Small Law Firms

St. Louis AR-15 Couple Hires Lawyer With Some Disturbing Marketing Material

This might not be the right hire.

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Screenshot via Twitter

UPDATE: Watkins has made several changes to his bio, including removing the weird asides to Albert Pujols’s heritage and the mention of a woman’s death by suicide. Credit where it’s due, he made most of the alterations that this article would suggest. 

You wouldn’t be able to guess from the hate mail I’ve received, but I offered a fairly sympathetic account of the St. Louis AR-15-waving couple, Mark and Patricia McCloskey. Their casualwear standoff got a proper lampooning and their decision to ratchet up the stakes with assault weapons was branded, at best, a bad look for the profession. But unlike a lot of articles musing that the couple could be criminally charged with assault, I threw water on that idea, noting that the protesters had entered a private road and the couple seemed to remain on their own property. I even applauded the couple for at least not escalating the situation by apparently bringing in the police, a decision potentially driven by Mark McCloskey’s representation of victims of police brutality.

In fact, the McCloskeys are adamant that they believe in the Black Lives Matter Movement:

“The most important thing for them is that their images (holding the guns) don’t become the basis for a rallying cry for people who oppose the Black Lives Matter message,” [their attorney Albert] Watkins said. “They want to make it really clear that they believe the Black Lives Matter message is important.”

Note that they can actually say the words “Black Lives Matter,” which places them light years ahead of many Biglaw firms and law schools. That’s where we are as a society — the people who brought guns to the protest are more willing to say “Black Lives Matter” than Michigan Law School.

But appearances matter and even if they didn’t intend it, based on my email over the last 24 hours, they’ve absolutely become a rallying cry for people who oppose the Black Lives Matter message. That sucks for them, but this does provide them with a great deal of power right now — far more than the power of an ArmaLite compensator stick — to yank the rug out from the people trying to make them heroes for all the wrong reasons. It’s the kind of turnabout that could really resonate in the social media era. Based on their statement, they might be ready to use that power.

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However, let’s take a quick second to check out their attorney, Albert Watkins. Watkins is very much a media relations “fixer” and he’s proud of it. He’s also a pretty funny writer. On the other hand, he’s a conservative media personality in his own right, a curious pick for a couple trying to distance themselves from the people who would make them posterchildren for conservative grievances. Lawyers can certainly take positions contrary to their personal worldview, but if the goal is to credibly distance oneself from the “right-wing rallying cry” image, this might not be the right hire.

His bio includes descriptions of a number of big wins, but all of them include those little details that make you wonder, “Why did he mention that?” Like including “Dominican-born” to describe the former league MVP and entirely recognizable Albert Pujols. Or focusing on a school sexual misconduct claim he beat by focusing on how he defended the “white” principal against “African-American” students. It’s all so unnecessary to describing the cases and comes across to the reader as if he’s pitching to people who want to frame their otherwise standard legal disputes as racial and immigration conflicts — which seems contrary to the McCloskey goal. Maybe that’s not Watkins’s intention, but legal writing is all about eliminating unnecessary words and one would be hard-pressed to see why “Dominican-born” adds anything to the Pujols story.

Then there’s this story that Watkins includes in his bio:

In Hammon v. Harris, Watkins garnered the first verdict of its kind against a young female who falsely accused a policeman of engaging in sexual relations and snorting cocaine with a female patron of a restaurant at which the policeman was working a security shift. When the defendant would not appear for her deposition, Watkins procured an order mandating the woman be brought into custody and held in jail pending her deposition. During the ensuing video deposition, Watkins swiftly got the woman to confess and admit the allegations were false. The video deposition swiftly became an internet sensation. A six-figure judgment was entered in favor of the policeman. The woman committed suicide thereafter.

What?!? Even if a woman’s death didn’t shame Watkins out of including the story in his bio — which it should have! — including the fact as a macabre lagniappe is flat-out horrifying. It reads as if his client pitch is “hiring me could kill your accuser,” which may bring people in the door but plays to a vindictiveness that the whole justice system is designed to elevate people beyond.

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Watkins is very good at what he does and he’s very proud of his ability to handle media flaps and that’s exactly what the McCloskeys have landed themselves in. Especially with some outlets taking the bold leap to accusing them of criminality, but sometimes even the best instrument is the wrong tool for the job.

Like, say, an AR-15 for telling people walking down the street to keep moving.

Earlier: St. Louis Lawyers Wave AR-15 At Protesters Like Totally Normal, Totally Not Bonkers People
Now THIS Is a Great Settlement Offer Letter

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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