Retired? I'm still playing twice a week (or were you referring to my "legal" career?).It would take many more cheap shots than dished out here for me to retire (I may not skate too fast anymore but I still know where I should be skating to) ... but it did teach me a pointed lesson about the power of anonymous and unfounded (and unwarranted?) posts to stain one's hard-earned reputation. Bobby Reiff
Rumpole sez: we meant retired from blogging because of what morons post about you, like the one in the comment section which we didn’t delete, but was written by a coward.
We live in a free market society (supposedly). Mr. Reiff is free to charge a nickel or a million dollars a case. His client will make the decision to hire Mr. Reiff and Mr. Reiff will or will not get new clients based on his performance. That’s the legal business in a nutshell (minus the scumbag bondsman runners who steer cases) and it is nobody’s business what Mr. Reiff charges. The bottom line is that if he cannot live up to what he tells his clients he will do for them, he will not get referrals on new cases. Apparently, Mr. Reiff lives up to what he promises. If we have learned anything from our years in practice it is this: the best source of new clients are happy former clients. People who disparage Mr. Reiff without any logical basis to do so, are clearly 1) jealous 2) not as good as Mr. Reiff.
Guidelines:
Curious wrote:
Rumps, Is it fair to say that calling someone out as a Brown Noser is a personal attack under your guidelines?
Rumpole says: no- that’s allowed. But the more important issue is if someone calls lawyer “X” a brown noser anonymously, it really stinks to high hell. If you want to comment on a poor aspect of a person’s character, why not stand up and say who you are?
Anonymous, unaware of the first amendment, wrote:
Not to change the subject, but Brownwyn Miller's JA just sent the most beautiful email to all judges and staff of the 11th Circuit. I post it so you too can revel in the glory of Christ...
Rumpole responds: the full version of the post, including the religious message, is on the blog comments section. If JA’s shouldn’t be selling perfume, should they be proselytizing Christianity on the internal email system used by Judges and JA’s? Are Muslims and Jews entitled to equal time to spread the word about their religion on the Judge’s email system? And has any of these legal eagles read the establishment clause of the first amendment? Quite frankly we are more disturbed about JA’s using publicly funded email networks to promote their religious ideals, than JA’s selling a knockoff bottle of Channel #5.
A critic writes:
Rump this censorship is pathetic and you are taking this blog too seriously. On another note, I cant believe you would stoop so low as to accuse one of your posters of being an anti-semite merely because they make the rather obvious point that in the past A Jewish surname was often helpful in a judicial election in much the same way a hispanic surname might prove helpful in 2006. What exactly is anti-semitic about this? As a Jew I am truly offended when anyone throws out a baseless charge of antisemitism becuase it makes people think we Jews are always crying wolf. Rump I love the blog but think you are way way out of line on this one.
Rumpole replies: your points are valid and we posted them. But, we think we have done a fairly good job in not taking ourselves too seriously at all. Certainly we do this blog merely because we have fun doing it. But we are mindful of people’s reputations and try and discourage nasty, mean, and possibly offensive stuff. Discourage- but not censor-unless they violate the two golden rules- no dissemination of private information, and no ad hominem attacks like calling a particular lawyer fat (why does that bother us so much?)
Phil Maniaty- pro that he is- steps up and talks about a loss:
Regarding Steve Levine having beat me in a trial:
1. I did not cry.
2. Steve did a great job tearing my case apart. This was a case in which ALL of the courtroom personnel(maybe even Steve?) were expecting a fast guilty verdict.
3. I have the utmost respect for Steve as a professional. This is an opinion I have held since long before the above-mentioned trial took place.
Spiderman writes in (nice to hear from you again Spidey)
TGK, DCJ, MIA...the questions are the same:Did you pack your bags yourself? Have your bags been in your possession the entire time?
Rumpole sneers: yeah, those questions did a lot of good on the morning of September 11, 2001.
See You In Court- praying for a not guilty- but keeping our prayers to ourselves.
Screw Portia...I'm in love with that lucious PD in Judge Newman's Courtroom. ay que rico!!
ReplyDeleteLothario
Which of the two PD's are you referring to? Both are luscious.
ReplyDeleteRe: Fees
ReplyDeleteYour market analysis assumes perfect knowledge by all players. If a client with no priors is charged with Grand Theft 3rd and walks into your ofice and you tell him he should hire you because he is facing five years of state prison if found guilty and forget to tell him that however guilty he is elgible for PTI, and you charge him $7,500 to represent him, and he pays you, you cannot then claim that you simply had a good in the market. We, in this learned profession, maniplate information in order to make our scores. This is not the market theory at work. It is the learned vs. unlearned. Bobby Thief is just a better salesman. The market is not applauding him with his exorbitant fees because he is a good lawyer. He is just a better salesman. There is no direct correlation between fee amounts and the caliber of the attorney. We are selling to an unlearned consumer. Don't delude yourself.
Complementary comments regarding women lawyers should be controlled with the same rigor as disparaging comments. This blog cannot be a mask from behind which to anonymously ogle.
ReplyDeleteMr. Rieff
ReplyDeletePlease stop blogging.
Bobby Thief?
ReplyDeleteIf I god forbid was ever arrested for DUI, I wouldn't think twice about hiring Bobby. His fees are what they are because he works as hard or harder than most who practice in the DUI arena. The motions he files and the work he puts in to his cases is of the highest caliber. I guarantee when clients come in to Bobby's office for the first time, he tells them that they can walk into court and get the "1st minimims" without him, and that if that's what they want right now, not to hire him. Bobby is not one who needs to take people's money by hiding information, like other lawyers who do what the post above talks about - not telling clients about PTI or 1st minimums just so they can get a few bucks. That's disgraceful.
Yeah, Bobby gets a good fee, why is that such a problem for some? Why not focus on the lawyers who cheapen our practice by charging ridiculously low fees, and doing nothing more than holding the "unlearned consumer's" hand and making them think that they are actually getting something for their money.
Our practice is not negatively affected by lawyers like Bobby Reiff, it suffers because of lawyers that "sent me a mailer saying they can represent me for $295."
Dear Mr. Fee Expert
ReplyDeleteYour a fool.
Well then Rumps, if anonymously saying a lawyer is a brown noser stinks to high heaven, doesn't it
ReplyDeletealso stink to high heaven for a
lawyer (using their real name)to suck up to a judge that he practices before on the blog?
Isn't that inappropriate, especially considering that we now know the judges are reading this.
And doesn't that conduct deserve
to be called out for what it is.
A kiss ass lawyer trying to get on
a judges good side by posting positive comments re: the judge.
brian, you're right on.
ReplyDeleteRumpole- Can you PLEASE take down the poll that has me down 81% to Cathy Williams. Since I am no longer at the helm anymore should'nt Warren's name replace mine?
ReplyDeleteSomeone commented: doesn't it also stink to high heaven for a lawyer (using their real name)to suck up to a judge that he practices before on the blog?
ReplyDeleteTo which I respond... IRRESPECTIVE of the propriety of brown nosing judges, everyone does it to some extent. At the DCC, where judges must ride same elevators as everyone else, the appearance of a judge has a marked and amusing effect.
Or course the real question is this... does extreme brown-nosing work? I think not. The most glaring examples of brown-nosing debase the brown-noser. It leads to a loss of respect by attorneys and judges alike. Which is to say, judges enjoy being sucked up to, but, from my experience, they recognize and reject the sycophant.
On ogling:
ReplyDeleteAs most husbands can attest, ogling and respect are compatible attitudes.
To say a man is buff, or a woman stacked, does not require that you take that person less seriously on an intellectual level. Personally, I find intelligence, perseverance and committment very attractive in a woman.
It is true that men have historically oggled while showing no respect toward women. But correlation does not equal causation. I suspect, therfore, that the relationship between sexuality and respect is far more nuanced than most believe.
The question I have, however, is why so many women attorneys show up to court in heels, short skirts, and unbuttoned blouses? This manner of dress has always suggested to me such women are more concerned with titilating co-workers than the work before them. I don't bother ogling such women... rather I shake my head in bemusement.
I do ogle them, and you are exactly right in writing that's what they want. I think you should always give hot ho's what they want. If they're ugly ho's, and they try to dress all slutty, just let 'em blow you, but that's it.
ReplyDelete"Whoever insults the prophet deserves to be killed and whoever will take this insulting man to his end, will get this prize"
ReplyDelete--Pakistani Cleric Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi, announcing a $1 million dollar bounty for killing one of the Danish cartoonists who drew the Prophet Muhammad for the newspaper Jylands-Posten.
Someone wrote: I do ogle them, blah, blah, blah.
ReplyDeleteAnd your statement shows you have no respect for woman. But I suspect your lack of respect is a problem irrespective of your penchant for ogling.
As an aside, you over generalize my statements by saying "that's what they want." The question I posed, why some women women attorneys show up to court in heels, short skirts, etc., refers solely to a small subset of women who apparently believe provactive dress is appropriate for soundings. I mispoke earlier and implied that this is a habit of most women. I don't believe this to be true.
i think i have justice building blog addiction.
ReplyDeletezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
ReplyDeleteI'm addicted too. Is there some type of support group we should join?
ReplyDeleteBobby Thief,
ReplyDeleteThat is pretty funny.
i was the first person to post zzzzzzzz on this blog. i did it once a long time ago. and now others have taken it up. i wonder how many members the zzzzzzz club has.
ReplyDeleteplease rump no more from bobby rieff. spare us his whining and "why is everybody always pickin on me?" emails. they are boring
ReplyDelete"I shall not rest until every German sees that it is a shameful thing to be a lawyer."
ReplyDelete-Adolph Hitler
Bobby Reiff is very smart to charge whatever fee he charges. The truly stupid attorneys are those who think they are samrt and charge unrealistically low fees in order to build up volume. Their clients, stupidly too, think that they are getting a good deal when, in fact, all they are getting is a lawyer to read them the rights waiver and stand next to them during the plea colloquy. Clients get unrealistic expectations and don't realize until too late that they are getting exactly what they pay for. The bottom line is unhappy clients who tell other defendants not to hire lawyers for their cases because they ended up getting the same result as unrepresented defendants. And it makes it hard on the rest of the bar to charge a decent fee, because the minute you quote a reasonable $3,500 for a first DUI, the prospective client gets up and tells you to take the fee and do a colonoscopy with it because he's going to hire the lawyer who sent him a mailer with a fee for less than $1,000.
ReplyDeleteI am addicted to zzzzzzzzzzz
ReplyDeletePersonally I find a nice rack, long legs and luscious lips nice in a woman. And I assume women find certain parts of the male anatomy attractive in a man. Does this make me sexist?
ReplyDeletecorrection - stinks to high hell not heaven. I'm a non-believer, so
ReplyDeletereally heaven or hell it doesn't
matter to me. But so as not to get
the obvious response from Rumps,
I will correct myself.
Bullshit... Bullshit is bullshit is bullshit... Bullshit!
ReplyDeletegangk that fool for as much as you can
ReplyDeleteBobby Q.
ReplyDeleteIt aint about a salary, its all about reality.
ReplyDeleteI think it sends a terrible signal to friends around the world that it's OK for a company from one country to manage the port, but not a country that plays by the rules and has got a good track record from another part of the world can't manage the port.
ReplyDeleteGeorge W. Bush, White House, Feb. 21, 2006
My question:
I think it sends a terrible signal to friends around the world that it's OK for a company from one country to manage the port, but not a country that plays by the rules and has got a good track record from another part of the world can't manage the port.
ReplyDelete-- The last four words kind of mess up the grammatical structure, White House, Feb. 21, 2006
Sorry, slipped. My question, are 51% of the voting public on drugs?