Success has a proud father, but failure is an orphan
When should lawyers get their name in the paper? I suppose it depends . . .
In today's Star, Dan Margolies' column consists of two stories. In the first, he covers a decision by the 8th Circuit to reverse a local trial judge's decision to dismiss a case for discovery abuse. The Eighth Circuit agreed that both sides had provoked the Judge Whipple, but felt that he should be recused on the case because he lost his temper toward the plaintiff.
None of the lawyers' names appear in the paper. I know and like both sides' attorneys, so I'm kind of glad that they dodged mention in this stinker of a case, but it seems an odd editorial decision to include this quotation:
“You didn’t hear enough with four phone conferences, and I’m sorry you missed one, with three, four, I kept telling you to produce stuff, expert stuff. You ducked. You wove. You did everything to keep from producing them. You go to the Eighth Circuit. They tell you to produce them, and you still god---- don’t produce them. Now what the hell do you not understand? You must produce them”,and not mention who the "you" was. I completely understand that in many discovery disputes, the lawyer is caught in the hard place between a recalcitrant client and an angry court, but the inclusion of such a gem of a quotation without a clear pronoun reference is striking.
At the other end of the spectrum, Kansas City's largest law firm is featured glowingly in the very next item. We are told that "Shook Hardy & Bacon won a big victory in Florida last week in a smoker’s liability case." It's notable that Shook, not the client, won the big victory, because when the vedict goes the other way, it's the client's loss:
In February a Broward County jury ordered Philip Morris USA to pay $8 million, including $5 million in punitive damages, to the widow and son of a chain smoker of Benson & Hedges cigarettes, finding that Philip Morris showed a reckless disregard for the smoker’s safety. Shook represented Philip Morris in that case also.In victory, Shook wins, but in defeat, Shook merely represents its client.
In summary, the lesson seems to be that if the judge is yelling at you, then only your client's name will show up in the paper. If a verdict goes in favor of your client, though, the victory is yours.
Labels: journalism, KC Star, law