TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN....LAWYERS FROM BROWARD

It must be something in the water. It's not just Judges in Broweird who act weird. 

Here is a tale of woe, press releases, internet trolls, threats, blogs, more threats, voicemail threats, and it all means mostly nothing. 

Interested? Take a drink, sit back, and relax. 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE: (In no particular order of appearance or importance)

Broward Lawyer Gary Ostrow; Lawyer/Blogger Scott Greenfield; Lawyer/Blogger Mark Bennett; Miami Lawyer, Blogger, raconteur, and blog favorite Brian Tannebaum; and some character named Patrick Zarrelli, pictured below:

What, Me worry?

 Ok. Sit tight and buckle up. Here we go. 

Osrtrow put out this ill-advised press release announcing his intention to represent any and all celebrities arrested in Florida. Press Release here.   It got the predictable response on the web. Ridicule. As if all criminal defense attorneys were previously saying "I want nothing to do with those ridiculous celebrity arrest cases, with their large fees and corresponding publicity." 

Scott Greenfield, the aforementioned blogger did a few posts on it, here and here.   Mark Bennett did a post on his blog as well, here.  The posts were predictably negative in their view of the press release. As we often write in our appellate briefs: "DUH".

Enter Patrick Zarelli, self described "internet reputation..."something or other. Zarelli was hired by Ostrow to get the offending posts removed. Zarelli contacted Bennett who posted the encounter here. 
And then Zarelli contacted Greenfield, who posted the encounter and phone call here.   

A legal blogger from NYC got into the act ridiculing team Ostrow, because it was just too much fun to sit on the sidelines. His blog post is here.

TechDirt got into the fun piling on  here.

And somehow our own Brian T got into the fray (probably on twitter), so Zarelli called him and left a message, and Brian posted the phone call here.   
This the transcript. 

Zarrelli to tannebaum transcript from Justicebuilding

So here's how it all plays out.
First- don't post ridiculous press releases unless you want to suffer the wrath of the web. 
Second- don't hire wannabe lawyers who threaten real lawyers with legal action unless you want to see your wannabe lawyer  squashed like a bug on a windshield. 

Our prediction: We will be contacted. We will be threatened with legal action. We will yawn and go about our day. 

Enjoy. 

See You In Court.