Request

[Roguish Lawyer]

Nothing new has been posted in the Briefback forum for a while. If anyone would be so kind as to share some stories, I and many others would greatly appreciate it. :)

[The Reaper]

You gotta give a little to get a little.

TR

[Roguish Lawyer]

Originally posted by The Reaper
You gotta give a little to get a little.

TR

You want me to tell a story?

[Kyobanim]

Originally posted by Roguish Lawyer
You want me to tell a story?

I think that would be a grand idea.

[NousDefionsDoc]

Capital thought!

[The Reaper]

Either your most exciting combat episode,

or your best legal story (and it beter be good).

TR

[Roguish Lawyer]

Originally posted by The Reaper
Either your most exciting combat episode,

or your best legal story (and it beter be good).

TR

You guys don't understand just how BORING my business is, do you? LOL

OK, I don't know if this is my best, but this one amuses me. Hopefully I can do it justice.

Several years ago I was representing a manufacturer in a trademark dispute with another large company. My client was using a name to identify computer keyboards, and we wanted to prevent the other company from using a name that is spelled differently but sounds the same to identify another type of data input device. We litigated the case for a while in two different jurisdictions, then agreed to meet with them at their counsel's offices in Denver to see if we could settle the case.

So there we are in Denver -- in opposing counsel's office -- meeting in a conference room. On one side of the table were me (at the time the equivalent of a Captain I suppose), my boss (three stars), and the general counsel of our client. On the other side of the table are four lawyers from the other side plus an in-house lawyer from their client.

At settlement meetings like this, you can proceed in different ways. Often you'll cut to the chase and talk about possible resolutions right away. Other times the parties will start off by talking about the strengths of their respective cases and the weaknesses of the other side's case. The lawyers had all agreed in advance to cut to the chase, but after a little while our client decides to jump in and make a speech. (Visualize me cringing.)

Now I should give you a picture of our client. Very nice lady who pays our bills on time and all, but probably one of the most unreasonable and difficult people anyone has ever had to deal with. She is about 4'10" and fat with closely cropped, bright red hair. We privately call her the bowling ball.

She's not happy with how little the other side is willing to compromise in the first 15 minutes of our discussion, so she launches into this long (and somewhat inaccurate) speech about the merits of the case.

The other side sits and listens to her patiently. Then their lead lawyer says that, while we had agreed not to talk about the merits, she felt the need to respond to the speech by our client. At some point in her speech, she says (as lawyers often do at these events) that our claims are"frivolous." My boss and I look over at our client, and she is turning BRIGHT RED. I swear that you could see the steam starting to come out of her ears.

Suddenly she jumps up and SCREAMS at the other side:

GET OUT!

My boss and I look at each other incredulously, and we see the lawyers from the other side looking at each other the same way. Their lead lawyer says, "Excuse me?" And our client says, "You'd better get out right now or this meeting is OVER!"

I'll never forget the looks on opposing counsels' faces as they pondered this demand to leave their own conference room. But they got up and went to another conference room.

Then our client says, "I am so glad I've been going to therapy for anger management. I've learned that whenever I'm about to get angry, I need to take a break and reassess things and then start over. Boy, I am so proud of the way I handled that."

My boss and I are looking at each other dumbfounded, wanting to laugh but restrained by decorum.

So I then had the duty of going out to calm down the other side and try to get discussions started again.

Later in the day, we settled the case.

[NousDefionsDoc]

Zzzz! Uh?:D

[NousDefionsDoc]

Just kidding - great story! I have been in some boardroom meetings where I honestly could not believe those people were grownups. LOL.

[Team Sergeant]

RL, it was amusing.

[CPTAUSRET]

Well, I liked it:;)

Terry

[The Reaper]

Not bad, thanks Captain Counsel.

Did she fail to grasp the concept that in dealing with lawyers, time is money?

I would have liked to tell her just how many thousand dollars her little tirade cost, and see her reaction to that.

I guess we can't top that one, NDD....

TR

[The Reaper]

Terry:

Took this one for you a couple of weeks ago.

TR

[Roguish Lawyer]

Originally posted by The Reaper
Not bad, thanks Captain Counsel.

Did she fail to grasp the concept that in dealing with lawyers, time is money?

I would have liked to tell her just how many thousand dollars her little tirade cost, and see her reaction to that.

I guess we can't top that one, NDD....

TR

The ironic thing is that her demonstration of craziness probably scared the other side a little and helped get the case settled.

NDD already has topped my story twice. Is it now your turn? :munchin

[NousDefionsDoc]

Originally posted by Roguish Lawyer
The ironic thing is that her demonstration of craziness probably scared the other side a little and helped get the case settled.

NDD already has topped my story twice. Is it now your turn? :munchin

LOL - "Take the deal right now or we'll go get the crazy bowling ball bitch."

[CPTAUSRET]

Originally posted by The Reaper
Terry:

Took this one for you a couple of weeks ago.

TR

NICE!

Thanks, TR.

Terry

[lrd]

Originally posted by Roguish Lawyer
Now I should give you a picture of our client. Very nice lady who pays our bills on time and all, but probably one of the most unreasonable and difficult people anyone has ever had to deal with. She is about 4'10" and fat with closely cropped, bright red hair. We privately call her the bowling ball. And the moral of the story: watch out for little old ladies. LOL

[Sacamuelas]

Good story Counselor.... I liked it.

I too would enjoy reading a new tale from some of you ADMIN/MOD's. I can't contribute any funny or interesting stories myself ( we have all seen how that worked out for RL, ZZZZzzzzz ;) LOL), but I will contribute by creating new medical forum threads in the future. Oh yeah, I will continue my only real value on AProfSoldier by being a smartass to increase humor by hijacking everyone elses threads too. LOL

RL, your client sounds familiar. Red head, short, fiery, won't take no for an answer....did your client look like this?

[Solid]

Great story! I remember a teacher EXACTLY like her. Apparently there's a disease in this country that results in most female teachers being short, overweight, and flatulent.

I live in the UK, to be clear.

Solid

[Roycroft201]

Whoa !! I CANNOT believe what you just wrote, Solid !! And I don't care what country you live in !! (I also studied at the University of Bath ). Those are fighting words, young man, a horrendous generalization: rude, disrespectful, an uncalled for smear of an honorable profession and the PROFESSIONALs therein, and I might add, the only reason you have the skills to READ and WRITE on this board are because of some teacher !!

I see red everytime some small minded individual uses generalizations about ANY group, disparagingly without valid cause.

And to think I USED to ENJOY reading some of your posts.

Bad move, Solid. Very, very bad move.

Roycroft201 - a TEACHER
( and it doesn't matter what my geographical location is !!)

[Solid]

I said most, and therefore avoided generalisation. Clearly, furthermore, I was referring to teachers who I have had contact with, further limiting the number of teachers I defamed.

Also, I never said that I don't appreciate those teachers.
Why are you placing so much weight on the looks of an individual? The worth of teachers is measured not in their physical appearance, but in their ability to teach. Not one of the teachers I mentioned failed to teach me- in fact, those teachers (save one) were some of the best teachers I have ever had.

It's interesting, however, that you equate a lack of height, obesity, and flatulence (that wasn't a joke) with disrespect, thereby implying that individuals with such physical characteristics are somehow inferior.

Debate aside, I retract my previous statement. It was unfair, as it could be seen as an attack at all female teachers in the UK rather than a commentary on the physical characteristics of a select group which I have had contact with.

Solid

[Sacamuelas]

To hijack this before it gets attention from the higher ups for taking a personal twist. Let me attempt to add a little humor.

Inhale everyone....deep breaths. :D I found the admission pic to the hospital for Solid after RC201's last post.

[Solid]

Sacamuelas: Shouldn't I be speaking in a [high-pitched] British accent?

Roycroft- To be clear, I didn't intend to insult you in either of those posts. In the second, I merely wanted to engage in debate. If I have genuinely offended you, I apologise. My comments were not intended to insult.

Thank you,

Solid

[Roycroft201]

LOL, Sacamuelas ! Great pic.

And no, I wouldn't take this discussion any further. I would never get into the 'mud wrestling' that goes on in other sites, as I'm sure you know.

I think I have been reading SOCNET for so long that, as a 'senior' member of my profession, I am now beginning to react to perceived disrespectful remarks in the same way that a BTDT reacts in his profession. :)

Humor is good for us all. Keep it coming !

Roycroft201

[Roycroft201]

Solid,

Apology accepted.

Had you wished to engage in debate, this would not have been the place for it.

RC201

[Solid]

Agreed.

Solid

[CRad]

Originally posted by Solid
in most female teachers being short, overweight, and flatulent.


Now you're in dutch. I don't care if you did say sorry. I'm a 4F and even though you might not know what that means I'll give you a general idea. It means I'm cranky most of the time.



RL - that was the best story you could come up with? I know a two or three as good as that and I'm a plain old housewife.

[Roguish Lawyer]

Originally posted by CRad
RL - that was the best story you could come up with? I know a two or three as good as that and I'm a plain old housewife.

Ouch! Hey, I never said I had good stories to tell! And when TR says jump, I have to at least do my best if not ask how high.

For you, CRad, I will try again. But don't get your hopes up, because I'm terrible at cocktail parties.

OK, I represent banks for a living. Sometimes can be a tough job.

When a young lawyer starts practicing, no client is going to stand for you arguing a big, important motion, so you have to get your experience in small cases. I was fortunate enough as a young lawyer to get some small cases in which I could get meaningful experience.

One of these cases was a frivolous wrongful foreclosure action. Basically, the plaintiffs failed to make their mortgage payments on time, and the bank foreclosed and took their home as it had the contractual right to do. The plaintiffs sued the bank, asserting that the bank acted unlawfully in foreclosing. They did not have a lawyer and were representing themselves.

So I'm taking the wife's deposition. She's an Israeli, and she insists on having a Hebrew interpreter even though she could speak perfectly good English and understood everything I was saying. We see this alot in this type of case -- she testifies in English most of the time and constantly corrects the translator's interpretation of my questions.

Anyway, one defense we had to some of their claims was that they didn't have the financial capacity to make the mortgage payments. (Thus, even if the bank made mistakes in serving notices and things, it wouldn't matter because they couldn't have paid anyway.) So I spent some time early in the deposition asking about their income, assets, etc.

Now the whole time, the husband is sitting there trying to defend the deposition like he's a lawyer, using a practice guide he had acquired. This is against the rules, but I just let it go because I didn't care. He's objecting to lots of my questions, and I'm having to explain to him why I'm allowed to ask about their financial condition.

So later in the deposition, the wife tells me that she has something to add to her prior answers: that they could have made the payments because they supposedly own this incredibly valuable art collection.

So I spend about 45 minutes asking about the art collection. Each piece, what its called, who's the artist, when and how did they acquire it, etc. The story is that they bought the stuff really cheap at a garage sale and later discovered that some of the pieces were by famous artists and were worth big bucks.

So when I'm done tying all of this stuff down, I pull out copies of their filings in their recent bankruptcy -- filed after the art supposedly was acquired and after they supposedly learned how valuable it was. When you file for bankruptcy, you have to disclose to the Trustee in writing all of your assets so the Trustee can use them to pay creditors. All under penalty of perjury among other things. And, of course, the artwork was not disclosed on the schedules, and I wanted to understand why.

And this is where things got interesting. The wife launches into literally a 30-minute speech on the record, principally attacking me for questioning her integrity. The husband jumps in several times with remarks like, "You're an asshole. You're a plain, flaming asshole for saying what you said." (Taken verbatim from the transcript) And she adds things like, "You ruined my life, and I never forgive you. Never. This has to be on newspaper, I'm telling you. It's -- I wish you -- I wish you -- what your bank did to me, I wish on you."

Finally we break for lunch. Before the deposition started, the court reporter tells me that the day before she had transcribed the weirdest deposition of her career. The plaintiff was a man who had a partial sex change so he was female on top and male on bottom, and he was suing the City of San Francisco seeking the right to use public ladies' rooms.

After the plaintiffs in my case walked out, she tells me, "that was even better than yesterday."

[CRad]

Ok, that was a good story. Thanks!

[Sigi]

Classic story RL. Thanks.

[NousDefionsDoc]

Great story.

[Roguish Lawyer]

OK, I have sown. Let's see what I can "reap." :munchin

[Bill Harsey]

RL, Great stories! Bill

[Roguish Lawyer]

Originally posted by The Reaper
You gotta give a little to get a little.

TR

Is this some kind of SF Jedi mind trick? LOL

"You will get your stories by telling your own stories. We will sit back, sip single-barrel bourbon and laugh at you."

C'mon, TR. Turnabout is fair play, correct?

:)

[The Reaper]

Sorry, did someone say something about stories?

Was there a timeline or a suspense posted?

Let me get back to you on that.

Have your secretary call my secretary, and put something together.

TR

[CPTAUSRET]

Terry:

Took this one for you a couple of weeks ago.

TR

TR:

Just saw the pic of the Cobra, brings back many memories, thanks.

Terry

[zeroalpha]

This one time, at band camp...

[Roguish Lawyer]

Good story Counselor.... I liked it.

I too would enjoy reading a new tale from some of you ADMIN/MOD's.

How about a good toothpullin' story, Saca? :munchin

[Guy]

RL...LMMFAO!

Good ones!

[Sigi]

Bumping this in case anyone had the urge to add a story. :munchin

[Roguish Lawyer]

We've added a ton of new members since this thread was started, so I am again requesting that people share some good stories. C'mon, I know you've got some good ones you're permitted to share! :munchin