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Folklaw: 20 April 2007

Partners described as unattractive Folklaw has heard from a secret source that a top Australian law firm is manned by unfortunate partners who’ve all been beaten with the ugly stick.According…

user iconLawyers Weekly 20 April 2007 SME Law
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Partners described as unattractive

Folklaw has heard from a secret source that a top Australian law firm is manned by unfortunate partners who’ve all been beaten with the ugly stick.

According to our source, the staff at one of the “top 20 law firms” agree their partners are severely lacking in the looks department, as photographic evidence shows on the firm website.

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The staff apparently share a joke that the firm motto should be changed to read “we didn’t get by on our looks, it must be our brains”. If this sounds like your firm, Folklaw would love to hear about it.

British dentist urinates in patient sink

A medical tribunal has found a British dentist guilty of relieving himself in the surgery sink as well as using his tools to clean his ears and fingernails, Reuters reported.

The tribunal was presented with evidence from a former nurse in the employ of dentist, Alan Hutchinson, for some 16 years, who said she had caught him urinating in the sink on many occasions.

“He was tucking something into his trousers before zipping them up hastily,” the nurse told the tribunal. “I walked over and I was behind him. He moved to the left and I could smell urine.”

According to Reuters, the tribunal accepted evidence that Hutchinson routinely failed to wash his hands or wear gloves, and had risked the health of himself, his patients and his staff for more than 28 years.

A further hearing will determine whether the opportunistic urinator should lose his practising certificate.

Addleshaw employee faces dumping

Well-connected UK website RollOnFriday has uncovered a hugely embarrassing email that was mistakenly sent by an administration assistant at Addleshaw Goddard to the entire firm.

From: Admin Assistant

Sent: 03 April 2007 14:58

To: Fee Earners (Leeds); Fee Earners (London); Fee Earners

(Manchester); Partners (Leeds); Partners (London); Partners

(Manchester); Atkinson, Kath; Hawkes, Jayne; Smith, Peter

Subject: Book Badminton

Howre the guts today, I havent farted all day but I feel a monster dump coming

According to the website, the flatulently-challenged male assistant did all that was humanly possible to recall the email, but the damage had already been done. Like any career-destroying email, it was promptly flushed down the Addleshaw pipeline and out into the sewer that is the World Wide Web for the whole world to read.

RollOnFriday said one of the numerous readers who submitted the email for publishing quipped that “I suspect the poor fellow is having absolutely no problem evacuating his bowels right now”. Folklaw would have to agree with that.

April fool strikes on blawg

A US blogger, who calls himself “Anonymous Blogger” but is well known to be author Jeremy Blachman, has made an April fool out of himself in a blogging mishap that Folklaw has been trying to decipher. Folklaw stumbled upon the humble words of the blogger, who brings readers “stories from the trenches, by a fictional hiring partner at a large law firm in a major city”.

He hit a raw nerve in an April fool joke that caused such an uproar he’s been forced to remove the entry from his site.

In a wordy apology posted on 5 April, Anonymous Lawyer says he received enough responses to his April Fools’ Day post to remove it. But the apology, beginning with a simple “I’m sorry”, only whets the palate of the juicy gossip searcher, as he or she tries to figure out what the blogger did to rile his readers so.

“In retrospect, I should not have named names, even in jest. The attorneys I called out for their behaviour in the recruiting process, as litigators, and as representatives of the profession are not necessarily bad people, and the accusations I made were based mostly on speculation and rumour, not fact. The firms I discussed, and the specific people I mentioned, were meant as examples of larger trends in the profession, but I did not intend the post to be taken literally, or those specific individuals and firms to feel wronged by it. I also did not intend to encourage associates at those firms to take the actions they did. I apologise for that.”

He leaves little to readers’ imaginations though, even without the names. It’s clear that among other things, Anonymous Blogger has mentioned candidates who were rejected from his own firm by name, and listed the firms that might be stupid enough to hire such people, or “felons and other unsavories”, and “sex offenders and/or other repeat offenders awaiting sentencing”.

“It was also probably a mistake to discuss actual résumés on the site, and mention the rejected candidates by name. Even if someone is not a good fit for my firm does not mean that there is not a firm out there that would embrace them,” he wrote in his apology.

It also appears that our April fool suggested that law students can be hired in some firms without having graduated, or taking a US Bar exam, which he corrects in his more recent post.

But perhaps the most cringe-worthy thing, and one that many may see as the most unforgivable, was an insinuation that a hiring partner was cheating on his wife. “Please disregard that paragraph entirely. I did not realise he and his wife are currently separated.”

And as a finale: “And for the readers who took issue with my discussion of clerkships, and the judges I specifically listed, I was unaware that two of those judges are currently in prison.” See www.anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com.

Jones and 2GB punished for scum comments

Talkback radio host Alan Jones and his station 2GB have been reprimanded by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for comments made before the Cronulla riots of 2005, including the labelling of some individuals by Jones as “Middle Eastern grubs”.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, both Jones and the radio station were found to have breached the radio code of practice, specifically provisions that ban the incitement of violence or brutality.

Between 5 and 9 December, comments made by Jones were found by ACMA to be “likely to encourage violence or brutality and to vilify people of Lebanese and Middle Eastern backgrounds on the basis of ethnicity”.

ACMA heard that on 7 December Jones said the following: “My suggestion is to invite one of the biker gangs to be present in numbers at Cronulla railway station when these Lebanese thugs arrive, it would be worth the price of admission to watch these cowards scurry back onto the train for the return trip to their lairs,” the paper reported.

“Australians old and new shouldn’t have to put up with this scum,” Jones said.

According to the SMH, Jones sought to defend his comments by stating that, although the riots were caused by people aged from 18 to 29 years old, a mere 2.2 per cent of his audience was younger than 29.

Man robs burger store then returns for lunch

According to the Miami Herald, a dim-witted thief with a clearly identifiable tattoo returned to the same fast food restaurant he had robbed four days earlier to have lunch, with a side order of justice.

Jean Belony, 23, held up a North Miami Beach Wendy’s restaurant with a gun, making no effort to hide his face other than with a bandanna that fell off during the robbery to reveal a teardrop tattoo, the paper reported.

Then only four days later, Belony returned to the same restaurant, where the same employees he earlier robbed recognised him and called the police.

While the police were on their way, Belony ordered three burgers, argued about the amount of change he was given, and then sat down to enjoy his meal.

“This is a true South Florida story,” said Sgt Warren Hardison, North Miami Beach police spokesman. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

According to the paper, Belony now faces armed robbery charges, on top of three existing years of probation for resisting a police officer with violence.

Man eggs judge after being wrongly imprisoned

A British man who was wrongly imprisoned for contempt of court has been convicted of throwing eggs at the very judge who gave the contempt order.

According to the UK Metro, William Hammerton was jailed for six weeks in 2005 after Judge Collins, sitting in the Central London Civil Justice Centre, found him guilty of contempt of court.

But when his conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal, Hammerton celebrated the decision by sneaking into another trial in which Judge Collins was sitting and hurling eggs at him.

“He came to the Royal Courts of Justice and decided to seek out Judge Collins after managing to get through security with eggs,” the man’s barrister said.

“He threw three eggs and one struck His Honour Judge Collins. He then began to read out from the Court of Appeal judgment.”

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