If you like thinking about the way lawyers use words and how and why that usage is different from the way normal people, er, I mean, non-lawyers use words, take a moment this Friday afternoon to read Language Log’s take on the New Jersey case of a slip-and-fall verdict overturned because a law professor subsequently wrote an article about his experience on the jury, including his efforts to help explain what “proximate cause” means.
I recently taught about successive conflicts in my ethics class, and there could be no better timing than the Fish & Richardson case to explain the hot potato scenario. The “hot potato doctrine” means that firms are generally prohibited from dropping smaller clients (like hot potatoes) in order to pick up more lucrative clients.
Apparently, Fish & Richardson represented, until recently, headset maker Aliph in its regulatory work out of Fish’s D.C. office. Aliph is now suing to have Fish & Richardson disqualified from representing a direct competitor against it in a patent case. As the Recorder explained:
Aliph Inc. moved to disqualify Fish from representing Bluetooth rival Plantronics in the patent case two weeks ago, arguing that the firm shouldn’t be allowed to sue its own client or get out of the mess by suddenly disowning Aliph at 8:30 p.m. the night before . . . .
I was scanning the Legal Writing Prof Blog this afternoon, and I noticed a post stating that, in an effort to save money, one large law firm is now requiring its attorneys to use Loislaw, rather than Lexis or Westlaw, for some of their research. Evidently, the firm has imposed a three-part policy:
This post raised two issues for me. First, it made me think about what sources I should be including in my first-year courses.