Friday Links

Sometimes we here at Abnormal Use find ourselves nostalgic for the 1980s, and no wistful fondness for that long gone era is complete without reference to Berke Breathed’s “Bloom County” comic strip. It’s been years since we’ve seen or read the exploits of Opus the Penguin and Steve Dallas, so we were pleasantly surprised when friend of the blog Ryan Steans forwarded along a link to the comic strip above, originally published way, way back in 1986 and dedicated to the American legal landscape of the time. Enjoy.

Remember the John Grisham novel, “The Firm,” which ultimately became a big budget Hollywood flick starring Tom Cruise and directed by the late, great Sydney Pollack back in the early 1990s? Well, it’s coming to television, folks, and not as a simple remake of the book. Instead, actor Josh Lucas will pick up where Cruise left off and star as Mitchell McDeere, the lawyer who discovered that his perfect law firm job was actually a mob law firm. Reports indicate that the series will be set more than a decade after the events depicted in the film. (Incidentally, we noted back in February that 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of Grisham’s book.).

Okay, so Chuck Norris had an editorial in last week’s Wall Street Journal about lawsuit abuse? How did we miss that? Read it here. (Hat Tip: Overlawyered).

Kudos to Mike Frisch at the Legal Profession Blog for working in an Ingmar Bergman reference into the title of this post about the New Jersey Supreme Court’s recent censure of an attorney. If you didn’t know already, we here are big Bergman fans. It makes sense that lawyers would like bleak, existential films, right?

Landlord tenant law can be very interesting sometimes. Get this: The Letters of Note blog recently published this 1975 letter from Bruce Springsteen to his landlord in which The Boss apologizes for his late rent. This letter was written just a short time before the release of his epic album, Born to Run. Check it out.