I hate email forwards!

I got the "Who is Barak Hussein Obama" forward again today. I think I let whoever sent me this the first time around slide, but this one annoyed me more since it included an extra paragraph stating you can go to snopes.com to verify the email is true. However, go to snopes and find out for yourself that the email is indeed false. This prompted the following email from me to the unlucky person who happened to keep me on his forwards email list and everyone on that list:

I normally would not respond to one of these annoying forwards, much less hit reply all to spam the email boxes of people that I don't know, but before you send this email to someone else take the time to actually go to snopes.com so you can read for yourself that this email is false (unlike the email below that claims it is factual).

Seriously, take the time to educate yourself about candidates and the issues rather than buy into the mindless forwards sent around.

Unlike the people who send the annoying forwards I signed my name to the email. I sent it about an hour ago and already have my first response of "Get a Life!!!"

I've made my point and have decided that I won't be responding to that email or any other thoughtless emails, even if my first thought is "get a brain, make informed decisions." The funny part is I didn't even say vote for Obama or anyone else for that matter. Ignorant people take themselves way too seriously.

Seriously?

This is completely unrelated to law or work or any of that. But here is a newsflash for every guy on the planet: If you are sitting on the back of your car in a Walmart parking lot, hollering "hey beautiful" to a woman while she is putting groceries in the back of her car, and she does not respond, don't be surprised. Her lack of answer does not make her a bitch. It just makes you a loser.

Sweater Sets and Fauxhawks

Does every profession have those people that others in the profession look down on?

I bring this up because I look down on the child support attorneys. I recognize that they fill a much needed service in providing mothers and children with access to the legal system to collect the support that they need and deserve, here's the BUT...

Do they have to dress so unprofessionally? Striped sweater sets with matching pink slacks do not scream respect me. Believe me, I get the fact that suits get old and I sport flip-flops with my suit when I am in my office. However when I am in court, I am in the suit and my big girl shoes.

The worst part is that it is the female attorneys that do this. Women are still at a disadvantage in this profession, especially in smaller counties with an all male bench, do these attorneys really need to make it harder on the rest of us?

As Barney says, "Suit Up!"

Life or Death

In light of the crazy criminal practice I have somehow got myself into, I have been spending a lot of time pondering the death penalty. I see what you are thinking: very happy topic, Miss M. But really, I have been up to my ears in death penalty cases. Here is what I have concluded: the death penalty should be abolished. Why you ask? The silly reasons are as follows:

1. It creates more work for me.
2. It costs more for the court appointed attorneys to represent them.
3. It kills trees. Lots of them. (And what did the trees do to deserve that?)

As for the more serious reasons, there are a few of those too. Here they go:

1. No person should decide to take another's life (I know if you are already found guilty of murder this is slightly compromised but signing a death verdict is not much better.)
2. Finding a way to constitutionally kill people is a problem.
3. Most civilized societies recognize that capital punishment is no longer acceptable.
4. The legislature has no right to put its citizens in a position where they are forced to decide if someone will live or die.

The last reason sticks with me. In the past 2 weeks we have been selecting a jury and this seems to be something that keeps coming up. Anyway, these are just my musings on the subject.

Random only somewhat law related post

The other day I had to go pick up a file for my boss. Not the most thrilling task but it was friday afternoon so I opted for anything that got me out from behind my desk. As I was driving, I was listening to the radio. Which in and of itself is pretty impressive since it seems like people rarely do that now with satellite and ipod transmitters (which I am totally addicted to). So here is what I concluded from my little journey: I really really fucking hate when they play songs in the middle of the day that have to be extremely edited to be appropriate for radio. For example: Puddle of Mudd, She fucking hates me. Ok it is in the song title. The gratuitous cussing in that song is what makes it great. Next: Buck Cherry Crazy Bitch. THe title should give you a hint there as to the content of the song. One more Nelly Must be the money. Seriously? You have to edit out all the lines about drugs? I understand the concern that children will here this stuff but really kids should be in school at this time so my radio should be uncensored. And they wonder why adults don't listen to the radio anymore. So much for the first amendment (there that was the law related part of the post).

Happy New Year....Late I know

So we have been bad about posting on here. Likely because we work at crazy firms and it just takes too much effort at the end of the day to get back on the computer and type something up.

Such would be the case today except since I am up and bored and TV is sucky, I thought I would post something. There were two things that promptly came to my mind:

1. My big law firm friend who works in the litigation group bitches because all of a sudden she has 100 things to do. My small firm friend says the same. My very small firm life is the same way. Moral of the story: If you work in litigation, some days you have little some minutes you have tons. If you are getting 6 figures to deal with the 100 things on your desk, don't bitch to me.
   
2. Clients call to check on their cases or to hire us. I get this. But sometimes I really don't have any new info. It is not my fault it is taking the court over a year to rule on your peitition. I swear, me calling them is not really going to help. Also, calling me at 530 and going on a tirade about whatever is not a good idea. Cut to the chase or stop talking. And by stop talking I do not mean hang up on me because nothing in the world pisses me off more. Oh and asking if I am the secretary immediately puts you on my annoying list.

That is all for now. I am off to have some wine and go to bed. Tomorrow's challenge: Calendar call. Stay tuned...

Reflections on a certain law school prof

During law school, I absolutely loathed my evidence prof. Why? Easy. He sucked. His favorite answer was "you will understand after you are in practice and are dealing with it." Thanks jackass. So helpful.

Now I am out in the real world and today was confronted with an issue over admissibility of character evidence in a criminal case. Guess what? It still made no sense. Apparently, after studying evidence in law school and for the bar exam and having practiced for a big bad 3 months or so, I still haven't been in practice long enough to get it. And, this was on appeal, the trial lawyer already made all the objections. So clearly there was something fishy about what they were doing. But trying to make a comprehensible argument as to why the Rules of Evidence were violated was a bit beyond me. I wonder how much time out in the real world it will take for my prof's answer to make sense...something tells me it might just be forever.