Cease and desist letters

Non-Sequiturs: 05.07.13

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* A senior litigation associate at Paul Hastings, Ryan Nier, has decided to participate in something called the Death Race, and it has nothing to do with the drive for partnership. This Death Race is 50-mile mountain endurance/obstacle race that takes somewhere between 24 and 48 straight hours to finish. Only a handful complete the race every year, and Nier is determined to be one of them. From what we’re told, Paul Hastings has been entirely supportive of Nier, which is cool because he’s using it as an opportunity to raise money for charity. But who knows how supportive they’ll be when they realize he won’t have Blackberry access on top of the mountain for 48 hours. For more information about the Death Race, check out the website. [The Death Race]

* Law student golfing across the U.S. So, I take it summer associate gigs are still scarce? [Golf.com]

* “Guess What the Air Force’s Chief of Sexual Assault Prevention Was Just Arrested For…” Hard to top that headline. [Lowering the Bar]

* Harper Lee suing over “To Kill a Mockingbird” (affiliate link), alleging that the son-in-law of her literary agent botched the copyright. *Insert cheap Atticus Finch joke here* [Washington Post]

* Gigi Jordan case gets even uglier with misconduct charges flying around. [Thompson Reuters News & Insight]

* Dr. Phil is suing Gawker alleging that the website posted a video of the pop psychologist’s interview with Manti Te’o, stifling ratings. So Dr. Phil thinks his audience strongly overlaps with Gawker’s. I’m incredulous. [Yahoo! Sports]

* This is why an over-aggressive cease and desist letter can get you into more trouble. Enter the world of the “miniature war-gaming community.” [Popehat]

* A guide to the questions applicants need to be able to answer at OCI. The best? “Describe a situation when you had to think on your feet to extricate yourself from a difficult situation.” This provides insight into how the applicant will deal with virtually every situation that ever comes up in Biglaw. [Ms. JD]

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Non-Sequiturs: 04.04.13

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* Roger Ebert has died at the age of 70. A great critic (his audio commentary track on the Citizen Kane DVD is amazing), whose work with the late Gene Siskel basically defined film criticism for a generation. At least now we know how we will be judged when we die — a simple thumbs up, thumbs down from Gene and Roger. [Chicago Sun-Times]

* Exploring the link between baseball’s antitrust exemption and Roe v. Wade. It’s more than just saying the Royals are an abortion of a team. [Concurring Opinions]

* “Bring me the head of the person who did this”: the best closing to a C & D letter ever. [Popehat]

* A Rutgers-Camden 3L breaks down the looming sh*tstorm at Rutgers over basketball coach Mike Rice’s treatment of players. [The Legal Blitz]

* If you’ve pulled off a successful robbery, don’t taunt the victim from a traceable phone. I mean, act like you’ve been there before, man. [Legal Juice]

* It is a little funny to say that a city is looking for weaker swimmers to serve as lifeguards, but ultimately this represents the simplistic nature of the anti-affirmative-action argument: no one is saying lifeguards shouldn’t be qualified, just that a system that only privileges a strong swimming résumé will always result in affluent white kids with 10 years of swim classes getting these jobs. [Volokh Conspiracy]

* Lawyers are often jerks, but this is a new twist. Help out a lawyer trying to make it in the small-batch, artisan jerky business.[Kickstarter]

* Maybe there aren’t actual Commies at Harvard Law School, but the ratio of liberals to conservatives/libertarians on the faculty is still extremely high. [Nick Rosenkranz]

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Non-Sequiturs: 01.25.13

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Me, earlier today.

* PETA sends Bebe a cease-and-desist letter over fur-free advertising. To be honest, I only understood half of what I just wrote. [Fashionista]

* Here are five reasons why editors hate lawyers. Of course, when the editors are lawyers, you just kind of end up hating yourself. [About Editing And Writing]

* Can someone explain to me how it’s constitutional for Virginia to promise not to enforce laws? [Pilot]

* Did you enjoy the South Park episode that involved proprietary towel technology? Then you’ll love this lawsuit! [Thomson Reuters News and Insight]

* I asked Professor Rick Hasen whether or not I should self immolate to prevent the GOP from legally rigging the next election, and he’s telling me to chill out because it’s gonna be okay. [Slate]

* I’ve been trying to find an excuse to link to this. It’s a guy who is blogging about news from 1913 as if it was happening in real time, in this technological environment. Here, we look at some very swift Southern-style justice. [Retro Pundit]

* I must admit, I wanted to pull out my Leonardo DiCaprio coconut drinking goblet to fully enjoy this rich-white-man fight. [Dealbreaker]

* Belated congratulations to Elbert Lin, aka Mr. LEWW, on his appointment as solicitor general for West Virginia. [Bench Memos / National Review Online]

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Quote of the Day: Kanye West Keeps His ‘Love Locked Down’ — Except for That Sex Tape

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Kanye West

Be advised that the Screen Shot, as well as the Tape from which the screen shot was taken, were illegally obtained and believed to have been stolen from Mr. West’s computer. Your posting, advertising, marketing, displaying and otherwise disseminating the stolen Screen Shot and/or other materials on the tape constitute actionable violations of Mr. West’s rights of privacy and publicity.

– Lisa M. Buckley, a partner at Pryor Cashman, in a cease and desist letter written on behalf of her client, Kanye West, with regard to a leaked sex tape featuring the rapper and a Kim Kardashian look-alike.

(Let’s check out the full cease and desist letter, shall we?)

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Cease And Desist Letter of the Day: Captain Jack Doesn’t Need Mean Lawyers

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A cease and desist letter is going viral today, and all because it’s full of a little southern hospitality.

When I think of Jack Daniels, I think of getting drunk and saying outrageous things. I think of being sad and drowning my sorrows. I think of getting loaded and losing bar fights.

I don’t think of diffusing tense situations with reason and civility.

I’m going to guess that the lawyers for Jack Daniels who wrote this cease and desist letter didn’t have any of their client’s product before sending it out. It’s way too nice. In fact, it’s probably the nicest cease and desist that anybody has ever seen….

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Cease-and-Desist Letter Made For Etsy User Is Riddled With Handmade Errors

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I used to have nightmares about the red pen, until I started drinking before bed.

As regular readers of this website will note, my grammar and spelling is not too well. As regular readers of this website will also note, this is a blog, not a legal document or a court filing. When I wrote legal documents for a living, I also had legal secretaries who would fix some of the liberties I’d take with the English language. Even without that help, no document leaves a Biglaw office until it has been looked at by a bunch of people. A typo emanating from my desk would have had to escape the notice of at least three other people before making it out of the building.

I could not have survived in the small-firm or solo practitioner environment. Without people who dot an “i,” and cross a “t,” and say, “I have no earthly idea of what you are trying to say, because your sentence has three subjects and no predicates,” I’m in a bit of trouble.

I’d probably end up looking a lot like Howard Roy Schechter — a California lawyer who seemingly sent out a cease-and-desist letter that could have been written in crayon for its childlike attention to detail….

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