ATL Bracket Time: Epic Zoom Fails

It’s NCAA March Madness time again, and that means it’s time for ATL March Madness. Well, let’s just call it ATL Bracket Time since we don’t want our balls cut off.

Every year, we come up with something ridiculous for you all to vote on. We’ve crowned the Worst Law School in America and declared the Greatest Work Of Legal Fiction Ever.

Well, not every year. Like a lot of traditions, this one fell by the wayside as we spent last March furiously updating the audience on bar exam cancellations, furloughs, law school plans, and overall chaos. But we’ve made it through — or almost through — and it’s time to look back and laugh as best we can. Well, mostly laugh. Some of these Zoom fails are unfortunately serious.

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We have a shorter tournament this year than in the past because there aren’t as many stories like these to fill out a 64- or even 32-entry bracket, but what we lack in quantity we make up for in quality.

You have until Thursday, March 25 at 9:00 a.m. Eastern to cast your vote.

(1) Lawyer Tells Judge ‘I’m Not A Cat’ In The Best Zoom Court Mishap Yet vs. (16) Miami Judge Reminds Attorneys To Wear Pants For Zoom Hearings: I feel like Lawyer Cat needs to be on upset alert the further we get into this tournament. Yeah, Lawyer Cat is all of us these days, but there are some fails that have receded into our distant memory that are probably better. And the bottom seed is a great story that we only get second-hand. A Miami judge scolding attorneys to stop showing up from bed or poolside, though we never get details on those anecdotes.

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(2) Jeffrey Toobin Makes A Great Poi–OH MY GOD, HIS DICK’S OUT!!! vs. (15) Doctor Operates On Patient During Zoom Traffic Court Trial: Lawyer Cat may have gone viral, but don’t sleep on the most recognized legal analyst in America losing his job after having his dick out during a work call. On the other side, the term “routine surgery” took on new meaning as a doctor decided to multitask and appear at his own hearing while putting someone under the knife.

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(3) Supreme Court Oral Arguments Include Toilet Flush In World’s Greatest Metaphor vs. (14) Is This Attorney Naked During A Criminal Hearing?: Did you forget about how this whole remote hearing thing started with a Supreme Court justice hitting the head mid-argument? Because that most definitely happened. On the flipside, we have our first — but definitely not our last — lawyer captured in a state of undress.

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(4) Yep, That’s A Lawyer Having Sex On Camera During A Hearing! vs. (13)
Lawyer Says ‘Sneaky Bitch’ Before Judge Reminds Him He’s Not Muted: Sex. On camera. During a drug gang hearing. That’s some serious gumption. Meanwhile, the latter lesson in the importance of muting your mic tumbled in the seeding because the lawyer offered up a not-so-bad excuse.

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(5) Spicing Up Zoom Client Meeting With Oral Sex vs. (12) Zoom Civil Procedure Conversation Interrupted By Naked Man: There’s likely a naked guy involved in both of these, but for the first one we don’t know what he got up to under that desk. Home Owners’ meetings, like civil procedure, are so boring.

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(6) Man Attends Zoom Court Hearing From His Victim’s Home, Gets Arrested vs. (11) Guy Attends Suspended License Hearing From Inside Car: This is the Judge Jeffrey Middleton and prosecutor Deborah Davis pod. Both of these incidents happened in the same courtroom with the same prosecutor within a matter of weeks. But there can be only one victor.

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(7) Lawyer Fails To Turn Off Camera, Starts Shoveling Down Lunch On Call With Top Government Official vs. (10) Lawyer: Requiring Me To Wear A Tie Is Egregious! Judge: Sir, You’re Wearing Pajamas.: Eating on camera may not seem like a big deal, until you realize he’s doing it in front of the Solicitor General of a nation with over a billion citizens. To put it in perspective, you would’ve had to do that to Noel Francisco 3 and a half times to be as embarrassed. On the other hand, we have the lawyer who opted to double-down. Unsatisfied with the court’s dress code, he fought the law! The law won.

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(8) Shocking Video Of Law School Professors Making Racist Comments Goes Viral vs. (9) Harvard Law School FedSoc President Brings Gun To Class: This is a bit of a law school pod. Georgetown Law was shaken when law professors were captured discussing grading and musing about grading Black students in a way that should have set off alarms about unconscious bias. The other entry goes back to the very beginning of the pandemic when we were all just waiting for the first “FedSoc gunner does something offensive to own the libs” moment.

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So here we go. Get those votes in:

Joe 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.