Sometimes it's hard to keep the law civil. But when you feel your temper rising, resist the urge to call opposing counsel a "jackass." And if opposing counsel calls you a jackass, resist the urge to retort by calling his mother a jackass.

Two Louisiana lawyers, Douglas H. Greenburg and Anthony P. Lewis, did not heed this advice, and now they've been reprimanded by the state attorney discipline board. Debra Cassens Weiss reports on the reprimand in the ABA Journal:

Greenburg is the former district attorney of Terrebonne Parish, according to a story published by the Courier at the time of the incident. Lewis had a private practice and was also an assistant district attorney in Lafourche Parish, the story said.

Lewis told the publication that he and Greenburg have a "long-standing mutual dislike" based on disagreements over each others’ manner of trial practice.

Lewis told the Courier that the incident began when Greenburg accused him of wrongdoing. Lewis retorted that Greenburg was still trying to prosecute, prompting Greenburg's jackass comment and Lewis' jackass retort, he said. At that point, Lewis said, Greenburg lunged at him, grabbed his lapel and knocked him over, causing a temporary blackout. Greenburg told police he grabbed Lewis' collar but he did not push him, the story says.

It seems like it's always the boy attorneys who lock horns in court. When is someone going to send us a good courthouse catfight story?

Reprimand Recommended for Lawyers Who Fought After Trading ‘Jackass’ Barbs [ABA Journal]

Divorce attorney turned hit man employer, Manuel Martinez, is ATL's Lawyer of the Day. Martha Neil reports in the ABA Journal that the New York ex-lawyer was sentenced to 25 years to life for hiring a hit man to kill his client's husband 18 years ago, "during a bitter divorce trial." That's really bitter.

From the New York Daily News:

Martinez reportedly collected $100,000 for hiring the hit man who fired three bullets into George Kogan on Oct. 23, 1990, as the victim lingered outside his girlfriend's E. 69th St. apartment....

Martinez was "a lawyer who became a murderer," Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann told the Supreme Court jury in Manhattan.

The jury deliberated three days before convicting the lawyer of second-degree murder and soliciting. Prosecutors said Martinez admitted his involvement in Kogan's death to his ex-wife and an ex-con pal.

The lawyer was actually indicted a decade ago while serving a prison term in Mexico on unrelated charges.

From a Mexican prison for drug charges to a U.S. prison for murder charges. We wonder if this guy snickered his way through the lawyer's oath.

Martinez's client, Barbara Kogan, collected $4 million in insurance money after her husband's murder, but she's hanging out uncharged in Puerto Rico. "To say that this is an unusual case may be the understatement of my career," the ruling judge, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus, said.

N.Y. Lawyer Gets 25 Years to Life in Murder of Client’s Husband [ABA Journal]
He's guilty in '90 slay of millionaire [New York Daily News]

We couldn't choose between these two possible Lawyers of the Day, so we'll let them go head to head. You can decide who's the more deserving honoree.

In one corner, we have John Newsome, a district attorney in Colorado. Sources inside and outside the district attorney's office tipped off a local TV station to Newsome's carousing during office hours. From the Colorado Springs Gazette:

The television station aired its report Tuesday night after filming Newsome on a "recent afternoon" as he drank three 20-ounce beers and a 10-ounce beer during "work hours" over the course of less than two hours at Oscar's, a downtown Colorado Springs bar.

Newsome was then shown heading back to his office. An hour later, he drove his El Paso County-owned SUV to another bar, according to KOAA.

There, Newsome was reportedly seen drinking four more pints with Assistant District Attorney Amy Mullaney and then driving away. Mullaney was also drinking with Newsome earlier that day at Oscar's.

DA party-time! Woohoo. No criminal investigation, and he's running unopposed for reelection in November. Lucky guy.

In the other corner, we have Vito Fossella, who has a law degree from Fordham University. He's the U.S. congressman from New York who got busted for drunk driving in Virginia last week.

The DUI charge has led to the unraveling of his double life. Turns out the married father of three has a lady friend and lovechild in the D.C. region. From the New York Times:

Representative Vito J. Fossella, the Staten Island Republican who was arrested on drunken-driving charges in Virginia last week, acknowledged on Thursday that he had fathered a daughter, now 3, in an extramarital affair. But he declined to address questions about his political future.

Mr. Fossella, who has three children with his wife on Staten Island, issued a terse statement that said nothing about the events leading to his arrest, which occurred hours after he attended a White House reception celebrating the New York Giants’ victory in the Super Bowl.

At least he wasn't drinking during office hours.

Newsome: 'I sincerely apologize' [Colorado Springs Gazette]
'POP' GOES THE WEASEL VITO [New York Post]
Fossella Admits He Had an Extramarital Affair [New York Times]

When a Biglaw partner is accused of domestic violence, we can't help but honor him with ATL's Lawyer of the Day. But we must note that this article from the New York Daily News drips with lawyer hatred, in describing a case where the attorney was not convicted.

They didn't even spell Cadwalader partner Ira Schacter's name correctly. We've put the perceived lawyer hatin' in bold:

A high-powered Manhattan lawyer was cleared of wife-beating charges Tuesday -- even though cops said his estranged wife was hurt in a scuffle last fall at the couple's East Side townhouse.

Ira Schachter, a partner at the white-shoe firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft, was freed despite dramatic photos that appear to show him causing a commotion outside the pricey brownstone on E. 78th St.

Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Larry Stephen also scrapped an order of protection against Ira Schachter, 48, after prosecutors said they couldn't prove the case against him....

Ira Schachter walked out of court surrounded by an entourage of powerful lawyers, including divorce lawyer Raoul Felder and Ira Sorkin, former head of enforcement at the federal Securities and Exchange Commission.

Not to say that beating your wife is okay. His wife claims he choked her, and police photos showed bruises on her head and neck. Schacter claimed it was self-defense after his wife bit his finger "to the bone."

One tipster tells us that Ira Schacter is "awkward, very messy, constantly touching himself, a general slob. But not violent." This tipster opines that Mrs. Schacter is "nuts" and that neither spouse is blameless, but that she was the one who ended up filing charges.

More about Ira Schacter, from a second source:

Very strange guy and hard to describe -- everyone suspected he had Asperger's. He has very quirky mannerisms and a speech impediment.... But he has a ginormous book of business and is probably the only rainmaker in corporate outside of Dennis [Block]....

Not a particularly likable guy. Very controlling of his little fiefdom, and very nasty to anyone perceived to be hitting his bottom line.

I am loathe to blame what may be the victim or defend anyone at CWT, but his wife was known around the firm to be extremely abusive to everyone she came in contact with. [She] could be heard screaming obscenities at undeserving secretaries and Ira over the phone.

They sound like they were meant for each other. Now we are going to watch War of the Roses.

Upper East Side wife reels after judge clears husband of wife-beating charges [New York Daily News]

Yes, that would be the Honorable Scott J. Bloch of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. The independent federal agency he oversees, which investigates government wrongdoing, got raided by the FBI today.

Looks like Bloch may have been doing some wrongdoing himself -- he's under investigation for obstruction of justice. From the Wall Street Journal (subscription):

At the direction of the White House, the federal Office of Personnel Management's inspector general is looking into claims that Mr. Bloch abused his investigative authority, improperly retaliated against employees or dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination.

The computer erasures became part of that investigation and are one of the reasons behind today's raid, employees said. Investigators were trying to determine whether the deletions were improper or part of a cover-up, the Journal article reported.

Bypassing his agency's computer technicians, Mr. Bloch phoned 1-800-905-GEEKS, the mobile PC-help service. It dispatched a technician in one of its signature PT Cruiser wagons. In the Journal story, Mr. Bloch confirmed that he contacted Geeks on Call but said he was trying to eradicate a virus that had seized control of his computer. He said the erasures didn't delete any files related to the inquiry.

Bloch's mistake was calling Geeks on Call instead of 1-800-HELP-ME-DELETE-SECRET-FILES.

(Or maybe he should have tried Compu-Nerd, Mariah Carey's preferred tech service.)

F.B.I. Raids Office of Special Counsel [New York Times]
Special Counsel's Office Raided [Washington Post]
FBI Agents Raid Work, Home Of Special Counsel's Bloch [Wall Street Journal]
Spotlight on the OSC’s Scott Bloch, No Stranger to Controversy [WSJ Law Blog]

If you've ever used software by Citrix to access your office computer remotely, you might find this case of interest. Julie Kay of the National Law Journal reports:

In a rare ruling, a South Florida federal judge has ordered a plaintiff and his law firm to jointly pay sanctions of $756,000 to Fort-Lauderdale-based Citrix Systems for failing to conduct a "reasonable pre-filing investigation" before filing suit.

The April 28 order by U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan is unusual in that it orders sanctions to be paid by both plaintiff Alexander Orenshteyn and his attorneys, David Fink and Timothy Johnson of Houston-based Fink & Johnson. Alexander S. Orenshteyn v. Citrix Systems, No. 02-60478-CV (U.S. Dist. Ct., S.D. Fla.).

Three-quarters of a million is a sizable sanction. And in a bit of bad news for Messrs. Fink and Johnson, "Goodwin Procter will likely pursue the sanctions from the lawyers, as Orenshteyn filed for bankruptcy two years ago."

As if working at a firm named Fink & Johnson wasn't bad enough. Why not just name your firm Dootchbag & Schlong, and be done with it?

Funniest Law Firm Names [Concurring Opinions]
Law Firm Names That Are Funny [WSJ Law Blog]

Monica Conyers is a University of District of Columbia School of Law grad, the wife of U.S. Congressman John Conyers, and the pro-tem president of the Detroit City Council. Maybe tem stands for temper, because she's got a nasty one. She went ballistic on the council's president earlier this year. From the Detroit Free-Press:

Conyers interrupted Council President Ken Cockrel as he was questioning Carl Edwards, the Detroit attorney. Cockrel reminded Conyers that he had the floor and banged his gavel repeatedly.

Conyers railed: “You’re not my Daddy. You’re not going to disrespect me. Grow up! Control your house and learn how to treat women.”

Cockrel told Conyers that she was “one to talk.”

Conyers also made repeated mocking reference to Cockrel as Shrek, the green, grumpy and rotund ogre from the animated film.

Well, a tipster sends us the video of the confrontation, along with a subsequent roundtable with a bunch of middle schoolers. Our tipster says:

[The UDC] advocacy program must be the WORST in the nation, because she clearly lost this argument with an 8th grader.

Here's the video. Go to 00:35 for the confrontation with the council president and to 2:40 for the confrontation with the 8th grader:

Conyers got schooled by Kierra Bell, 8th grader at Courtis Elementary Middle School.

Council hearing adjourned amid shouting match [Detroit Free-Press]
Monica Conyers debates school children [YouTube]

The scandal of Jack Abramoff (pictured) may be ancient history, but it continues to yield up legal news, as the fallout rains down. There was Guam's lawsuit against Abramoff's former firm, Greenberg Traurig, which was recently dropped. And now there's this, from today's Washington Post:

A former high-ranking official in the Justice Department pleaded guilty yesterday to accepting thousands of dollars worth of meals and sports tickets from Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for helping a variety of Abramoff's clients.

Robert E. Coughlin II, the former deputy chief of staff of the Justice Department's criminal division, became the latest of more than a dozen public officials, lobbyists and congressional staff members to be convicted or to plead guilty in the wide-ranging federal investigation of Abramoff's activities.

As part of his plea agreement, Coughlin, 36, agreed to cooperate with investigators, making him a potentially important witness in the ongoing scrutiny of Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.). Coughlin acknowledged performing a variety of official acts for Kevin A. Ring, a key member of Abramoff's lobbying team at Greenberg Traurig and a former legislative aide to Doolittle. Coughlin and Ring are longtime friends who worked together on Capitol Hill a decade ago.

More discussion, after the jump.

Marc Dann has had a rough tenure as Ohio's attorney general. When the media start crafting timelines of your troubles, the end may well be nigh. One of Dann's biggest problems seems to be judgment calls. Such as when choosing staff members. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a write-up on this stellar Dann staffer:

One of Attorney General Marc Dann's top managers, who is accused of sexual harassment, has a history of problems with cars and alcohol, including a drunken driving arrest months before he was hired and a smashed state car after.

Dann knew about the arrest because, according to State Highway Patrol records, he was the one who picked Anthony Gutierrez up at 2:30 in the morning at the Canfield post after Gutierrez blew a .149 on a blood-alcohol test nearly twice the legal limit.

Aren't staffers supposed to be the ones picking their drunk bosses up, and not the other way around?

Reflecting another poor hiring decision, Dann had to discipline his communications director for sending a "profane, abusive e-mail to a co-worker." His COMMUNICATIONS director.

The list of poor staffing choices goes on.

Dann's staff is not entirely to blame for his troubles. From the timeline:

June 2007: Dann, standing on a street in an upper-middle class neighborhood, spots a reporter who had written a story he didn't like. Dann says, "Hey Steve, write this down: Go (expletive) yourself!"

Maybe Dann's communications director suggested that.

Dann picked up his aide after DUI arrest [The Cleveland Plain Dealer]
Timeline of Marc Dann's troubles [Dayton Daily News]

Senator John McCain learned this week that his campaign spending may be investigated by the FEC due to a DNC lawsuit, but he now has a bigger crisis on his hands. The Washington Post reported on the newest presidential candidate scandal yesterday. Cindy McCain yoinked the "McCain family recipes" on the campaign website from the Food Network. OMG! GASP! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

Our scandal radar barely went off, as we've become desensitized by adultery, prostitution, and tax fraud. But one of our tipsters pointed out a legal tie-in. The woman who discovered the recipe plagiarism was a New York attorney, Lauren E. Handel of McDermott, Will & Emery:

A blogger for the Huffington Post, freelance writer David Weiner, first reported the plagiarism, mocking the incident as "Farfallegate? The Rosemary Chicken Dome Scandal?" He attributed the discovery to Lauren Handel, a New York lawyer who had been searching the Internet for recipes and found identical ones on the Food Network and McCain campaign sites.

We're a little suspicious of this story of Lauren Handel doing recipe research. We can't believe a Biglaw attorney in NYC actually has time to cook.

Bloggers Find Something Fishy In McCain Site's 'Family Recipes'

Last month, Texan attorney Adam "Bulletproof" Reposa was honored as an ATL Lawyer of the Day, for making the "jerk-off" gesture in court while making eye contact with Travis County Judge Jan Breland. Though he says the gesture was actually intended for opposing counsel, today he was found guilty of contempt of court:

From the witness stand, Judge Breland relayed to the court how Reposa continuously whispered in his client's ear while the Travis County prosecutor offered a plea bargain agreement for probation. Reposa apparently wished to continue to trial.

After being admonished by Judge Breland to stop, Reposa allegedly made the offending motion.

It's "what boys do to insult one another," Judge Breland told Judge Davis.

So if a female attorney simulated masturbating in court, would that be okay?

Update: As Keye TV reports, Reposa was just sentenced to 90 days in jail.

'Bulletproof' Reposa has his day in court [Keye TV]
Judge rules defense lawyer in contempt of court [Austin American-Statesman]
Lawyer Found Guilty of Contempt for Lewd Courtroom Gesture [ABA Journal]
Austin judge throws lawyer in jail for obscene gesture [Keye TV]

Earlier: Lawyer of the Day: Adam Reposa

We don't get nearly enough news from the west coast, so we are happy to anoint two Oregonian attorneys our Lawyers of the Day.

At first, the idea of landlord-tenant lawyers duking it out struck us as awesome. But apparently their fight involved slapping, running away, and a "talking-to" from a judge. Not so awesome.

From the Oregonian:

[J]aws dropped last week when two attorneys duked it out in a first-floor hallway in front of a crowd of spectators, including a few county sheriff's deputies and Portland traffic cops.

Attorneys David Lawrence and Aaron Matusick had been in landlord-tenant court Thursday for a hearing and began shouting at each other when they left the courtroom, according to witnesses and officials who investigated the fight.

People in three nearby courtrooms spilled into the hallway to see what was going on, some just in time to see the two men literally butt heads. Although it's not clear exactly who did what, witnesses said one man slapped the other and the other responded with a punch to the forehead.

Then one of the attorneys dashed out of the courthouse. He was called back on his cell phone, and both men were summoned to Judge Pro-Tem Lewis Lawrence's chambers for a talking-to.

We wonder whether the deputies and traffic cops were just standing around cheering and taking cell phone photos. That's probably what we would have done. But we're not responsible for, like, keeping the peace and stuff.

Court fight! Lawyers trade blows in hall [The Oregonian]

With respect to our earlier post, about a rumor that Latham & Watkins represents the Church of Scientology, we have our doubts. See this comment (at 2:53 PM).

But here's some bad news about Latham that appears to be more reliable. From the WSJ Law Blog:

[Samuel A. Fishman (pictured)] has pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and is slated to be sentenced in June....

The criminal information and papers from the U.S. attorney’s office say Fishman, 51 of New Jersey, was a lawyer in the corporate department of a major U.S. law firm with offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia. SEC documents show a Samuel A. Fishman was a lawyer at Latham & Watkins....

The criminal information says that, upon discovering the scheme, the law firm reimbursed its clients hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses. The information says Fishman was the billing partner for a number of the firm’s institutional clients, including clients in banking, utilities, telecommunications and entertainment.

From 1993 through 2005, it says, Fishman mischaracterized on invoices certain expenses, such as non-reimbursable meals and parking fees, as reimbursable expenses, such as photocopying and express mail, amounting to more than $200,000 of mischaracterized expenses. He also sent client invoices that inflated actual costs to the firm, amounting to $100,000 of non-existent expenses, the information says. It says that he also falsely represented personal expenses, such as hotel bills, as reimbursable business expenses.

In case you're wondering, Samuel Fishman is a 1981 graduate of NYU Law School. See here. Harvard Law School's two-day winning streak for Lawyer of the Day has been broken.

Update (4:20 PM): Here is the firm's official statement about the Sam Fishman matter, from David Gordon, managing partner of Latham's New York office:

"As reflected in the statements from the U.S. Attorney's Office, our firm discovered the issues relating to Mr. Fishman in 2005, immediately acted to protect our clients fully, and disclosed the matter to appropriate law enforcement authorities. Mr. Fishman resigned from the firm at the time the issues were discovered. Since that time, we have cooperated fully with the investigation."

Samuel A. Fishman [Latham & Watkins via Archive.org]
Lawyer Pleas in Case Charging that He Bilked Firm and Clients [WSJ Law Blog]
Lawyer at Major Firm Charged with Bilking Firm and Clients [WSJ Law Blog]

Today's Lawyer of the Day has a political connection. He's a superdelegate to the Democratic convention, as well as an Obama supporter. From the AP:

Puerto Rico Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila indignantly denied wrongdoing Thursday and gave no sign he would abandon his re-election effort after being charged with campaign finance violations that carry a penalty of 20 years in prison.

Acevedo, a superdelegate to this summer's Democratic convention, accused U.S. prosecutors of pursuing a politically motivated indictment alleging that the governor and a dozen other people conspired to illegally pay off his campaign debts.

"I am going to defend my rights and protect the dignity of my family and of the people of Puerto Rico who support me," the governor said in a statement hours after the FBI arrested most of those named in the indictment in San Juan, Philadelphia and Washington area.

Fun factoid: Governor Acevedo is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the alma mater of Eliot Spitzer, another governor -- make that ex-governor -- facing possible legal trouble. This means that HLS has given us two Lawyers of the Day in a row; yesterday's LOTD was card-counting queen Jane Willis.

(In Harvard's defense, Governor Acevedo just got an LLM there. He received his JD from the University of Puerto Rico.)

Feds Charge P.Rico Governor, 12 Others [AP via Blogonaut]
Puerto Rican 'Governor' Somehow Caught In FBI Sting [Wonkette]
Aníbal Acevedo Vilá [Wikipedia]

Young New Hampshire lawyer Daniel Hynes, who is just 27, has earned a place among our Lawyers of the Day for extorting hair salons.

Feel free to use the Power of the Law Degree to ensure that your landlord heats your apartment adequately. But using it to threaten beauty parlors... that's just wrong. From the Concord Monitor:

A Manchester lawyer who threatened to sue a Concord salon for pricing haircuts differently for men and women and then took money to settle the matter was found guilty of theft by extortion.

A jury took about 1½ hours to convict Daniel Hynes, 27, on Wednesday. Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Baker said Hynes sent letters to at least 19 salons in the state.

One arrived Dec. 20, 2006, at Claudia's, the North Main Street hair salon owned by Claudia Lambert. In the letter, Hynes said prices should be based on the time a cut takes or on the length of hair, instead of on gender. He wrote: "I demand payment in the amount of $1,000 in order to avoid litigation," according to court documents.

Since he was not representing a client, Mr. Hynes defended his right to extort by citing the First Amendment and the right to petition the courts. We are surprised it took the jury an hour and a half to deliberate on this.

Hynes would have been wise to enlist a female friend to play his client in this fiendish plot. His reasoning comes across as a bit weak:

In one court document, he argued that the price structure that he saw as discriminatory had caused him stress and mental anguish, despite the fact that prices for men were less than those for women. He said he was being denied an "inherent benefit in being treated equally." He pointed to a woman's right to vote and said he benefits from her right, even though he is a man.

If Mr. Hynes is not disbarred, we'd like to talk with him about how we can get a haircut for under $100.

Lawyer guilty of salon extortion [Concord Monitor]

Some ATL readers may find our Lawyer of the Day posts frivolous, but there are valuable lessons in each one. Texan lawyer Adam "Bulletproof" Reposa has many lessons to impart.

Lesson one: how not to show one's displeasure with a judge's ruling. From the Austin American-Statesman:

Adam Reposa, 33, was held in contempt of court by County-Court-at-Law Judge Jan Breland for his "intentional and contumacious conduct during the court's review of the plea bargain offer to his client before jury trial."

Reposa, who could not be reached for comment, "made a simulated masturbatory gesture with his hand while making eye contact with the court in response to an objection by the state to his interference with the court plea bargain inquiry," Breland wrote in a judgment of criminal contempt of court filed March 11.

While we may understand the desire to use the "jerk-off" gesture with a judge who uses the word "contumacious," we strongly advise against it.

Lesson two: how not to manage your media relations, as reported by a local broadcaster.

When Reposa's law office was contacted by phone, the person answering said she was instructed by Reposa to tell the media a vulgarity, which won't be printed here.

We advise "no comment at this time" as a much more respectable way of saying f**k off.

Lesson three: how not to market your legal services. First, do not register with your state bar as "Bulletproof." Second, do not make terrible YouTube videos.

While we are tempted to make the "jerk-off" gesture, instead we will end with "no comment at this time."

Austin attorney put in jail after "obscene gesture" in court [KeyeTV.com]
Defense lawyer held in contempt for lewd gesture at judge [Austin American Statesman]

For the record, here's some follow-up on two Bay State lawyers previously discussed in these pages, who have been cleared of the charges against them. At least to some extent.

First, remember Carl Stanley McGee (right), who was arrested after being accused of going down on a 15-year-old boy? Earlier this week, Florida prosecutors decided to drop the case.

Apparently the teen had trouble identifying McGee. But maybe he also learned that it's bad form to complain about getting a BJ. Unless teeth are involved.

Second, remember the handsome Gary Zerola (below right), named a "Most Eligible Bachelor" by People magazine, and accused of rape and attempted rape by three different women? One of the cases against him went to trial, and he was acquitted (back in January; we missed the news when it came out).

A second trial is currently underway. In that case, as reported in today's Boston Herald, Zerola's defense team argues that the victim wanted to shakedown their client for $150,000.

The third incident, which is the one that we wrote about, has not yet gone to trial.

Sex Case Against MA Guv's Aide Dropped [AP]
'Most eligible bachelor' acquitted in attempted rape case [Boston Globe]
Zerola team: Alleged victim sought $150G [Boston Herald]

Earlier: Lawyer of the Day: Carl Stanley McGee
Most Eligible Bachelor Becomes Considerably Less Eligible

Apparently, being the district attorney for the smallest county in Texas leaves one with a lot of free time. This Texan lawyer is on trial for building a tricked-out server using government funds. From The Dallas Morning News:

A computer that Rockwall County District Attorney Ray Sumrow says he built as a backup server for his office contained documents related to eBay sales, personal e-mails and a cheat sheet for a computer game, an FBI computer expert testified Monday morning.

I am guessing the computer game was Scrabulous and the cheat sheet was full of all the possible two letter words.

At least Sunrow has a plan B career option as a computer engineer:

The computer – equipped with two hard drives, seven fans, high-end video and audio cards, a wireless Internet connection and cables that glow under ultraviolet light – is designed for playing video games, prosecutors say.

Alan Timberlake, assistant director of information technology for Rockwall County, called the computer "gimmicky" and more suited to a college dorm room than an office.

We like the way Penny Arcade's cartoon representation catches the ultraviolet light.

Update: We didn't see their post before putting up ours, but as one of you notes, QuizLaw also has a post here.

Rockwall County: At trial, prosecutors allege office funds bought computer [Dallas Morning News]
The Case Of Texas vs. KryoLord [Penny Arcade]
Pwning n00bs on the county’s dime: priceless [QuizLaw]

The Empire State is sending all sorts of craziness our way lately. From the New York -- no, not the Washington -- Post:

A female federal prosecutor was viciously attacked by a hulking, razor-wielding drug dealer in a Brooklyn courtroom yesterday - and was saved when the thug's 72-year-old lawyer and others tackled him.

"He was going to slash her throat," said defense lawyer Harry Batchelder, who, along with a court reporter and two marshals, slammed Victor Wright, 27 [or 37?], to the ground and grabbed an inch-long razor blade from him.

Criminal defense lawyers are badass -- even the septuagenarians. And don't forget the court reporter:

"Why don't you try me instead of her?" stenographer Ron Tolkin shouted at the cowardly criminal as he leaped on Wright, before the group fell to the ground in a heap.

Both the elderly lawyer and Tolkin, 60, are former military men who served in Vietnam.

And what about Judge Frederic Block (E.D.N.Y.) -- what did he do? From Newsday:

Block immediately left the bench after the melee started, and more marshals rushed into the courtroom and helped subdue Wright, court officials said.

That's too bad. This story would have been perfect with the addition of a black-robed avenger, whacking the criminal into submission with a gavel.

P.S. Despite our admiration for federal judges qua judges, if we needed to be defended against a knife-wielding lunatic, we'd go with a state court judge any day of the week. E.g., Judge Ira Robinson.

RAZOR MANIAC JUMPS FED PROSECUTOR IN COURT [New York Post]
Drug dealer attacks 2 in Brooklyn courtroom [New York Newsday]

Today's Lawyer of the Day is, in blackjack parlance, "a natural" -- utterly unbeatable. From the New York Post:

A crooked Queens lawyer who bottomed out at the blackjack tables to the tune of $1 million is trying to recoup her losses and then some with a $20 million lawsuit blaming seven casinos for her downward spiral.

Arelia Margarita Taveras, 37 - who represented victims' families in both the World Trade Center attacks and the Flight 587 crash in the Rockaways - said her gambling problem was so out of control she once spent five straight days at Resorts Casino tables in Atlantic City subsisting on complimentary candy bars and orange juice.

The Corona native and Cardozo Law School graduate was a regular at several gaming palaces - even keeping her dog by her side and brushing her teeth with disposable wipes so she wouldn't lose her seat.

We commend Ms. Taveras for her chutzpah and ingenuity. Taking a $1 million gambling loss and parlaying it into a $20 million lawsuit is an audacious play. Lemons into lemonade, indeed.

More after the jump.