{"id":4576,"date":"2003-09-08T00:57:25","date_gmt":"2003-09-08T04:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2003\/09\/08\/can-cyber-shame-tame-frivolou"},"modified":"2011-08-05T15:00:41","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T19:00:41","slug":"can-cyber-shame-tame-frivolous-lawsuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2003\/09\/08\/can-cyber-shame-tame-frivolous-lawsuits\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Cyber Shame Tame Frivolous Lawsuits?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a253'><\/a><\/p>\n<p><DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\">We much prefer frivolity to frivolousness at <EM>this<\/EM> website.&nbsp;&nbsp; Still, we&#8217;ve been seriously trying to figure out if Yoss at <A href=\"http:\/\/www.realitychecker.org\/2003_09_07_realitychecker.html#106277500933934048\">RealityChecker<\/A> had a good idea today for improving our legal system or merely a shrewd idea for improving&nbsp;his website&#8217;s Google profile, with his post <A name=\"106277500933934048\"><FONT face=\"Arial\" color=\"#0069c3\"><EM><FONT color=\"black\">Discourage Frivolous Lawsuits by Naming Names<\/FONT><\/EM> <\/FONT><\/A>(09-07-03).&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\">Rightfully and righteously upset over Fox&#8217;s meritless lawsuit against Al Franken, Yoss wants to use the internet to &#8220;shame&#8221; Fox&#8217;s attorneys:<\/FONT><\/DIV><br \/>\n<BLOCKQUOTE><br \/>\n<DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\">I encourage as many people as possible to build links to this page. This page could become the top search result for that law firm and those lawyers. This would be an effective consumer advisory for anyone considering hiring <\/FONT><FONT color=\"black\"><FONT face=\"Arial\">Hogan &amp; Hartson LLP<\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\">, <\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\">Dori Ann Hanswirth<\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\">, <\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\">Tracey A. Tiska<\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\"> or <\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\">Katherine M. Bolger<\/FONT><\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\"><FONT color=\"black\">.<\/FONT> <BR><\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\"><\/FONT><\/DIV><\/BLOCKQUOTE><br \/>\n<DIV dir=\"ltr\"><FONT face=\"Arial\"><\/FONT>&nbsp;<\/DIV><br \/>\n<DIV dir=\"ltr\"><FONT face=\"Arial\">Denise over at <A href=\"http:\/\/bgbg.blogspot.com\/archives\/2003_09_07_bgbg_archive.html#106297560030877037\">Bag&amp;Baggage<\/A> <\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\">seems optimistic that this approach can work.&nbsp; But, I&#8217;m less sanguine about the effectiveness of cyber-scarlet letters.&nbsp; Someone in&nbsp;the market for hiring a big-name law firm&nbsp;seems unlikely to care&nbsp;an awful lot about the unfiltered opinions that can be found in the&nbsp;blogosphere.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Far more impressive would be this week&#8217;s article on <A href=\"http:\/\/www.law.com\/jsp\/article.jsp?id=1061487953470\">The A-List<\/A> from <EM>The American Lawyer<\/EM>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/FONT><SPAN><FONT face=\"Arial\">(Aric Press, 09-02-2003).&nbsp; In unveiling this new measure of the most &#8220;elite&#8221; law firms &#8212; the true &#8220;exemplars&#8221;&nbsp; repesenting the top 10% of its Am Law 200 list &#8212; <EM>American Lawyer<\/EM> notes that Hogan &amp; Hartson is among six firms that &#8220;rose like the proverbial hockey stick graph&#8221; and is on the cusp of making The A-List.&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV><br \/>\n<UL><br \/>\n<LI><br \/>\n<DIV><SPAN><FONT face=\"Arial\">Indeed, H&amp;H ranked 24th on the <EM>American&nbsp;Lawyer <\/EM><A href=\"http:\/\/www.law.com\/special\/professionals\/amlaw\/2003\/2003_a_list.html \">list<\/A>, up from 76 in 2001.&nbsp; <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/DIV><\/LI><\/UL><br \/>\n<P><SPAN><\/SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=\"Arial\">Furthermore, many big&nbsp;companies and&nbsp;other fatcat clients <EM>want<\/EM> the kind of counsel who will be their hired gun for settling scores.&nbsp;&nbsp; On the other end of the client spectrum, if Joe Client is looking to hire your average Jane Lawyer, he will find little if anything of use through Google.&nbsp;<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/P><br \/>\n<P dir=\"ltr\"><SPAN><FONT face=\"Arial\">Yoss is right that we want the managing partner to make clear that his or her firm will not assist in bringing meritless claims.&nbsp;&nbsp; But, I believe the very best way to stop frivolous lawsuits is to <U>make determined and consistent use of sanctions against such meritless actions<\/U> &#8212; with serious financial penalties and disciplinary&nbsp;punishment for the most egregious offenses or recidivism.&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/P><br \/>\n<P dir=\"ltr\"><SPAN><FONT face=\"Arial\">Whether using <A href=\"http:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/rules\/frcp\/Rule11.htm\">Rule 11<\/A> in federal matters<\/FONT><\/SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><FONT size=\"3\">, <FONT size=\"2\">or state judicial or ethics rules against meritless actions, the message needs to be clear that frivolous claims will not be tolerated.&nbsp; <SPAN><FONT face=\"Arial\"><A href=\"http:\/\/www.abanet.org\/cpr\/mrpc\/rule_3_1.html\">Rule 3.1 of the Model Rules<\/A> of Professional Conduct&nbsp;sets out the standard<\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\">:<\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/P><br \/>\n<BLOCKQUOTE><br \/>\n<P><SPAN><FONT size=\"2\">A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous, which includes a good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law. <\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/FONT><br \/>\n<P dir=\"ltr\"><U>Lawyers need to know that bringing frivolous suits will put their license in jeopardy<\/U>.&nbsp;&nbsp; And, since the Lawyers Club still deems it to be unsavory to bring frivolousness claims, we need to have <U>judges take the lead<\/U> &#8212; both by raising the issue using <EM>sua sponte<\/EM> powers [like those granted in Rule 11 (c)(1)(B)], and by <EM>referring<\/EM> such matters to state&nbsp;grievance boards.&nbsp; <\/P><br \/>\n<P dir=\"ltr\"><FONT face=\"Arial\">We also need to make sure that the public <EM>knows<\/EM> that frivolousness sanctions exist &#8212; without, of course, suggesting that every losing lawsuit was frivolous. Such knowledge should help deter many meritless lawsuits <EM>and<\/EM>&nbsp;motivate the &#8220;victorious victim&#8221; to press his or her attorney into seeking sanctions&nbsp;(especially reimbursement for the resulting fees), and reporting the conduct of opposing counsel to the appropriate grievance committee, or explaining why doing so is not proper.&nbsp; (We definitely do not want an avalanche of frivolous frivolousness claims!)<\/FONT><\/P><br \/>\n<P dir=\"ltr\"><FONT face=\"Arial\">I&#8217;m not sure why <A href=\"http:\/\/ernieattorney.typepad.com\/ernie_the_attorney\/2003\/09\/bill_oreilly_ha.html\">Ernie<\/A> doesn&#8217;t want sanctions&nbsp;<\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\">against Fox&#8217;s lawyers for the Franken suit.&nbsp;&nbsp; This kind of high-profile case could be a great tool to educate the public, only a small part of which is blogocentric.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Strong judicial sanction, and scrutiny by bar counsel, would send a far more effective message to Hogan &amp; Hartson than linking to Yoss&#8217; posting, or Ernie&#8217;s, or even this one.<\/FONT><\/P><\/FONT><\/SPAN><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We much prefer frivolity to frivolousness at this website.&nbsp;&nbsp; Still, we&#8217;ve been seriously trying to figure out if Yoss at RealityChecker had a good idea today for improving our legal system or merely a shrewd idea for improving&nbsp;his website&#8217;s Google profile, with his post Discourage Frivolous Lawsuits by Naming Names (09-07-03).&nbsp;&nbsp;Rightfully and righteously upset over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-1bO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14148,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576\/revisions\/14148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}