We here at Abnormal Use were saddened this week by the passing of music legend Lou Reed. It has been said again and again this week that there would be no punk rock without Lou Reed (and, of course, his band, The Velvet Underground.). Reed released some pretty darn good solo albums, as well. In fact, Reed’s influence and career highs were so meaningful that he is afforded some level of critical immunity for some of his creative missteps (placing him into a category with Bob Dylan and, perhaps, The Rolling Stones).  As we have previously mentioned, Lou Reed once released an album called Mistrial, the cover of which is depicted above. Released in the summer of 1986, the album is not among Reed’s best (but it is certain the one with the most appropriate title for use in a law blog post). Another interesting legal side note: Reed sang about the perils of divorce litigation in his song, “Baton Rouge,” which appeared on his 2000 album, Ecstasy. Whatever the case, if you’ve not already, go revisit Reed’s Transformer album and pay your respects to a musical visionary. Rock and roll is a lesser thing with his passing.

Accord to an email missive recently issued by one of our local federal courts, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina has established a Pro Se Settlement Assistance Program.  For more information on this program, please see here.

You know, with as much as we’ve written about the infamous Stella Liebeck McDonald’s hot coffee case, you’d think we would know that country music singer Toby Keith referenced it in some of his lyrics. “Spill a cup of coffee / Make a million dollars,” he sings in his 2009 song, “American Ride,” from his album of the same name. Apparently, Liebeck’s family was not pleased.

Whoa! Silly string is illegal in Los Angeles! At least, sometimes it is!

As you know, we here at Abnormal Use are dedicated to the proposition that Halloween should offer merriment in conjunction with a full phantasmagorical experience. So, we thought we would share with you the work of one of our contributors who has gone above and beyond in crafting an unforgettable experience for trick-or-treaters this fateful evening. Behold and beware of these five photographs of one of the scariest homes in the Southeastern United States.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Do you realize that we’ve done three previous Halloween posts – in 2010, 2011, and 2012 – and not once did we use an image from the Batman saga, The Long Halloween? Above, you’ll find the cover of the trade paperback, which collected the 13 individual issues published in 1996 and 1997. (For more on this fateful tale, see here.). Here’s how Wikipedia describes the plot:

Taking place during Batman’s early days of crime fighting, The Long Halloween tells the story of a mysterious killer named Holiday, who murders people on holidays, one each month. Working with District Attorney Harvey Dent and Lieutenant James Gordon, Batman races against the calendar as he tries to discover who Holiday is before he claims his next victim each month, while attempting to stop the crime war between two of Gotham’s most powerful families, Maroni and Falcone. This novel also acted as a main introduction for one of Batman’s most eluding foes, The Calendar Man, who knows the true identity of the Holiday killer but refuses to share this with Batman. He instead riddles and gives Batman hints from his Arkham Asylum cell. The story also ties into the events that transform Harvey Dent into Batman’s enemy, Two-Face. Enemies such as Scarecrow, The Joker, Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy and The Riddler, among others, also make an appearance.

Whatever the case, we here at the Abnormal Use law blog and Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A. wish you a safe and festive Halloween.

Check out our past Halloween posts here, here, and here.

Okay, let us tell you something. After three and a half years, it is getting really, really difficult to find legal themed comic books covers.  Each week, we scour the Earth – literally, we are scouring – to find an acceptable new image for Friday Links. We do this for you, our dears readers, but of late, it’s become a challenging task. So you can imagine our elation when we discovered the 1950’s comic book series, Public Defender in Action (about which we previously knew nothing). Above, you’ll see the cover of issue #7, published way, way back in 1956.  We assume that Richard Manning, the lawyer looking gentlemen with the “Richard Manning, Public Defender” is, in fact, the title character. (We wonder if he ever encountered the title character of the comic book series, Mr. District Attorney.). We will delve into this series more in the immediate future.

Over at Lawyerist, Gyi Tsakalakis asks that question of questions: “Should You Allow Comments On Your Law Blog?”

The North Carolina Law Blog is now hosting “Business Development Fridays.” See here for the first edition of that series.

In his column this week, the Panic Street Lawyer talks briefly about the RIAA litigation.

Another trial, another juror posting comments about same on Facebook.

This time, it’s Figueroa v. High Line Medical Center, No. 68272-5-I (Wash. Ct. App. Oct. 14, 2013), a medical malpractice case (the basic facts of which are not important to the Facebook issue). Whatever the facts, the jury found for the plaintiff, and the doctor appealed on a number of issues.

One of his points of error was jury misconduct.  The relevant portion of the opinion reads:

Dr. Ryan argues that the court erred in not granting a new trial because of alleged juror and attorney misconduct. Dr. Ryan further argues that the trial court abused its discretion when it denied his motion for a new trial after a juror posted comments regarding the case on Facebook. A juror’s communication with a third party about a case constitutes misconduct.The trial court may grant a new trial only where such juror misconduct has prejudiced the defendant.

Here, no such prejudice was shown. The juror’s comments were limited and innocuous. They were nothing more than a description of the juror’s day interspersed with the following related comments on her jury duty:

• Spent the day in Superior Court doing my civic duty. On jury duty for next 2 weeks.

• Day 3 of jury duty. Very difficult to listen to a translator during the questioning. I can pick out some words.

• Day 4 of jury duty, off on Friday, and back to the jury on Monday. Hope to finish by noon on Thursday. It’s been interesting. Love the 1 1/2 hour lunches.

• My civic duty, jury duty ended today with a negligent claim on the doctor. This was tough to decided $s to the plaintiffs. Mentally exhausting!

While it was inappropriate for the juror to post anything on Facebook regarding the case, these comments were not prejudicial to Dr. Ryan.

(Citations and quotations omitted).

Sure, the status updates were probably harmless, and his only substantive remark referred to the verdict itself, after it had been rendered. However, it seems that the jury’s conduct was almost certainly violative of whatever instructions the judge may have given to the jurors prior to the institution of the trial. Oh, well.

We are very pleased to announce that our firm recently received the 2013 Defense Research Institute’s Law Firm Diversity Award. Established in 2002, the DRI Law Firm Diversity Award annually recognizes a DRI member law firm that has shown exemplary progress and achievements in its diversity program.  To be considered for the award, a firm must show characteristics of a diversity strategy that is committed to the sensitivity and receptivity of diversity issues including promotion of its minority and women attorneys or volunteers within the firm. This is a wonderful honor, as only one law firm from across the entire country is recognized each year.  We owe much to our Diversity Committee and to Jennifer Johnsen, who chairs that committee, for their leadership within the firm on this issue.  Further, we owe much to our colleagues and employees for helping us to maintain a tremendous environment of openness and inclusion here at GWB.

GWB is currently comprised of 145 employees from 23 different states and five countries.  The firm’s 67 attorneys hail from every region of the country, attended 26 different undergraduate institutions, and 16 different law schools.

For more information on the firm and this award, please see our statement on our main website.

We don’t know too much about the Criminals on the Run comic book series, but when we saw the cover of the seventh issue (published way, way back in 1949, we knew we had to run it here. As you can see, it features the most awesome crime fighting technique we’ve ever seen. There is really nothing more to say on this matter, no?

Here’s a fun case excerpt that we found from the early days of Internet cases: “In the colorful argot of computers, a ‘worm’ is a program that travels from one computer to another but does not attach itself to the operating system of the computer it ‘infects.’ It differs from a ‘virus,’ which is also a migrating program, but one that attaches itself to the operating system of any computer it enters and can infect any other computer that uses files from the infected computer.” United States v. Morris, 928 F.2d 504 (2d Cir. 1991).

Don’t forget! You can follow Abnormal Use on Twitter here and on Facebook here! Drop us a line!

As you know, we have often commented upon practical legal education (including yesterday, when our own Frances Zacher remarked upon President Obama’s recent suggestion that law school be shortened to two years). This topic, of course, is in the news again, and Steph Kimbro of the North Carolina Law Blog offered her thoughts recently on this issue:

My concern is that if the law school length were cut down to only two years, more of the practical courses that do exist in the curriculum would have to be cut. The bar exam isn’t changing any time soon, then students would still be hard pressed to take all the substantive bar courses and the practice areas they are interested in only in two years. That may push the practical skills, legal writing, law practice management courses, incubators, clinics, mock trial, law review and many other extras further to the side.

Kimbro makes a good point. Law students, being practical, are going to maximize their time in school in order to prepare for the bar examination. Presumably, any reform in the length or substance of legal education would likely leave the historic first year intact. Students will still be called upon to take contracts, property, and criminal law, and learn historic concepts but the law of no jurisdiction in particular. The value of the first year – despite the lack of reference to any specific state’s statutes or cases – is that it introduces students to legal concepts and begins to train them to think like lawyers. The second year, of course, depending on one’s school, may be comprised of mostly electives, and the stereotype of one’s third year is that it is spent mostly on the golf course and/or seeking future employment. That is certainly not the case at all schools. However, perhaps it is time to transform the third year from electives and fluff into a thorough and comprehensive practice and advocacy program. As we have noted before, there is no reason for there to be a “gap” between one’s law school matriculation and the beginning of one’s practice in the legal profession (despite the fact that some states, like South Carolina, require mandatory courses “bridging the gap” between those two points). But why is there a gap in the first place?

If students are going to go into significant debt in order to obtain a law degree, they should leave school with more training than they have. The debate should not be about whether or not law school should be shorter but whether the surplusage of the third year should be transformed into something far more substantive.

Above is the cover of Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Digging In The Ashes, which we bring to you due to the sad passing of Mr. Clancy last week at the age of 66.We knew there had to be at least one comic book adaptation of the work of Mr. Clancy, and of course, there was. According to the Internet, this issue was a limited edition digital comic book published back in 2010. We weren’t big readers of Clancy’s work, but we loved the movies based on it. There was nothing in 1990 like The Hunt for Red October. Those were the days, no?

Did you read the New York magazine interview with Justice Scalia? If not, you can do so here.

Dogfish Head is making a beer made with moon dust!

Friend of the blog Steve McConnell, himself of the Drug and Device Law blog, compares a recent qui tam action to a famous scene from The Godfather II. How about that?

If you’re following the news arising from the various former members of the punk band Black Flag suing themselves, here’s the latest.

We here at Abnormal Use live and work in a part of the country in which college football is a religion.  Friday conversations predict how our favorite teams will do, and Monday conversations feature the analysis of how they did.  In light of this, we must recognize that the movie Rudy will celebrate the twentieth anniversary of its release on this coming Sunday.

Directed by David Anspaugh, and starring Sean Astin as former Notre Dame college football player Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger, the film was originally released on October 13, 1993. It was the first movie that the Notre Dame administration allowed to be shot on campus since 1940.  Of note, Rudy was named one of the best 25 sports movies of the previous 25 years by ESPN.

Set in 1974, the movie was shot during the fall of 1991.  Our own GWB partner, Notre Dame alum Chris Kelly, was “featured prominently” in the movie, appearing in approximately four seconds worth of footage of the University of Notre Dame marching band (“The Band of the Fighting Irish!”).  (You have to look pretty hard to see him, but we here at Abnormal Use humor him, as we must all do with most Notre Dame fans.) Let’s see if you can spot him in these two screen shots we recently pulled from the Rudy DVD:

To be honest, we never believed Mr. Kelly, but he has now produced clear and convincing visual evidence of his cinematic stardom, right?

The film offered a trip back into college football and life in the 1970’s in the context of a feel good story.  When the movie was released in 1993, it provided an interesting contrast between modern football and the relative innocence of the game just a few decades before.  In the twenty years since its release, it is fair to say that college football, and football generally, has continued to change.  The college football of the 1990’s was big business, but now, it is an enormous economic enterprise fueled by 24/7 sports television.  There are still feel good stories to be told. but you have to dig past the branding and rush for revenue to find them. Some days, that’s no small feat. As the commercial enterprise of the sport has increased, so too have its legal issues.  In addition to litigation arising out of consolidation and destruction of conferences/markets, use of images of college athletes, compensation of players and NCAA rules enforcement, or lack thereof, we are seeing product liability and mass tort litigation related to concussions and helmet technology on both the pro and college level (note for the record we refrained from saying “amateur level”).  The immensity of the financial boon resulting from the fervor to cheer on the old alma mater has engendered an enormous amount of legal issues and litigation as the almighty dollar works its magic.

So we here at Abnormal Use will raise a glass of Guinness on this day and toast Rudy Ruettiger and the era when college football was more pure and played by student athletes that were thrilled to simply obtain a top notch education for free while playing a kids game.