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Bar News - April 9, 2004 Notes From a Messy Desk Massachusetts’ Lawyers Fight Fee Lawyers in the Bay State are complaining about a new state law requiring them to pay annual fees on unresolved lawsuits, according to an Associated Press account. Effective last Oct. 1, the new fee is intended to generate $6 million to $8 million and unclog a crowded civil justice system, according to government officials. Civil plaintiffs are required to pay $120 every year their case remains on the docket after the year in which it was filed. However, in Suffolk County, the court clerk said the fee has been paid in only one-fifth of the 6,000 cases where it was due and law firms were billed. The Massachusetts Bar Association has filed a lawsuit to challenge the law.
Lip Reading Portland attorney Sid Lezak, commenting on an article about jury selection, favorably cited the advice of trial attorney Craig Spangenberg, given 50 years ago to fellow plaintiffs’ personal injury or criminal defense attorneys: "Ignore all the books on selecting jurors based on race, creed, gender, occupation, etc....look carefully at the mouths of prospective jurors. If their lips are pressed together—in a way that reminds you of the anus of a chicken—kick ‘em off. They won’t have any sympathy for your client." From the letters’ page of the Oregon State Bar Bulletin, Jan. 2004 issue. What Judges Are Really Thinking About The recently released oral history interviews of US Supreme Court Associate Justice Harry Blackmun contained this behind-the-bench nugget: "Potter Stewart, of course, as I was, was a baseball fan, a very livid one if the Cincinnati Reds were involved." Adding, "During the times when they were in the World Series, which was in October — and it always seemed to coincide with our sitting — he insisted that his clerk send the score by half inning in to him. Well, they brought it to whoever was sitting at the end of the bench and it went down from justice to justice. I think this irritated Chief Justice Burger a little bit, because he received it from the justice on his right, looked up and saw what it was and banged it down on the left." From the report, "The Blackmun Tapes," on Newshour Online at http://www.pbs.org/newshour. The program aired March 5, 2004. Unreal – But Real The following is an actual question received by the MCLE administrator in another state: "One of your attorneys had to go to driving school in [name of city deleted] for eight hours because she had a speeding ticket. Can she use that for her CLE credit?"
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