One of the many secrets (or maybe not-so secret depending upon whom you talk to) is the issue of enforcing judgments \u2014 not winning them but collecting on them \u2014 which is comparable to walking barefoot across a field of rusty nails without a tetanus shot beforehand.<\/p>\n
The client is deliriously happy; the case has been won, the defendant vanquished, and now all that\u2019s left is to collect that judgment. Then the client asks when he will receive payment. Uh-oh; the lawyer\u2019s face may well turn red. That\u2019s when our two favorite words are used: \u201cit depends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some losing defendants will pay promptly to avoid interest accumulation and possible reputational risk, but others don\u2019t and won\u2019t. Then it becomes a game (and not a happy one) to get paid, incurring additional expenses along the way, expenses that the client never anticipated and for which the client is really peeved at having to pay to get what the court already said was his. There\u2019s no getting around the reality that having to enforce a judgment \u2026 sucks. Clever defendants (aka debtors) have all sorts of ways to delay, stall, or file bankruptcy before, during and after the inevitable enforcement mechanisms are set in motion. A winning but unhappy plaintiff will often take less on the dollar (aka haircut) to get something, rather than wait and wait and wait.<\/p>\n
Cue the unhappy clients; cue the even unhappier lawyer.\u00a0Did the attorney ever explain to the client that a check for the full amount of the judgment may not magically appear? Did the client understand that the amount of time, money, and effort may make it hard to collect on all or any part of the judgment? Any need to call the E&O carrier?<\/p>\n
And here\u2019s a \u201cnot a Tom Girardi\u201d story about a California lawyer being disbarred for making promises he could not keep (or never having any chance of having, because he couldn\u2019t).\u00a0Aaron Spolin agreed to disbarment because he promised families of incarcerated people the one thing he couldn\u2019t promise: chances for release. He had no hesitancy to take money from a vulnerable population (these folks did not commit the crimes) when the reality was that few inmates are released.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spolin whitewashed bad news, giving the families hopes where there was truly little. Spolin pled no contest<\/a> to defrauding eight clients, all current or former inmates. Just as with Girardi, I wonder what motivates a lawyer to give false hope to those who desperately want to believe in such hope? Daffy Duck says it best<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. Are you going to celebrate it this year? There will be the usual barbecues, holiday parties, keggers,\u00a0even fireworks. BTW, drones are now the newest and safest way to have a fireworks show.<\/p>\n What shall we celebrate this Fourth? The shredding of the rule of law? The evisceration of the First Amendment? The obliteration of concepts of equality, diversity, and inclusion? For all of us who have been in the profession for decades and decades and who have fought hard for those concepts only to be rebuffed so completely now, there is, IMHO, nothing to celebrate this holiday. While some may celebrate, others will mourn. How did this happen? Lots of possible answers depending on your point of view. You can color me blue this holiday.<\/p>\n In this forthcoming law school term, what are constitutional law professors going to include in their curricula? Given that concepts of precedent and stare decisis have now gone pretty much the way of the VHS (remember that?) what will be taught? How do you teach precedents when they don\u2019t seem to matter much any more<\/a>? <\/p>\n This holiday weekend, take a look at Charlie Chaplin\u2019s (Google him) film, \u201cThe Great Dictator.\u201d It\u2019s on YouTube. Released in 1940, it is both a satiric and sobering look at the world then. Chaplin plays both a Jewish barber in the ghetto and Adenoid Hynkel. Parallels to today are obvious, even though the film was made 85 years ago, and they hit close to home.\u00a0<\/p>\n A British citizen, Chaplin was exiled from the United States in 1952 for purported Communist sympathies, among other things, and was denied a re-entry permit. (And no, he wasn\u2019t picked up by ICE.) His stirring monologue in the movie<\/a> speaks truth to power, something we especially need today in this world of vitriol and nastiness. Happy Fourth? Bah humbug. (I know, I am six months early. Live with it.)<\/p>\n Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She\u2019s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact \u2014 it\u2019s not always civil. You can reach her by email at <\/em><\/strong>oldladylawyer@gmail.com<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n The post Red, White, And Definitely Blue<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the many secrets (or maybe not-so secret depending upon whom you talk to) is the issue of enforcing judgments \u2014 not winning them but collecting on them \u2014 which is comparable to walking barefoot across a field of rusty nails without a tetanus shot beforehand.<\/p>\n The client is deliriously happy; the case has been won, the defendant vanquished, and now all that\u2019s left is to collect that judgment. Then the client asks when he will receive payment. Uh-oh; the lawyer\u2019s face may well turn red. That\u2019s when our two favorite words are used: \u201cit depends.\u201d<\/p>\n Some losing defendants will pay promptly to avoid interest accumulation and possible reputational risk, but others don\u2019t and won\u2019t. Then it becomes a game (and not a happy one) to get paid, incurring additional expenses along the way, expenses that the client never anticipated and for which the client is really peeved at having to pay to get what the court already said was his. There\u2019s no getting around the reality that having to enforce a judgment \u2026 sucks. Clever defendants (aka debtors) have all sorts of ways to delay, stall, or file bankruptcy before, during and after the inevitable enforcement mechanisms are set in motion. A winning but unhappy plaintiff will often take less on the dollar (aka haircut) to get something, rather than wait and wait and wait.<\/p>\n Cue the unhappy clients; cue the even unhappier lawyer.\u00a0Did the attorney ever explain to the client that a check for the full amount of the judgment may not magically appear? Did the client understand that the amount of time, money, and effort may make it hard to collect on all or any part of the judgment? Any need to call the E&O carrier?<\/p>\n And here\u2019s a \u201cnot a Tom Girardi\u201d story about a California lawyer being disbarred for making promises he could not keep (or never having any chance of having, because he couldn\u2019t).\u00a0Aaron Spolin agreed to disbarment because he promised families of incarcerated people the one thing he couldn\u2019t promise: chances for release. He had no hesitancy to take money from a vulnerable population (these folks did not commit the crimes) when the reality was that few inmates are released.\u00a0<\/p>\n Spolin whitewashed bad news, giving the families hopes where there was truly little. Spolin pled no contest<\/a> to defrauding eight clients, all current or former inmates. Just as with Girardi, I wonder what motivates a lawyer to give false hope to those who desperately want to believe in such hope? Daffy Duck says it best<\/a>.<\/p>\n Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. Are you going to celebrate it this year? There will be the usual barbecues, holiday parties, keggers,\u00a0even fireworks. BTW, drones are now the newest and safest way to have a fireworks show.<\/p>\n What shall we celebrate this Fourth? The shredding of the rule of law? The evisceration of the First Amendment? The obliteration of concepts of equality, diversity, and inclusion? For all of us who have been in the profession for decades and decades and who have fought hard for those concepts only to be rebuffed so completely now, there is, IMHO, nothing to celebrate this holiday. While some may celebrate, others will mourn. How did this happen? Lots of possible answers depending on your point of view. You can color me blue this holiday.<\/p>\n In this forthcoming law school term, what are constitutional law professors going to include in their curricula? Given that concepts of precedent and stare decisis have now gone pretty much the way of the VHS (remember that?) what will be taught? How do you teach precedents when they don\u2019t seem to matter much any more<\/a>? <\/p>\n This holiday weekend, take a look at Charlie Chaplin\u2019s (Google him) film, \u201cThe Great Dictator.\u201d It\u2019s on YouTube. Released in 1940, it is both a satiric and sobering look at the world then. Chaplin plays both a Jewish barber in the ghetto and Adenoid Hynkel. Parallels to today are obvious, even though the film was made 85 years ago, and they hit close to home.\u00a0<\/p>\n A British citizen, Chaplin was exiled from the United States in 1952 for purported Communist sympathies, among other things, and was denied a re-entry permit. (And no, he wasn\u2019t picked up by ICE.) His stirring monologue in the movie<\/a> speaks truth to power, something we especially need today in this world of vitriol and nastiness. Happy Fourth? Bah humbug. (I know, I am six months early. Live with it.)<\/p>\n Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She\u2019s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact \u2014 it\u2019s not always civil. You can reach her by email at <\/em><\/strong>oldladylawyer@gmail.com<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n The post Red, White, And Definitely Blue<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the many secrets (or maybe not-so secret depending upon whom you talk to) is the issue of enforcing judgments \u2014 not winning them but collecting on them \u2014 which is comparable to walking barefoot across a field of rusty nails without a tetanus shot beforehand. The client is deliriously happy; the case has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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