I've seen a lot worse. I think the judge should be bitch-slapped.

2 = Elie

Really? He is light on person information? What does that even mean?

Elie -

"person information" or "personal information"?

And is he light on it or is his website?

"Now, I’ve been known to make the occasional grammatical or typographical error. "

Elie, lets not be immodest. Occasional?

The judge is kind of a jerk about his corrections and his belief that reference to the FRCP is needed. What rule tells you to put the period inside the quotation marks? What rule tells you not to use an apostrophe in Plaintiff's. What rule tells you to capitalize "order"? I take away "kind of"

I wish I could make money running a shitty website like this with even shittier grammar and spelling. How Elie went to law school is beyond me . . .

Elie:
Given the unacceptably high number of grammar and spelling mistakes in your posts, you are in no position to ridicule or mock anybody for their writing.

Elie:
Given the unacceptably high number of grammar and spelling mistakes in your posts, you are in no position to ridicule or mock anybody for their writing.

I will bet my Anjilis (http://www.trinityyachts.com/t038.asp) that this lawyer did not attend a preeminent peer law firm.

I've seen a lot worse. This was an uncool move by the judge - go spend your time on other matters.

2 and 13: Just curious, did either (both) of you clerk? If so, state or fed? This seems pretty bad for a represented party's papers to an Article III Court. Although the Judge does seem a bit petty with the comma/quotation thing and capitalization. Then again, I suppose the cumulative effect of such poor papers, submitted by counsel, would piss me off too.

I agree with 13. Minus the grammatical gaffes, this is pretty much standard stuff. I don't blame the judge for "bench-slapping," though. It is ridiculous the crap people file.

-D.C. Clerk

1. The judge's edits are themselves incomprehensible. The first rule of good editing is that you have to make your changes clear enough that anyone can understand them.

2. I'll bet dollars to donuts the motion was drafted by some USF Law grad clerk making $35K/year who's going to be looking for a new job thanks to the judge.

8 -

The Bluebook teaches you to put a period inside a quotation mark.

This is the same judge who ordered a rock-paper-scissors competition to resolve a discovery dispute.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13221673/

I agree with 12. When I attended law firm, the partners taught me never to file motions with grammatical errors in moot court.

The document is fine - nitpicking whether the 7th should be superscripted or not is a waste of time.

This is called "efficient lawyering" - it does not serve the client's interest to bill proofreading time at $300+ per hour in case where the damages or prospects for recovery are low.

The judge is simply power-tripping, in my opinion.

7 = incoherent double negative.

This is a dick move by the judge. While having some mistakes, the motion was easily understandable. Someone should scribble with red pen all over the judge's face, "ass."

He who lives in a glass house should not throw stones. Just sayin'....

Concur. As a federal clerk, I've seen filings this bad. While we're not always able to restrain ourselves from snarky footnotes, we would not require such extraordinary steps from an obviously struggling attorney.

19 - well played

@20 -

a) all due respect. but the 'document' is an unmitigated mess.
b) wouldn't it have served the client's interest better to have, you know, actually taken a second look?

22 = alto the appache

Judge seemed to be picking on full-justifying the margins (which sometimes adds an extra space here or there). Since when is that a grammatical sin?

Agreed. I've seen way worse (from way more expensive and fancy firms) and this order is kind of bunk considering the edits are generally stylistic and grammatical and if he is going to start ordering every single party that fucks up a Rule 41(a) dismissal filing 25 percent of the attorneys on his docket will be slapped with this order.

17-- citation, please?

30- There is no citation- it is a stylistic preference- you just need to be consistent

17- You are a moron

For another decent bench-slap, I recommend:

Bradshaw v. Unity Marine (147 F.Supp.2d 668)

In case anyone is in need of a laugh.

I've seen a lot worse, too.

~Former Fed. District Court Clerk

Ps. I personally prefer the period inside of the quotation marks and to not capitalize "motion to dismiss," but these aren't hard and fast rules (e.g., the Booker Award winning book I'm currently reading puts the period/comma outside of the quotation marks). And the superscript is a Microsoft Word issue.

ouch. When I worked for a judge, I had a similarly incomprehensible filing. It was SO incredibly unprofessional: 36 blatant typos (including the judge's name!!). A SINGLE readthrough or spellcheck would have caught 99% of the errors. My judge however was too nice to call out the lawyer. Too bad. S/he REALLY deserved it.

Judge is incorrect. It's "the plaintiffs" or "Plaintiffs" ... and not "the Plaintiffs" as the Court thinks.

The Motion was pretty awful. Read the whole thing and it's pretty clear the judge was right to say something.

However, the judge needs to review grammar rules himself (and I have a feeling he did the mark-up himself... hence the power-tripping nature of it). His edits are inconsistent, not always founded in any grammatical or Bluebook (and I imagine local court) rules. And he missed a bunch, too.

For some good Birther benchslapping, see Orly Taitz get benchslapped in Georgia: http://ia311028.us.archive.org/1/items/gov.uscourts.gamd.77605/gov.uscourts.gamd.77605.13.0.pdf

35, you're right! Ha.

31,

You are very much incorrect. Not only does the Bluebook provide that commas and periods go inside the quotation marks (and all other outside), but most students learned these rules somewhere between the third and fifth grades.

It is not a matter of preference, as anyone who write "like this", is an idiot, "plain and simple."

NOT 17

31,

You are very much incorrect. Not only does the Bluebook provide that commas and periods go inside the quotation marks (and all other outside), but most students learned these rules somewhere between the third and fifth grades.

It is not a matter of preference, as anyone who writes "like this", is an idiot, "plain and simple."

NOT 17

agree w/ those who say that the judge comes across as only a little more talented than the attorney, and a lot more petty.

I think this is the scene you see in the Spring Break movie of the anal-retentive judge to set up the later scene where lawyer and his friends get drunk and toilet paper that judge's house and soap his windows.

Some of the judges edits are WRONG.

43,

Which ones? Are you talking about the full version or the one posted on ATL?

30, 30.:

The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, R. 5.1(b)(iv), at 69 (Columbia Law Review Ass'n et al. eds., 18th ed. 2005).

If you want a citation for that citation: Id. R. 15.8(c)(ii), at 136.

~Not 17

45

I can't read your citation because you failed to conform the citation to the typeface specified pursuant to Rule 2.1.

j/k!

40,

Check the Chicago Manual of Style, and get back to me. If just one word, the period or comma should be placed outside of the quotations.

39 & 40. You're an idiot. The request was for a citation, not an unsupported statement. In future, please provide what is requested.

Cut this guy some slack.His silly little state court case was removed to federal court where he probably never practices.

32 - thank you, I needed that! Hahaha

I've seen much worse, but then again I was in state court.

46. I know! Sadly I couldn't make small caps in the comments.

~Colum. L. Rev. 3L (45).

The judge is an asshole. He probably couldn't practice law if his life depended on it, but he's perfectly free to behave like the asshole he is. Yes, the lawyer could have done better, but who really gives a shit whether he spelled all his words correctly or got his caps correct. I repeat, the judge is an asshole.

Maybe the Judge should be ordered to read the Code of Judicial Conduct:

Florida Supreme Court, Code of Judicial Conduct, Canon 3(B(4) "(4) A judge shall be patient, dignified, and courteous to litigants, jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and others with whom the judge deals in an official capacity, and shall require similar conduct of lawyers, and of staff, court officials, and others subject to the judge's direction and control."

http://www.floridabar.org/names.nsf/MESearch?OpenForm

Inside the Bar | Find a Lawyer

David Wayne Glasser
Member in Good Standing
Eligible to practice in Florida

ID Number: 780022

Address: Law Office of David W. Glasser
116 Orange Ave
Daytona Beach, Florida 321144310
United States

Phone: 386.2520175

Fax: 386.2570246

E-Mail: GLASSER1@BELLSOUTH.NET

County: Volusia
Circuit: 7
Admitted: 11/29/1988

10-Year Discipline History None

Law School: Nova Southeastern University - Shepard Broad Law Center

The jerkstore called...

@39, don't ever try to work for Goldman Sachs.

Why are former clerks assholes? - HYS grad

40, Bluebook provides "A Uniform System of Citation", not "The Mandatory System of Citation". Scores of courts disregard many Bluebook rules. And yes, I put my punctuation there as a style choice. I think that quotations should include only what is in the source, unless brackets are used to indicate a modification.

Look around and you'll see that many esteemed publications, such as The Economist and Financial Times, take this same approach.

This matter was removed to the USDC. Glasser had probably not held a copy of the FRCP since Civil Pro. State trial courts put up with much more hackery.

I preferred the bench-slap given to famed birther/dentist/lawyer Orly Taitz in Georgia:

http://ia311028.us.archive.org/1/items/gov.uscourts.gamd.77605/gov.uscourts.gamd.77605.13.0.pdf

59 is right. In fact, there is also the Maroon Book Uchicago uses for its law review, many chambers have in house style guides (actually a good thing for firms to adopt but none do) and there is a degree of variance in preferences. The judge was being unreasonable. And litigants screw up Rule 41(a) dismissals all the time.

58 is right - former clerks tend to be sycophant assholes with an inflated sense of importance

I'm with 59 on this one.

If I were Glasser, I would file an ethics complaint against this judge and seek recusal. This was a terribly poor decision on the judge's part.

If I were Glasser, I would file an ethics complaint against this judge and seek recusal. This was a terribly poor decision on the judge's part.

32,

That opinion is laugh-out-loud funny. However, I'm sure the attorneys in that case are saying, "who's laughing now, Judge?"

I was hoping to see something really awful, but this was just ordinarily bad. In a year of law school clinic and a year of practice, I've already seen far, far worse than this filed in U.S. District Courts. The judge overreacted.

Elie & Lat :

Are the few yucks (and click throughs) that this article generates worth publicizing this unfortunate event to the entire world?

Mr. Glasser does not work in an AmLaw 200 firm nor did he do anything to seek or deserve this publicity.
I also doubt that Judge Presnell ridicule Mr. Glasser's short comings to the entire world via a public website.

The lack of professionalism (or even ethics) demonstrated by the AmLaw firms that your blog covers are more subtle and destructive than Mr. Glasser's numerous but harmless gramatical and procedural errors.

If your readers find judicial criticism of attorney breaches entertaining, please consider directing your efforts to covering cases which would benefit the public as well as provide the "yuck" factor you are seeking. For example, please call out the AmLaw 200 firms every time they are sanctioned for discovery abuse or making well written but nonsensical arguments. It's probably much easier to find such examples than publicizing the mishaps in a Title VII case originally filed by a two attorney firm in a tiny market that none of your readers probably admit caring about.

Suggesting that Mr. Glasser may have committed malpractice is without grounds and appears to be liable per se. Even if you edit this article, posting it permanently on the www seems inappropriate.
Please consider removing the article entirely.

Thank you.

Not Mr. Glasser

Did any of you actually read the entire memo (not just the unrepresentative excerpt)? The thing is rife with errors that only a borderline-retard would make.

Did any of you actually read the entire memo (not just the unrepresentative excerpt)? The thing is rife with errors that only a borderline-retard would make.

The writing is horrible. I can only assume that the people claiming otherwise are equally poor writers. I am glad the Judge is making the lawyer show his client what a horrible job he did.

Nobody ever abides by Rule 41(a)(ii). When I clerked, we would just call the defendant's counsel to be sure they were ok with it before closing the file....but sure, making some poor state court practitioner look like an idiot in the court record, that's another route you can take.

Dear Judge,

You can try to correct grammar all you want. It just makes you look petty and stupid. I hope they kick you out of the country club.

Why do we get coverage of this, but no coverage of a federal judge issuing Orly Taitz a show cause order. As far as things go that was far more entertaining than a judge being a grammar Nazi.

Yes, we get it, grammar is important. However, pointing out the grammar mistakes of others instead of humoring them still makes you look like an ass.

Also, for the record, that looks nothing like a pro-se complaint. I would be reasonably impressed if I saw a pro-se plaintiff file something that clean.

yeah, the grammar is not great. but it's really the judge who looks bad here. the order is extremely inappropriate. perhaps it was some ass-munching d-bag law clerk who snuck this by, but it doesn't really matter. shame on this judge.

75. District court clerk. I completely agree (aside from people using tax protest books) pro se litigants don't rise to this level of writing.

This judge, or his clerks for not convincing him to not do this, is an asshole. Simple. The amount of wasteful, bullshit, crazy, non-sense I've seen AM Law 100 firms file might not be as stylistically messy but it's nearly as fucked up.

This is extremely unprofessional. I'm talking about the judge.

While the grammar leaves a bit to be desired, it hardly "render[s] the entire Motion incomprehensible."

This sort of bench slap might be appropriate if the motion really was incomprehensible, or if it was unethical for some reason. But grammar?! This is just over the top.

I'm not from Florida, and I don't know a damn thing about this judge. But I have to say this, and I hope this judge reads it.

Sometimes an Article III judge gets a bit too used to having his fat ass kissed all day. Then he goes and issues an order like this. And the entire local bar (not to mention the entire ATL readership) talks collectively about about how big an asshole he has become.

Very classy, asshole.

Exactly, 78. He wants a dismissal without prejudice to re-file in state court. Also the ? mark. Seriously. He removed it to federal court, duh. You knew what he was saying there.

69 - "I also doubt that Judge Presnell ridicule Mr. Glasser's short comings to the entire world via a public website."

Surely you mean "Judge Presnell ridiculed..."

69 - "... gramatical and procedural errors."

Surely you meant "grammatical."

69 - "Suggesting that Mr. Glasser may have committed malpractice is without grounds and appears to be liable per se."

Surely you mean "libel." Then again I didn't know there was such a thing as "libel per se."

69 - "Even if you edit this article, posting it permanently on the www seems inappropriate."

Surely you mean teh internetz.

looked ok to me

I take that back; while many of the specific errors the judge pointed out are not that big of a deal; the response is poorly written and difficult to understand.

From wikipedia (Note: I routinely place commas and periods outside quotation marks):

The British style places them inside or outside the quotation marks according to whether or not the punctuation is part of the quoted material.[10][11] The American rule is derived from typesetting. Although the terms “American style” and “British style” are used, it is not as clear cut as that because at least one major British newspaper prefers typesetters' quotation (punctuation inside) and BBC News uses both styles, while scientific and technical publications, even in the U.S., sometimes use what is called logical quotation (punctuation outside unless part of the source material). The same style used in British is also typical of other languages, such as Italian and French. Logical quotation differs from British style in its treatment of colons and semicolons. British and American styles both place them outside the quote marks all the time, while logical-technical style allows them to be placed inside. (An example would be a reference to the C programming language statement, 'printf("Hello, world");'.)

As with many such differences, the American rule follows an older British standard. Before the advent of mechanical type, the order of quotation marks with periods and commas was not given much consideration. The printing press required that the easily damaged smallest pieces of type for the comma and period be protected behind the more robust quotation marks.[12] The typesetter’s rule was standard in early 19th century Britain, and the U.S. style still adheres to this older tradition both in everyday use and in non-technical formal writing. The grammatical rule was advocated by the extremely influential book The King’s English (1906), by Fowler and Fowler.[13]

“Carefree,” in general, means “free from care or anxiety.” (American style)
“Carefree”, in general, means “free from care or anxiety”. (British style)

-HYS SECURE

First to say Elie finds his buddy

75,

Because we enjoy debating whether this judge is an a-hole.

8: Please read "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White.

Everyone else: Please read "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White.

In the U. S. of A., anyone who graduated from college, let alone law school, should know how to write in English. Especially in a court pleading.

Damn.. that legal intern is FIRED!

86, is it that hard to just accept (uh oh, split infinitive!) that punctuation marks can go inside or outside of the quotation marks, depending on one's style preferences? Lighten up. Whichever approach you take, it is not fair to label the other one an error.

88: Your rite. Anyting goes. Try dat in ure next pleeding.

District Court Clerk

I clerked for another judge in the Orlando division a few years ago and recall seeing Mr. Glasser's work. I have no recollection about the quality of his work product, but do know that he practices in both federal and state court. So, it's not really a case of someone who is unfamiliar with federal practice. (Not that it matters, you should proofread before submitting to any court).

And from my interactions with Judge Presnell, I can't believe that this was in response to a first offense.

Well, 39 (who apparently really needs to get laid and did NOT get a Federal clerkship), it is a stylistic choice. The Brits put the quotations inside the period. That is the reason the Booker Prize-winning author has quotes inside the period. Booker Prize nominees can only be from the Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe. So get yourself laid and he happy that your not reading some crappy lawyer's brief.

Oh,I'd also like to add that it is a poorly-written, incomprehensible motion that should not be defended. I know that most of you come over here to post your inane, mostly misinformed comments to make yourself feel better about the incredibly powerless position you are in. Remember, my dear lawyers, you will always be both the client's and the judge's bitch. Get used to it. Stop being such twats and stop making the rest of the world deal with your inferiority complex. Get a hobby. Help the homeless.

p.s. Elie. Dude. Seriously. You should have had somebody else post this story.

Seriously, what a paramount waste of governmental resources. So what!?! This is personal. The judge must be covering up his own inappropriate behavior, somewhere.

At least the judge actually read the complaint, which is very rare in federal court.

At least the judge actually read the complaint, which is very rare in federal court.

At least the judge actually read the complaint, which is very rare in federal court.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Yes, I'm a former clerk and intern (federal and state) and have litigated for several years. I've seen much, much worse than this (and not just in pro se filings.) I've always been a stickler for typos, etc. (and I'm sure I will make one here that someone else will delight in pointing out) but the fact remains that it does affect the strength of your argument. I've seen my judges comment on poor briefs during oral argument (on the record) but cannot understand why this judge felt it necessary to order the attorney to show this to his client, for crying out loud. That is just over-the-top and in poor taste, not to mention that it is not keeping with expected judicial temperment in the federal court. Additionally, many of his edits were impossible to decipher, and I'm a former journalist.

BTW, I always put my periods inside the quotation marks, and capitalize "Plaintiff" only if referring to the party in that suit or using the word as a title -- otherwise, it is "the plaintiff." I could be wrong, but have never been bench-slapped in any court over it. :)

Notwithstanding the foregoing, that brief really stunk. I could've done a better job in 20 minutes after six beers.

While the text of this document is regrettable, please remember that practicing in the trenches is often harried and stress-filled. e Something easy to forget for ivory tower types. What is the point of humiliating this lawyer nationwide on the internet? Shame.

The attorney's assistant probably wrote it anyway

Many of the mistakes in the motion and brief could have been avoided simply by using the grammar and style check function on his computer. That function isn't perfect (and it isn't a substitute for proofreading), but it is very helpful indeed.

Many lawyers and law students do not realize that you need to change the setting on your computer to check not only spelling but also to check grammar and style. And many more do not realize that the style option can be set to be sure that your periods and commas go inside the quotation marks (or outside the quotation marks if you're using British style).

Using the grammar and spell check function also would have flagged places in that memo and brief where there were extra spaces.

If nothing else, this story has given Legal Writing Professors something interesting to talk about in class next week.

In your post, you wrote this: "David W. Glasser, who we believe to be one of the two partners of Glasser & Handel."

I think the "who" should actually be a "whom."