On the Record

Legendary comedian Soupy Sales died last week at the age of 83. Sales is perhaps best known as the master of the pie-in-the-face and estimated he had been hit more than 19,000 times, according to his obituary in The Washington Post.

You might say Sales could be considered an authority on pie throwing with all of his experience. And he almost was, according to this nugget from The Post’s obit:

He became something of an expert on the messy staple of slapstick comedy and once testified at a Navy court-martial on behalf of a sailor accused of throwing a pie in an officer’s face. The military court was not amused, and the sailor was convicted.

No word if the sailor turned to the pie-throwing experts from Dewey, Cheatum & Howe on appeal.

The two law school students picked the right hearing for their assignment in a civil procedures class.

Judge Ruth Ann Jakubowski ruled on 21 motions in one case Tuesday morning in Baltimore County Circuit Court, according to court records. I had to refer to court records even though I was in the courtroom because I lost count during the two-hour hearing.

The case, Alatortsev v. H& J Motors Inc. et al, drew my attention because it was one man against eight defendants, including several BMW dealerships. I was all prepared to write a humorous blog post about all those defense lawyers playing musical chairs at the defense table to be heard. (I felt especially bad for the court reporter, who could have used name tags to keep track of everyone.)

But then the hearing began, and it wasn’t quite as funny. The case has consumed seven volumes since Vadim Alatortsev filed his complaint in August 2008. From what I gathered, he alleges there were multiple problems with a used BMW he purchased in late 2007.

Alatortsev cited COMAR several times, held up reams of paper and said he “always reads the small print,” but apparently he wasn’t clear on the rules of procedure and discovery.

Judge Jakubowski denied all 11 of the plaintiff’s motions, which ranged from requesting a court-appointed forensic scientist to review allegedly forged paperwork to seeking a protective order to prevent the defense from obtaining personal information about Alatortsev and his wife through discovery.

“Once you file a lawsuit, you become an open book,” said Jakubowski, who, as chairwoman of the Maryland State Bar Association’s Judicial Administration Council, is developing guidelines for attorneys facing self-represented litigants.

Jakubowski also denied Alatortsev’s motions to sanction the defense lawyers for their actions, explaining that the lawyers are simply doing their jobs. She ordered Alatortsev to allow the defense experts to examine his car, and ordered him and his wife to sit for depositions within the next 45 days.

“At some point in time, with the pleadings in this case, you’re going to subject yourself to attorneys’ fees or the case’s dismissal,” Jakubowski said. (One of the defense laywers indicated in court that he would seek attorneys’ fees from Alatortsev.)

The whole hearing got me thinking – is this an extreme case of the perils of self-representation? Or is this more common than I think? If you don’t want to leave a public comment, please e-mail me.

The husband and wife who pleaded guilty last month to animal cruelty charges in the death of one horse and neglect of two others at their Windsor Mill home have filed appeals of their convictions, according to court records and the prosecutor in the case.

Hilton and Donna Silver were each sentenced in Baltimore County District Court to three consecutive weekends in jail and ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution. No trial dates have been set, but Assistant State’s Attorney Adam Lippe said he would try to keep the Silvers together as in district court proceedings.

The appeals also complicate the future of the two surviving horses, which have recovered and are ready for adoption, Lippe said. While Donna Silver has signed a waiver relinquishing ownership of the horses, Hilton Silver, a Baltimore County lawyer, has not, Lippe said. So the horses cannot be moved until the legal issues in the case have been resolved.

Until then, the horses will remain at Days End Farm Horse Rescue in Woodbine, where they have lived since April. During last month’s hearing, Lippe said the county has spent at least $10,000 caring for the horses.

The plaza-side entrance to the Baltimore County Circuit Court building in Towson is currently closed to the general public because the security screening machines are not working. Only courthouse employees, jurors and lawyers with Maryland State Bar Association ID badges are being allowed through that entrance.

All other courthouse visitors must enter through the doors on Bosley Avenue.

Many news junkies will be keeping an eye on Afghanistan’s national elections Thursday, but for Mike Smith, it’s different.

Smith, a Gordon Feinblatt employment lawyer, has met three of the major candidates–incumbent Hamid Karzai and challengers Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah–and counts Ghani as a close friend. As I wrote last year, Smith has done a lot of pro bono work on Afghanistan issues, including working with a group proposing a new labor and employment code for the country, working to get the post-invasion Afghan government dismissed from a lawsuit filed by families of 9/11 attack victims and aimed at the pre-invasion Taliban government, representing Afghan Guantánamo Bay detainees and arranging a partnership between Kabul University and his alma mater, Colgate University.

Smith is rooting for long-shot Ghani, a former finance minister in Afghanistan, to win the election.

“I think he’s what the doctor [ordered] for Afghanistan, frankly, but people vote the way they vote,” Smith said.

Smith said there were high hopes for Karzai when he took office in 2004. He surrounded himself with competent, honest people. But over the past five years, many of those people have left, and Karzai has tolerated an extraordinary amount of corruption. Karzai is still seen as the front-runner in the election.

Smith said he believes Karzai’s support comes from four camps: people who believe in Karzai, those who have benefitted from the corruption in his administration, those who are following their local warlord’s voting instructions and those practicing “aggressive apathy” by sticking with the status quo.

The American-educated Ghani would focus on ending corruption, training Afghan troops and decreasing unemployment, on the theory that young men are joining the Taliban fighters not for ideological reasons but because it’s a paying job, Smith said.Smith said Abdullah, a former foreign minister, would be a decent second choice if Ghani does not win. Abdullah is expected toget the second-highest number of votes.

“I think Abdullah Abdullah would not be a horrific choice,” he said.

Media outlets have reported that even if, as expected, Karzai gets more votes than any other candidate, he may not win the more than 50 percent necessary to avoid a runoff election with his closest challenger. That, Smith guessed, is Karzai’s worst nightmare.

It is possible that even if Karzai wins reelection, he will appoint Ghani as a sort of chief executive.

Normally, I wouldn’t pass along something that is possibly apocryphal, but today I found it apropos.

I closed on a mortgage refinancing this morning. The process was relatively painless, just lots of paperwork to sign and initial. Part of the closing costs includes title charges. My building is only five years old and I’m only the second owner of my condo, so the title abstract, I would assume, is brief and easy to locate.

So I laughed when I found in my inbox an e-mail about a New Orleans lawyer trying to secure a Federal Housing Loan for a client. The lawyer was told the loan would be granted if he could provide the title to a property being offered as collateral. The challenge? The title dated back to 1803.

It took the lawyer three months to track down the title, after which he sent it to the FHA. The agency responded in part:

While we compliment the able manner in which you have prepared and presented the application, we must point out that you have only cleared title to the proposed collateral property back to 1803. Before final approval can be accorded, it will be necessary to clear the title back to its origin.

The lawyer then wrote back a letter that began:

I note that you wish to have title extended further than the 194 years covered by the present application. I was unaware that any educated person in this country particularly those working in the property area, would not know that Louisiana was purchased, by the U.S., from France in 1803, the year of origin identified in our application.

You can see the lawyer’s entire response here. The loan was ultimately approved.

We’re already getting mixed reactions to this story about Michael U. Gisriel’s disbarment. On the one hand, you can’t go around signing your clients’ names and cashing checks made out to them without their permission – even if the check is only for $1,000 and you have your reasons for believing the money is actually meant for you. On the other hand, after three decades of an unblemished career, should you lose your license over a thousand-dollar mistake that’s since been rectified?

And, given the Court of Appeals‘ use of the term “hubris” to describe Gisriel’s actions, does it matter if that career has been a relatively high-profile one, including stints as a lobbyist, state delegate and media commentator?  

What do you think?

Today, check out The Daily Record’s first-ever Money issue of Maryland Lawyer, which contains our annual associate salary survey, financial information on the nine firms in Maryland with revenues over $40 million, and stories on the state of the big-firm economy, new challenges for incoming associates, buying and selling a law practice, and living well on a public-interest law salary.

I was walking through Circuit Court in Towson today when I passed a gentleman wearing a seersucker jacket. I complimented him, naturally, but it got me thinking again about the legendary but elusive ”Full Towson,” the summer suit accessorized by white shoes and a white belt. The Full Towson, you could say, has become my white whale.

I’m keeping my hopes realistic this summer of spotting a Full Towson. But if you see one, or any white linen or seersucker for that matter, please let me know.

(Bonus points if you see anyone sporting the three-piece seersucker suit, a la noted defense lawyer Atticus Finch, left.) Photos are welcome.

Just a couple of years ago, big-firm associates would have rejoiced at the news of a cut in their minimum billable hour requirement. In my reporting on the business of law beat, I got the impression that some of them would gladly have accepted a slight pay decrease in exchange for the chance to bill “only,” say, 1,800 hours.

I doubt the Hogan & Hartson associates who just got their billable requirements knocked back are doing much celebrating.

Here’s the way Hogan usually works: the firm has two associate billable hour tracks, one at 1,950 and the other at 1,800. Associates had their choice, though I imagine those who wanted to make partner would feel bound to bill the higher amount. As of fall 2008, Hogan was paying first-year associates $160,000 at the 1,950-hour level and $137,500 at 1,800 hours.

Above the Law reported that Hogan is now actually bumping some associates down to 1,800 based on their low billables over the last five months. (Those low billables, of course, would be a result of the decreased amount of work the associates get now that, you know, the sky is falling.) Associates who started at the firm in 2008 and just got knocked back to 1,800 hours will now make $145,000. Those who chose the 1,800-hour track will still make $137,500.
“At first blush, you might say, well, that seems unfair,” Hogan chairman Warren Gorrell told me this morning. But, he said, the firm saw no reason to give those who chose the lower track a raise in this economic climate. Gorrell said that lawyers who bill above 1,800 will get a prorated increase in pay.

It’s one thing for an associate to get to choose how many hours to bill, confident that if she wanted at some point to move up from 1,800 to 1,950, the work would be there. It’s another for an associate to get involuntarily bumped down because there’s not enough work to go around. No, I’m thinking no one’s pleased here.

Really, though, Hogan is basically doing what other firms have done in cutting or freezing associate salaries, just in a more targeted way. Most associates at those firms surely have less work these days, too. Hogan is just making an explicit connection: less work equals less money.

On a related note, Hogan is laying off 93 staffers, but Gorrell said the firm will not disclose which offices were affected.