GeekLawyer’s Blog

It’s traditional to give thanks to the mysterious and suspiciously evasive editor of Blawg Review for the privilege of dancing in the Blawg Carnival. In the case of this reviewer perhaps not only thanks but apologies & sympathy should be offered, and perplexity expressed.

Geeklawyer says “sympathy” since his reputation as a tabloid legal blogger may have led Mr Ed to believe that this will be wild-card review full of inappropriate vulgarity, drunken foul mouthed ranting and incendiary content: i.e. a normal Geeklawyer posting. Why risk such a thing? One can only speculate - perhaps like many a sybarite Mr Ed’s decadent palette has become jaded: mayhap too many years of abusing serving girls and summer associates has taken its toll. No matter, we will proceed apace and to the devil the hindmost.

Apologies are called for since the review is a few hours late, but with a really great excuse: Geeklawyer got smashed at the infamous hippy Glastonbury music festival (a superior but continuing version of Woodstock) that he attended with Ruthie. The time sort of slipped by. Contrary to the disgraceful slur by the editor of Blawg Review Geeklawyer was not beaten up by Amy Winehouse (who was a crap act by the way), he was shagging her Greek style to console her while her husband is the clink. As a result this may be the Blawg Review with the highest number of errors and the quickest written ever: OK, you try writing 1500 words in 2 hours after an hour’s sleep, 20 lines of coke, 2 tabs of acid and several gallons of cider.

July 4th 1776 - a day that will live in infamy
And why perplexity? This Blawg Review will escape into the wild just in time for July the fourth. This date has become well known in the journals of revisionist history. Due to their egregious and flagrant unwillingness to put all the required vowels into words like ‘colour’ we British finally succeeded in ejecting America from the Empire. The absurd lie was then spoken and has become embedded that it was we who were ejected. Manifest tosh and piffle of course.

In the spirit of willing Geeklawyer has attempted to live down to his reputation to please Mr Ed. Thereto, copious amounts of cocaine have been snorted; entire flagons of mead have been quaffed; several underage girls despoiled for their future husbands and an American dictionary has been installed in the word processor so that Geeklawyer can remove all those challenging vowels.

Vile Europeans
I say “Americans” of course even though not all readers will be American, but the webserver logs indicate that more USians read this blog than us limeys. And as for our continental cousins, not only are we not kissing but we are barely on speaking terms. Indeed moves are afoot to run cheese-wire under our fair and sceptered isle to sever it from the European continental shelf. Once that is done we shall paddle our way over the pond and anchor ourselves off Long Island.
So it can be understood that Geeklawyer will not bother with the flatulent French, the bastardly Bosche, the boring Belgians nor any other of our down-market neighbours to whom we have been shackled by the vicissitudes of tectonic whim.

Oh, why your author’s usage of the third person? We Brits have few virtues but pretentiousness is one of them and your author aims to excel.

But concise writing is, even after several eternal introductory paragraphs, all. Let us, then, proceed with Blawg Review #166 whose two themes, required by the traditions of Blawg Review, are the celebration of Britain’s victorious escape from the crushing burdens of ownership of America: “Independence”, and Eisenstein’s seminal liberation film “Battleship Potyomkin”.


“Men and Maggots”
One cannot begin to travel into the Blawg wilderness without pausing for victuals & light refreshment at the outpost known as “What About Clients”. What about clients indeed. This blawg is the vanity Humvee of Dan.J.Hull of the boutique Pennsylvania firm Hull-Mcquire. From within the blawg’s armoured shell JD yells weird things at passing web visitors in the hope that none possess an RPG.

Dan’s central premise is that clients matter above all else. It’s a sweet idea. And completely fucking nuts. Obviously. Geeklawyer has berated him as much many a time and JDH has looked at him as though he had said “So, I hear your daughter is a hot date. Can I have her cellphone number?” One suspects, indeed hopes, that this is no more than a cynical marketing ploy. The accusation remains, nonetheless, that Dan is a depraved evil sociopathic neocon ambulance chasing beast pretending he loves his clients merely to get into their wallets. That may strike a chord with you and if so recall that the chord is, as mathematicians will confirm, the shortest distance between a lawyer and his punter’s wallet.

Classic expositions of his philosophy are the 12 rules. If you believe all this ‘Client Love’ bollocks then they are rules to carve on your children’s hearts; but even in a 7 point font ‘Represent Only Clients You Love.’ doesn’t work for your author who is a member of the English Bar where the Cab Rank Rule largely prevents one declining punters; our junior colleagues, solicitors, do have that luxury. The true view of a client is as that of a wolf for a lamb: a tasty snack that might just make a nice pair of mittens after the eating. If you want a friend, find Jesus; but punters are for bleeding.

“Drama at the Harbour”
Victoria Pynchon at Negotiation Law has comments on negotiating with psycopaths. In our profession we frequently come across those people whose prime motivation is their self gratification, the infliction of random pain on the undeserving, a total lack of empathy, a desire to torture small animals and a resilience to punishment. But that’s more than enough about partners.

“A Dead Man Calls for Justice”
Scott Greenfield comments on Judge Alex Kozinski being caught with pr0n on his website. If there is anything more fun than watching a car crash it’s watching someone famous having one. One cannot help but observe that, on the one hand, Alex is casting around for excuses and mitigation like a man whose career is mortal peril:

“… he thought the site was for his private storage and that he was not aware the images could be seen by the public, although he also said he had shared some material on the site with friends.”

“Yale [errant offspring] called and said he’s pretty sure he uploaded a bunch of it,” Kozinski wrote in an e-mail to Abovethelaw.com, a legal news website. “I had no idea, but that sounds right because I sure don’t remember putting some of that stuff there.“
While on the other, it’s a matter of pretty little substance and the reaction more one indicative of American puritanism. Man caught with porn. Wow. His only sin appears to be one of not being geeky enough to configure an Apache webserver without his son’s aid.
In truth the cow picture is very good, the political commentary on Bush is ripe (three cunts on display) and the aroused donkey bizarrely bad.

“Paul Revere Rides” (or “The sexists are coming!!”)
If you are a chick lawyer who relishes eating your own placenta, using hemp tampons and railing against the vile hate agenda of the male oppressor, then boy, is there a blog for you: Feminist Law Professors. A blawg for wimmin’ by wimmin’ about wimmin’.

Geeklawyer tried to find a post there to set fire to, but frankly it was all so damnably dull he fell asleep: gem titles include ‘Gender and Copyright’ ‘Pimp Empowerment’. Right on sister. On the plus side giving these little girlies tenure does at least keeps them out of law firms; but really, they do need husbands to keep them busy.
As a fellow given to nostalgia Geeklawyer rather misses the 1980’s: Duran Duran, Miners strikes, Retarded Reagan, Cruise missile protests at Greenham Common. *sigh*. It’s nice to see a little slice of it clinging on, limpet like, in the reality free environment of academia.

“The Odessa Staircase”
Of course not all law professors are a waste of space. While the feminist professors are busy staring angrily into their vaginas, over at the Volokh Conspiracy they are discussing two year law degrees. To the eyes of a limey this looks a bit odd. We have to do a three year law degree (or 1 year post-grad conversion) and then a professional degree followed by a year on the job training (AKA pupillage or a training contract for barristers & solicitors respectively). Two years seems remarkably thin gruel if US degrees also incorporate professional training as well as academic, and it seems so. Jordan Furlong has an interesting perspective that it may actually be about recruiting the best candidates from a limited pool rather than pleasing law schools and law firms. Nonetheless law degrees are frenetic at the best of times so making the hamsters spin the law wheel even faster seems cruel, albeit entertaining. Geeklawyer can’t say he’d want advice on contracts from a pre-pubescent yuppie who’d crammed ‘Consideration’ into a three week slot just before Christmas.

The battle of Camden

For non-Americans the obsession American christian fundamentalist nut-jobs have with preserving foetuses on the one hand and their right to terminate them when they become a fully developed version caught breaking and entering one’s house is amusing. The US Supreme Court’s minty fresh Heller decision has been debated endlessly on too many blogs to enumerate. The most interesting posts analyse the role of the judiciary in using flexible and transitional definitions on a non-definitive constitutional text, a concept Geeklawyer has some difficulty with but which others seem not to. John Phillips at ‘the Word on Employment’ reflects on the view that the judgment doesn’t appear, first appearances aside, to interfere with an employer’s right to prohibit guns in the workplace or the right to regulate unusual or dangerous weapons. Which is a damned shame really because there is potentially nothing more amusing than a disgruntled postman with a flamethrower and a really huge supply of petroleum gel.

Bored with Themes now

There is no doubt about it: you are pretty hip dear reader. you wouldn’t be here otherwise & most lawyers don’t understand blogs. In the US that won’t last much longer as they become just another tick box in the firm’s marketing plan. Kevin O’ Keefe had the good idea of trying to master this explosion of blawgs with his newly born LexMonitor service. The idea is a good one but unfortunately Scott H. Greenfield just leant over the side of the child’s cot and said “Christ buddy, that’s the ugliest fucking baby I ever saw“.

On this side of the puddle Geeklawyer will predict a demonstration of the dangers of having your blawg run by a hotshot lawyer who is the only on who ‘gets’ blawging. Award winning IMPACT was always a really good blawg but it was the bitch of Alex Newson who has just moved to Shoosmith to spread the word. Geeklawyer suspects that like his own grandmother IMPACT will now die a lingering painful death: but he won’t enjoy this nearly as much. The UK needs more IP blawgers. In the Interim there remains the obscenely authoritative IPKat from Professor Phillips and his motley crew running around in the Scooby-doo van rescuing IP wherever it is found in distress. One post that caught IP lawyer Geeklawyer’s eye was an impending appeal to the European court against the ruling that pubs have to buy expensive licences to allow soccer to be shown. Soccer is, of course, watched by chav scum and if that were all it wouldn’t matter, but it may restrict pubs ability to show the gentlemen’s game of Rugby Union which would be a disaster. What would one watch while drinking mead?

Would someone please call an ambulance for Mr Ed? He appears to have become unwell.

You may follow Geeklawyer on Twitter/Geeklawyer

Toodle pip.

update: Geeklawyer has had his ass handed to him in a sling by Mr Ed who is outraged that Canada Day in London was not mentioned. Mea Culpa. He did know about it and did intend to mention it but, well, you know his excuse if you read the review. Not only has Mr Ed ripped him a new one but anticipated his Canadian Friends will too (hi Mary). for the record Geeklawyer is an unqualified fan of Canada: America without the testoterone or Guantanamo; if only they could get rid of the retarded French speaking bit they’d be perfect.

favourite reviews:
Infamy or Praise :

“As a group, the English are not generally more pleasant than others, but at least when they’re unpleasant they tend to be more sporting about it … he’s the Squidward in our Bikini Bottom, the Grinch in our Whoville, the Blawg Review family’s black sheep who the judge swore wouldn’t be eligible for work release before little Suzy’s birthday party.”

Negotiationlaw Blawg: Terrific cartoon! GW Bush meeting someone with a lower IQ than himself.

Dan Hull at WAC?:

“Women, children, liberals, conservatives, Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, your Mom, Mormons, the religious right, Midwesterners, most lawyers and their spouses will not like it. Witty, Britty–and wonderfully vile. It’s bound to be one of the most popular and famous Blawg Reviews ever. Bravo. You sick pup.”

Nearly legal: swearing blind that road-kill is the best meat of all.

Mediation Channel:

“And now, smashing into Blawg Review like a nuclear blast or a particle beam death ray, comes Blawg Review #166, detonated by an anonymous English barrister known only as GeekLawyer. Replete with foul language and links to pornographic images, Blawg Review #166 recalls to mind the words uttered to redbaiting U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

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Blawg Review has information about next week’s host who will post on time, and instructions on how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues. Alas no tips on how to score weed or pull hot chicks. Damn.