a generation that we are losing at an alarming rate. I didn’t grow up with lawyers in the family, and my father didn’t exactly encourage me to go to law school.

Yet the example he set of being, like Atticus Finch, “the same in his house as he is on the public streets,” and the lessons he taught (it’s not always about the money; put the client’s needs first; know your craft, give back to the profession and the community) made me a better lawyer. In keeping with the spirit of the Gaelic saying, I try to remember the people I came from.

Happy Father’s Day.

A few years back, I remember chuckling at a Dilbert cartoon that featured the hapless office worker complaining to his company’s in-house lawyer about some mistake the attorney had made. “I could sue myself,” the lawyer lamely explained, “but if we take it all the way to trial, I’ll probably lose.”

As odd as it may sound, there have been a number of cases in which red-faced litigants realized that they were, in fact, suing themselves. There have even been judges who have convicted themselves.

In early 19th Century England, for example, Judge William Ettrick of Sunderland fined a farmer for taking a cart to market without his name on it. When the farmer pointed out that the judge’s own dung cart was sitting outside the courts building without any name on it, the embarrassed (but honest) Judge Ettrick levied the same fine on himself.

“Auto-litigating,” as it were, is alive and well in the U.S. Sometimes it’s intentional, albeit strange.

In the 1985 California case of Lodi v. Lodi, plaintiff Oreste Lodi sued himself in Shasta County Superior Court (the record is silent as to why, but the appellate court speculated that Mr. Lodi did this as part of a cockeyed scheme to get a judgment that he could somehow use for tax reasons). Lodi even served himself (hey, no point in evading a process server when it’s yourself), and then he took a default judgment against himself when Lodi failed to answer his own lawsuit.

When the trial judge dismissed Lodi’s case (perhaps thinking he had wandered into a “Monty Python” sketch in progress), Lodi appealed the dismissal. That, naturally, meant that Lodi was both the appellant and the respondent — and Mr. Lodi actually filed a brief for each side!

Alas, he got no relief from the appellate court, which affirmed the dismissal — reasoning that a cause of action requires both a plaintiff and a defendant who, logically, have to be two different people. Softening the blow somewhat, the court noted that since Mr. Lodi was both the winner and the loser, “It is hard to imagine a more even-handed application of justice.”

Although the court could have had loser-Lodi bear the costs of winner-Lodi’s appeal, it magnanimously held that “the equities are better served by requiring each party to bear his own costs.”

Fear not, Mr. Lodi, we have some lovely parting gifts for you, including a DVD of the movie “Sybil” and a CD of the Billy Idol song, “Dancing With Myself.”

Maybe there’s just something about the name Lodi. In 2006, Curtis Gokey of Lodi, Calif., filed a claim against the city for damage to his vehicle caused by one of the city’s dump trucks backing into it. While this might seem straightforward enough, consider one more fact: the dump truck was being operated by none other than city employee Curtis Gokey!

Gokey admitted that the accident was his fault. The city of Lodi, however, denied the claim, saying that since Gokey’s own negligence caused the damage, he was in effect filing a claim against himself.

That’s better reasoning than the city of Islington, England, used in a 2007 case. An Islington parking and traffic control officer ticketed what turned out to be a city vehicle.

That city department appealed the ticket to the city council; since the department and the city are the same legal entity, it essentially amounted to the city council appealing the ticket to the city council—hearing its own appeal, in other words.

The council rejected its own appeal, but the ticket was then taken up to a higher level, to a different official known as the Parking & Traffic Adjudicator (British traffic laws are rather convoluted, to say the least). At this stage of appeal, though, the city presented no evidence, and the Adjudicator voided the ticket.

Evidently feeling the appeal had been a waste of time, the city asked for costs against itself (which can be awarded under British law when a party’s behavior has been “frivolous, vexatious, or wholly unreasonable”). Before the situation could descend further into the bizarre by having the city of Islington pay itself, a cooler head prevailed, in the form of the Adjudicator. He declined to award costs, noting the patently obvious— “The legal status of the two parties in this appeal amounted to one and the same.”

More often than not, however, the odd episodes of people suing themselves happen because of embarrassing blunders rather than conscious decisions. In 2005, Illinois lawyer Emert Wyss represented homeowner Carmelita McLaughlin in a case against her mortgage holder over illegal fees that she had been charged. She signed a retainer agreement with Wyss and his law firm, who promptly proceeded to file a class action lawsuit against Alliance Mortgage.

But then things got, as Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have observed, “curioser and curioser.” In discovery, it turned out that the fees had originally been charged by Centerre Title Co., whose owner was—wait for it—Emert Wyss.

That made for some uncomfortable moments when Wyss had to give a deposition and admit that Emert Wyss (as Centerre Title Co.) charged the fees to Ms. McLaughlin, only to suggest months later to his client that she file suit over the very fees his title company had collected from her. Holy conflict of interest, Batman!

Wyss found himself in an even more uncomfortable position when he and Centerre Title Company were added (by court order) to the lawsuit as indispensable parties, thus making him a defendant in the case he himself had filed in the first place. Wyss was later dismissed from the litigation, but not before he had to waive any claim for attorney’s fees.

Proving that the home foreclosure crisis could take some strange twists and turns, in 2009 Wells Fargo sued . . .Wells Fargo Bank. The bank, in an effort to clear title on a home so that it could foreclose, hired a Tampa law firm to name and notify all subordinate lienholders. Those other lienholders included the bank holding the second mortgage on the property—Wells Fargo.

As a result, Wells Fargo had to hire a second law firm (this time, to defend it from itself) and filed an answer to the complaint that basically consisted of Wells Fargo (defendant) denying most of the allegations being made by Wells Fargo (plaintiff).

Maybe this is an illustration of the absurdities of the financial crisis at its worst, or maybe it’s part of a “crazy like a fox” scheme to provide maximum employment for lawyers—call it the “No Lawyer Left Behind” approach, if you will.

Corporate bumbling has brought other companies to the brink of suing themselves. In 2007, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) took a break from suing children, little old ladies and dead people for allegedly downloading music and turned their attention in another direction: going after websites that were leaking recording artists’ music.

Unfortunately for them, that year, the group Nine Inch Nails and its record label Interscope Records decided to build interest in the group’s forthcoming album “Year Zero” by intentionally leaking a number of songs to various fan sites. The RIAA apparently didn’t get the memo, because they sent cease and desist letters threatening lawsuits against many of the websites that posted these tracks.

That’s right, the RIAA (which represents the record labels) threatened to sue fans that Nine Inch Nails and Interscope had courted as part of their marketing campaign, for conduct that the artists and label had signed off on in the first place. Fortunately, before any lawsuits could be filed, someone with functioning brain stem activity dragged the RIAA back from the precipice.

Of course, I’ve left out the upside of suing yourself. No matter how it turns out, you can always say you won — well, sort of.