HappyMealGate Wrap-up: You Want Florida CLE With That?
We have a ruling in the HappyMealGate case (prior coverage here, here, and here of Wiliam P. Smith, the McDermott Will & Emery partner who told Judge Laurel Myerson Isicoff that she was “a few French Fries short of a Happy Meal”). And it’s surprisingly lenient.
Judge Isicoff basically gave Smith a stern talking to:
“There is no jurisdiction in the U.S. — including the district where Mr. Smith regularly practices — where the expression and tone Mr. Smith used on May 7 would fall in the bounds of acceptable behavior,” a solemn Isicoff said from the bench in front of a packed courtroom.
and ordered him to take an online professionalism course administered by the Florida Bar.
Smith brought McDermott chairman Harvey Freishtat with him to beg and plead for mercy from Isicoff. Apparently it worked.
Isicoff said she accepted the apologies of both Smith and McDermott Will & Emery chairman Harvey Freishtat, the head of the Chicago-based, 1,000-lawyer firm, who also appeared in front of her to beg her pardon.
Looks like the fry guy got off relatively easy, and we’ve all learned something: don’t stoop to middle-school insults while arguing in front of a federal judge, especially if you’re appearing pro hac vice.
(30) Comments
Posted in: Bad Ideas, Bankruptcy, Benchslaps, Fast Food, McDermott Will & Emery, Practice Pointers, Rudeness
Comments
Baller
but Alan Shore does it.
Congrats, Merck. This is your first post which has not reaffirmed my complete contempt for you. Keep the streak alive.
Fourth!
He also donated to a charity at UM Law School, has to do 200 hours pro bono work, was removed as head of the bankruptcy group at McDermott, and stepped down as head of his school's Chicago-area alumni chapter. Plus Freishtat threw him under the bus, got in it, and backed it over him a few times. It wasn't pretty.
okay 1036 that wasn't in the story... give us all the juicy details...
That must've been an uncomfortable private-jet ride back to Chicago.
Okay, leading the Univ. of Cincinnati alumni ring in Chicago... there's some prestige!
If this judge hadn't been so new to the bench, she would've dealt with this thing on the spot, tossing his ass out.
Be nice to Merck boys and girls. Lat deserves a vacation and all of these sniping comments don't reflect well on you, the loyal readers.
merck deserves credit for a snappy title on this story
1049: you are obviously not a litigator. Go get a spine. And maybe look in to some testicles.
"Private jet." Obviously written by someone who doesn't work at a big firm. No such thing, fella!
Be nice to Merck boys and girls. Lat deserves a vacation and all of these sniping comments don't reflect well on you, the loyal readers.
Posted by: Anonymous | June 21, 2007 10:49 AM
============
Fuck you, 10:49. Merck deserves the vitriol and more. He is the "santorum" of blog writers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Love
Fifteenth!!!
Atlanta to 35k!!!
Damn you 11:12. I was supposed to fifteenth, not sixteenth. Oh well.
Seventeenth!!!
Atlanta to 35k!!!
Where is the wrap up on the DC "Judge" and his pants? Ruling yet?
I don't think stepping down as the head of a firm's practice group is "getting off easy."
You missed an important point, Merck.
Merck = "santorum" of blog writers.
Ha!
Wait... Oh, gross.
she is not a federal judge
Does anyone else think this is totally batsh#t insane? The dude said that the judge's arguendo prediction of a potential outcome (in the course of oral argument) was "a few fries short of a Happy Meal." He phrased it infelicitously, but it was on the fly in an oral argument, casually phrased (as lawyers are often advised is the best way to approach oral argument).
I mean, I can understand frosty words from the bench at that point based on possible in-the-moment anger at what he'd said if it came across badly, but IIRC she didn't even react to it real time, right?? Thta's pretty strong evidence that in context it didn't "feel" like a slap, though it might read that way on the page.
I mean, I'm on board. But this judge sounds like a royally nasty person lording it over a big city lawyer by badly mischaracterizing what happened. And I"m just TOTALLY baffled by the suggestion that the firm would have yanked his partnership or whatever punitive stuff on the basis of this tiny, tiny, TINY slipup -- a slipup of wording, not a slipup that (on its face) indicates some contemptuous attitude.
Just goof city. The righteous outrage is, I think, what really galls me. There but for the grace of God...
first sentence of para 3 should say "I mean, I'm on board if judge decides to scold him in the moment."
the point is that elevating it to orders to show cause, and penitent pilgrimages, and threats to disbar (!!!!!!!) him . . . . it's just f#cking insane.
can someone tell me why i'm wrong? i'd really like not to be irritated at this untouchable judge's abuse of power.
12:03... I basically agree. In retrospect, I'm sure he'd have wished it come out differently, but the reaction seems excessive, unfair, etc. He was criticising the quality of a prediction, not the judge -- at least not directly. I suspect the judge is a very insecure person...
12:03, read the prior posts and comments. You could not be more wrong on this.
Smith's behavior was beyond the pale for a lawyer of his caliber and experience (and really anyone who went to law school).
To paraphrase the great Vincent Vega:
I'm not sayin' Smith meant to insult the judge, but you're sayin' that uttering careless and even potentially insulting words to a Judge don't mean nothing, and I'm sayin' it does.
Everyday, lawyers say a million words to a million judges and it all means somethin'. We act like it don't sometimes, but it does. That's what's so fuckin' cool about oral arguments. We can be creative and persuade through subtlety and inference.
But never do we speak carelessly or sharply to a judge and not mean to inflict some type of offense. You know it, I know it, and fuckin' Judge Isicoff knew it. And, Smith shoulda fuckin' known fuckin' better.
That's her office, man, she ain't gonna have a sense of humor about that shit.
Idiots! She is a federal judge... just not an Article III judge.
1. Judge Isicoff most certainly is a "federal judge." Some people need to take another look at Article I of the Constitution.
2. She was wrong in saying this kind of mouthing off wouldn't be acceptable in the district where Smith practices. Happens all the time. Typical Chicago bankruptcy lawyer.
Judge Isicoff is, if not "hot" then highly attractive.
http://www.law.miami.edu/news/432.html
My take:
http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2007/06/nifong-disbarre.html
(Your trackback function doesn't seem to work, at least as my Typepad blog is pinging it.)
That's what happens when you go to a hick state...you get the psycho judges. She issued a show cause order for this garbage? If she were a real judge, this would have been dealt inside the courtroom at once. Instead, she made this a national spectacle. What an ass.
8:55 -- Yup. That's pretty much the bottom line.
12:20 -- I don't really disagree that this was careless and even silly. And I wouldn't be that surprised for a stick-up-her/his-@ss, take-themselves-way-too-seriously-at-all-times judge to beat the dude up in court for it a little bit. But for her to suggest that it's grounds for striking pro hac status? Bat. Sh#t. Crazy.
The crazitude is so slap-you-in-the-face obvious that I have to think the scope of internal repercussions at his firm result from other issues with this partner.