Motion To Delay Sanctions Against Prenda Lawyers Denied 68
rudy_wayne writes with news that the Prenda lawyers recently sanctioned by a federal judge are starting to face consequences. From the article: "On Friday, Paul Hansmeier, a Minnesota attorney who has been pointed to as one of the masterminds of the Prenda copyright-trolling scheme, filed an emergency motion to stay the $81,000 sanctions order while he and his colleagues could mount an appeal. Today the appeals court flatly denied his motion. Two appellate judges signed this order, and it gives Hansmeier the option to make a plea for delay with the district court judge. That would be U.S. District Judge Otis Wright, the judge who sanctioned Hansmeier in the first place. Hansmeier is also getting kicked off a case he was working on that was totally unrelated to Prenda's scheme of making copyright accusations over alleged pornography downloads. On Friday, the 9th Circuit Commissioner ordered Hansmeier, in no uncertain terms, to withdraw from a case involving Groupon since he has been referred to the Minnesota State Bar for investigation. The commissioner has delayed Hansmeier's admission to the 9th Circuit because of Wright's order, which refers to Wright's finding of 'moral turpitude.'"
You know what I just realized? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You know what I just realized? (Score:5, Funny)
The extra amusing thing about the unrelated case is that he is representing his wife. "Sorry honey, not 'attorney-client relations' today, I'm under investigation for moral turpitude unbecoming the profession..."
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I think having sex with a client falls under moral turpitude most of the time.
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having sex with a client
They are married, so I doubt that is an issue
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Marriage: the legal kind of moral turpitude?
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You left out marriage.
Re:You know what I just realized? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, most of the time the lawyer screws the client without actual sex.
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Maybe you could sing this song in your moment of glee, it's what came to mind when I read the summary...
On the farm, every Friday
On the farm, it's rabbit pie day.
So, every Friday that ever comes along,
I get up early and sing this little song
Run rabbit – run rabbit – Run! Run! Run!
Run rabbit – run rabbit – Run! Ru
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Best initial post ever.
Re:You know what I just realized? (Score:4, Funny)
I need a bigger monitor. I had a hard time reading all that with the massive erection the summary gave me. Seriously, this is fucking awesome. We're talking, distilled, 180 proof justice-porn here.
Hello, this is Prenda Law. It has come to our attention that you've been watching Prenda-lawyer's-hard-first-day-in-prison porn without having paid for it. Please kindly send $4,500 to our bank account or we'll have to tell your neighbors about it.
ooh, you'll really tell my neighbors? cool! (Score:2)
free lawn service and snowblowing for life! bring it on.
be a copyright troll, lose your livelihood (Score:2)
for that is indeed what is happening here. crook lawyers running a RICO are finally losing their meal ticket. woo hoo!
More shady business (Score:5, Informative)
If you've been following the coverage on Popehat or FightCopyrightTrolls, you'll know that the Groupon class-action case is another one of Hansmeier's schemes to make money. He has a few cases where someone in his family files as an objector in a class-action case at the 11th hour (meaning that they are going to hold the case up and not let it settle, unless they get a nice payout of course), and then Hansmeier himself acts as the attorney for the objector. There are theories that he simply files the objections himself under a family member's name, and then proceeds to represent them. The objector in the Groupon case is Padraigin Browne, Hansmeier's wife (and a patent attorney). He's also represented his father, another attorney, in other class-action cases. I like how the judge ordered Hansmeier to provide proof to the court that he notified his client (wife) that he wasn't eligible to represent her.
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Countable on one hand and needing a microscope to view, but still.
Besides, they may enter into a symbiotic relationship if forced together, so it's better for those parasites to be dealt with separately.
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Even the WBC has some standards and morality.
HAHAAHAAAAAhaaahaa!
I'm sorry, but you lost me there.
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Re:More shady business (Score:5, Informative)
Westborough Baptist Church
It's the fundies who like to picket funerals saying that the soldiers are dying because the USA supports gays too much. And by 'supports gays too much' I mean 'fails to burn them at the stake or something'.
Most of the family are apparently lawyers and there are rumors they finance their protests by suing anybody who violates their 'rights'.
oh, yes, the inbred Phelpses (Score:2)
a world unto their own, praise the Lord. they really should retire to an island with no communication to the rest of the world and protest themselves to perfect their drooliness.
Re:More shady business (Score:4, Interesting)
Standards?
1 watch newspapers for high profile deaths
2 show up at funeral
3 stage shockingly objectionable protest
4 be assaulted and/or insulted
5 file suit against grieving relatives for violation of civil rights
It's hard to see that WBC has any standards, or that those nonexistent standards might be any higher than the Prenda lawyers. I'd like to see someone like Judge Wright get hold of the WBC bunch.
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Even the WBC has some standards and morality.
We sent National Geographic out in search for their "standards and morality" but they have found a Unicorn and the fountain of youth....
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Because you are not supposed to pretend to be on one side and actually want the other to win. You are even allowed to represent yourself if you really want to, because the lawyer is supposed to be very interested in helping you as much as possible, even beyond the bounds of the law as it pertains to some other random person I even think (A lawyer is not supposed to squeal on you and tell the authorities that you admitted guilt to some crime).
So there is loads of interest here, just not any "conflict of".
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I'm not an attorney, but Judge Otis Wright in the California case was looking at rule 11 sanctions against Prenda Law. The basis for that was because he was under the impression that the shell companies that the lawyers were representing were in fact owned by the lawyers themselves, but they did not notify the court of that. They would have been allowed to proceed if they had notified the court that they had a monetary interest (their claims and discovery requests simply would have been given more scrutin
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For proof, I guess he could show the court his balls, after his wife has cut them off...
Re:More shady business (Score:5, Interesting)
here are theories that he simply files the objections himself under a family member's name, and then proceeds to represent them.
You know, this makes me wonder what goes on with these types of lawyer. I mean, as I've aged I've realized that not all lawyers are scummy, it's a bit like bad cops - one scummy lawyer slimes an awful lot of other lawyers. Thing is, they always seem to be experienced lawyers, and generally get smacked by the 'disbarment' stick sooner or later, normally fairly quickly(within a couple years, out of a possible 40 year career).
So is it a case of where they start out following the ethics guidelines the classes taught them, but end up pushing the edge and pushing the edge until they go too far, with the process generally taking years, as they slowly become disillusioned and greedy?
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they study the law like W.C. Fields (Score:2)
like Fields studied the Bible. "looking for loopholes."
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So is it a case of where they start out following the ethics guidelines the classes taught them, but end up pushing the edge and pushing the edge until they go too far, with the process generally taking years, as they slowly become disillusioned and greedy?
You'd hope that they start out ethical. Judge Wright in California said that their porn trolling cases were basically allowed because they found the nexus of outdated copyright laws, a paralyzing social stigma for the defendant, and potentially expensive litigation that people want to avoid. It just seems like the lawyer's version of a get-rich-quick scheme. They can interject into class action suits and extract a payment that way with minimal effort, they can monitor bittorrent and send settlement lette
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So is it a case of where they start out following the ethics guidelines the classes taught them, but end up pushing the edge and pushing the edge until they go too far, with the process generally taking years, as they slowly become disillusioned and greedy?
I suspect novice lawyers who so happen to lack scruples are uncertain about what they are likely to get away with, so they start out not behaving egregiously scummy. At times goes on, the scummy lawyers eventually figure out "cash cows". The "cash cows" are improved in their moneymaking aspect with volume. Volume in legal gray areas breeds minor mistakes. Minor mistakes breed complacence that leads to major mistakes. Every major mistake brings a small chance of pissing off an unusually astute judge.
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They're not doing this because the judiciary is very conservative; some judges are, some are very liberal. It's just because our court system has centuries of experience with this type of thing and knows that judges are like Caesar's wife. They not only need to avoid doing anything that would call their impartiality into question, they have to be above suspicion. Being investigated on a
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They're not doing this because the judiciary is very conservative; some judges are, some are very liberal. It's just because our court system has centuries of experience with this type of thing and knows that judges are like Caesar's wife.
When I used the word 'conservative', I was describing their reaction, not their political views. Conservative, as in excercising an abundance of caution, not conservative as in prudish.
Re:Separate issues (Score:4, Informative)
Huh? I didn't read the article (naturally!) but I didn't get anything like that out of our summary. Wright's finding of "moral turpitude" refers to his judgement of Hansmeier. Hansmeier is getting kicked off of a completely different case (about Groupon) because the comissioner of the court presiding over that case won't let a lawyer with "moral turpitude" bring the case into his court. The original Prenda case was about porn downloads, and that set the whole thing off.
Re: Separate issues (Score:1)
Where the hell did you get that the judge is under fire for downloading pornography? It doesn't say anything like that in the summary or the article.
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If I was the judge I'd embrace it.
"Yeah I download porn and I'm proud of it. I'm a red blooded dirty minded american, what's it to ya?"
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Yes, but if this is that same illegal downloading that this lawyer is into revealing, then you cannot really condone that publically as a judge.
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Um, what are you talking about?
To my knowledge, no allegations have been made against Judge Wright.
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Sure they have: the grandparent just made some.
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Sure they have: the grandparent just made some.
And you just referred to them. That's a second source, so we have confirmation. Let's print it!
"From the article" (Score:1)
The /. summary is just short of 60% of the article! (By word count.)
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So?
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Mmmm... (Score:2)
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Not so great summary (Score:5, Informative)
The summary didn't do a good job of explaining the appellate court order in this case. The judges were essentially saying that the issue was not ripe for consideration at their level, because Hansmeier needs to make the request in district court and have it denied there first. He can appeal the district court's refusal to issue a stay, but only after that decision is actually made.
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If I were the judges here I would not be worrying about his obviously lacking morals as much as his completely lacking law competency.
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They're actually being nice to him by telling him exactly what to do (make the stay request at the relevant level), and after he does that they'll consider it then (i.e. "No, but feel free to try again" versus "No, and don't bother trying again"). If he's too dumb to figure that out after being told what the right procedure is, then he should just pay the fine, withdraw from the bar, and work on a new career.
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The summary didn't do a good job of explaining ...
That's pretty much any summary on /. ever.
Like a cold lager on a muggy afternoon (Score:2)
Aren't they all? (Score:1)
Moral Turpitude is a prerequisite for copyright and patent attorneys.
hah (Score:2, Flamebait)
His morals may be fucked but his tears taste like honey..
Slashdot "Quote of the Day" as I was reading this- (Score:2)