Today is an anniversary of sorts.  Two years ago today, on December 6, 2010, we published what was to be a ground breaking, at least for us, interview with the actor who played one of pop culture’s most flamboyant attorneys, Jackie Chiles, the television lawyer from “Seinfeld.”  The character, now infamous, was played by actor Phil Morris.

That, we think, is the moment where we learned we loved this blogging thing.  It’s also the moment we realized that the sky is the limit with respect to blog posts.

Think about it: In this day of Internet blogging and journalism, every citizen is a pamphleteer.  Everyone can be a journalist.  So, why not seek interviews like journalists do?

Back in 2010, we had that thought, and so, we spent weeks and weeks and months and months communicating with the agent and publicist for Mr. Morris.

Our persistence paid off, and we were granted the interview.  After that success, we were emboldened, ultimately seeking and securing interviews with the director, writer, and several casts memnbers of My Cousin Vinny.  But it all goes back to Phil Morris and Jackie Chiles.

So, today, we share with you our favorite part of that interview.  Of course we asked Mr. Morris about the Stella Liebeck McDonald’s hot coffee case:

ABNORMAL USE: . . .  [aO]e of the story lines from “Seinfeld” was, I guess, Kramer’s burns from the hot coffee. Do you have any feeling about that? What about people filing these lawsuits for burning themselves on hot coffee?

MORRIS: Well, we’re so litigious in this society, too much. It’s way beyond the pale. So that’s where I kinda jump off from Jackie. I certainly wouldn’t put stock in a lot of that stuff. I think, it’s just, we’ve gotten away with way too much here in the United States in terms of the legal ramifications of everything. I think, again like I said, beyond the pale. Jackie is an opportunist. So anything like that is manna for him. But personally, I think we’re really hurting ourselves and shooting ourselves in the foot. Not only are we giving our legal system a bad name, but we’re abusing it! We’re misusing those bits of legal power that we have – we’re fortunate enough to have in this country. It kind of drives me crazy.

You can revisit the full interview here.

Above is the cover of Three Who Came Back!, a comic book published by the Social Security Administration in 1965. (Yes, you read that right: a comic book about Social Security).  You can read the whole issue here.  Here’s what Slate had to say about it:

Some of these comics sold the program as a way that the government could help free young people from familial obligation. The crew-cut young men and well-dressed girls wanted to help parents in dire straits, but they shouldn’t have to. Social Security would make sure Tom wouldn’t have to skip engineering school to take over the family farm, and Janet wouldn’t have to postpone her wedding to earn money for her family. (Yes, Janet’s “dream” was marriage, even in a comic published in 1965; the 1950s died hard.) The SSA also published a book of “factoids” that associated Social Security with celebrities (the program was “the world’s largest autograph collection”) and tried to impress with the program’s technological reach (the names were held on 2005 reels of microfilm!).

(Hat tip: Slate).

Truly, this is a chilling newspaper obituary section. Not to be missed.

The November/December edition of the Greenville County Bar News is now available online.  Check it out here!

Finally, as we previously mentioned, the ABA Journal named us to the Blawg 100, the list of their favorite legal blogs in the nation. Now, the ABA Journal is asking readers to vote for their favorites, as well. We’d greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to vote for us!

To vote, please go here. A menu will pop-up in the middle of the screen saying: “Click here to register now!” Click on that box to continue.

A very brief registration menu will appear, and you’ll be asked for a username and email addresses. This should take just a moment.

Once you have registered, you’ll be returned to the main blog menu. Take a look at the blue menu and click on the “Torts” header, which will cause a new menu of five blogs to appear. Click “Vote Now!” next to the entry for Abnormal Use.

And then you’re done! We’d greatly appreciate your support!

We here at Abnormal Use and Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A. hope you had a swell Thanksgiving holiday yesterday!

Above you’ll find the cover of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #15, published way, way back in 1941.  December of 1941, to be exact.  Wow.  We revisit a lot of old comic book covers here at Abnormal Use, and many of them are many decades old.  But when you stop and think about the publication date of December 1941, it’s astonishing to consider what the people who first saw or bought this issue at that time were doing and thinking that month. December of 1941 is one of those eras you learn about in the history books, and it’s always somewhat jarring to see the artifacts of everyday life pop up from such a notable time period. And how about that ten cent cover price, too?

Whatever the case, it looks like Donald Duck had an eventful Thanksgiving that year.

Yesterday, we here at Abnormal Use saw Steven Spielberg’s new film, Lincoln, and we were pleased to see actor Raynor Scheine in a brief cameo as a member of the House of Representatives.  As you may recall, in My Cousin Vinny, Scheine played Ernie Crane, the eyewitness for the prosecution whose ability to see through a dirty window, trees, vegetation, and foliage is fodder for Vinny during cross examination. As you also may recall, we interviewed Scheine earlier this year as a part of our coverage of My Cousin Vinny‘s 20th anniversary, and in that piece, Scheine let us know that he’d “just had a call back audition for Steven Spielberg’s Abraham Lincoln he’s doing here in Virginia.”  We’re glad he got the part!

Please check out this recent blog entry at Comics Alliance dedicated to Thanksgiving comic book covers!

Happy belated blog birthday to our friends at the great legal tech blog, iPhone J.D.! Way, way back in January of 2011, we here at Abnormal Use interviewed Jeff Richardson, the author of iPhone J.D. Click here to revisit that fateful post!

“How I Fry A Turkey,” by Brian Comer of the South Carolina Products Liability Law Blog.  Enough said.

We here at Abnormal Use and Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A. wish you and your family a happy Thanksgiving. We trust that it will be full of touchdowns and tryptophan, just as every Turkey Day should be (as we have noted in the past).  We do hope you had a chance to revisit and read our 2010 post about Thanksgiving in America over the course of the past two centuries. As you may recall, we unearthed a century old article in which a 1910 lawyer/writer looked back to 1810 and forward to 2010, and we couldn’t resist responding to it.

By the way, above you’ll find the cover of Simpsons Comics #51, published not so long ago in 2000. As you can see it is clearly Thanksgiving-themed, but we will leave the task of interpretation to you, dear readers.

As we’ve previously mentioned, our editor Jim Dedman is now contributing one monthly post to the North Carolina Law Blog. Last week, his most recent submission was published at that site. The topic: “The Evolution of Legal Mobile Devices.” You see, our editor likes to think back wistfully to even those most recent days of yore – so recent in fact that they are mostly not of the yore variety.  Nevertheless, there has been a very quick evolution in the device(s) lawyers use to communicate.  So quickly has technology changed that now, in 2012, we can accomplish with a single device those things that took two, three, or even four devices just five or six years ago.  When you think about how that has changed the way we work, and the way we travel, it’s kind of astonishing, isn’t it?

On that note, here’s how Jim began his post:

I have been practicing law for ten years now, but I remain reluctant to offer tales of how the profession used to be.  Ten years is not an eternity. Besides, there are lawyers out there who have been practicing thrice as long as I have, or more.  But when I first began to practice, way back in those halcyon days of 2002, lawyers were just beginning to use both the Internet, mobile devices, and such regularly in their daily routines.  So too were lawyers then integrating modern cellular telephones into their practice (although, of course, there were those early adopters with car phones and those terribly inefficient and wonderfully obsolete bag phones).

Recently, I spoke with a younger lawyer about mobile devices, and whether that young lawyer should purchase the new iPhone 5, an Android, or what have you, even an iPad or laptop.  I couldn’t help but laugh, because it reminded me of a fateful trip that I took, circa 2005.

…

Today’s young lawyers of today will never know that hassle.  And the lawyers of my generation will never know how frustrating it must have been to carry around all those reams of paper required when traveling in those fateful days of yore before mobile devices and laptops.  Yikes.

You can read the rest of the piece here.

Here we are again on the Monday before Thanksgiving.  We, like you, do not anticipate an immense amount of projects being completed this week.  After all, as we’ve said before, this is the time for football, turkey, pumpkin beer and tryptophan.  Although we usually do not wax sentimental here at Abnormal Use, on this occasion, we feel that we must direct you to our 2010 Thanksgiving post entitled “Thanksgiving in 1810, 1910, and 2010.”  Back then, we somehow unearthed a century old magazine article in which the writer, a resident of 1910, looked back 100 years and marveled at the incredible social and technological change that occurred in the previous ten decades.  That writer also looked forward to 2010 and briefly speculated how we, as citizens of the 21st century, might look back at those who lived in his era 100 years before.   That article struck such a chord with us, and it’s become a Turkey Day tradition for us. So, today, we remind you of it once again and direct you back to it 102 years after its publication.

As we proceed through this week, looking forward to stuffing and cranberry sauce, we think of all the things that we are thankful for and wish you a happy Thanksgiving.

Well, two weeks ago, we featured the cover of Tiger Lawyer #1, published earlier this year. We couldn’t resist revisiting the character, so above, you’ll find the cover to Tiger Lawyer #2. What a fierce litigator he is! We can’t wait to see him take a deposition. As we’ve previously noted, the series was created and written by Ryan Ferrier (whose work we previously mentioned here back in May of this year).

We here at Abnormal Use and Gallivan, White & Boyd, P.A. are pleased to announce that our very own Art Howson has been selected by his peers to receive the 2012 Tommy Thomason Award, which is given annually by the Greenville County Bar Association.  The Tommy Thomason Award is given to an attorney who displays the qualities of compassion, optimism, diplomacy, public service, justice, and integrity throughout his or her legal career.

Did you know that Lou Reed once released an album called Mistrial?

How long has it been since you’ve read the official Abnormal Use mission statement, published way, way back on January 4, 2010? Well, that’s too long!

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

It’s our first edition of “Friday Links” after this year’s fateful Election Day, so we figured, what better comic book cover to feature than Superman #706, published just last year in 2011? Are you sick of maps yet? Well, it’s neat, isn’t it, even if Superman’s expression appears to be a bit creepy under the circumstances? (It’s not a disturbing as those bizarre 3D graphics that CNN always uses, though.). Oh, well.

If you’re a South Carolina taxpayer, or if you have been in the past, make sure you visit this page regarding options available following the cyberattack on the South Carolina Department of Revenue.

No, we haven’t yet offered our opinions on George Lucas’ sale of the Star Wars franchise.  But we will.  Trust  us, we’re just biding our time. In the meantime, you should revisit our 2011 Star Wars April Fool’s Day joke. Those were the days, weren’t they?

We lament the passing of famed University of Texas football coach Darrell K. Royal.  Our friend Ryan Steans put it best: “It’s kind of hard to imagine living a better life than that guy.” Rest in peace, Coach.

This past May, our own Nick Farr reviewed the pilot episode of USA’s “Common Law,” a television series about two bickering police officers who are ordered to couples therapy.  Really, we’re not sure why it was called “Common Law,” as it was about cops, not judges. Whatever the case, the show has now been canceled.

Well, it’s Election Day.  It’s finally arrived after a seemingly permanent campaign. Sigh. Don’t worry; we’re not going to make any endorsements or anything, nor are we going to dwell upon the nature of this year’s election. We’re products liability lawyers, not pundits! But, as we are inundated today with maps, graphs, and polls, we thought the comic book cover above, that of Captain America #250, might be appropriate. Yes, it was published a while back, in 1980, itself a presidential election year.

“The People’s Choice! Captain America for President!” proclaims the campaign button on its cover. Spoiler alert: He didn’t win (at least not in the main Marvel Universe).  But that’s been remedied in a far more recent 2012 storyline, apparently, as recent news reports suggest Captain American won as a write-in candidate in Marvel’s Ultimates universe. Apparently, the writers of Captain America comic books really, really like comic book superhero presidents.  Oh, well.

Click here for our Election Day 2010 post, and of course, you can revisit our previous Captain America related posts, please see here, here, here, and here.

Above, you’ll find the cover of Tiger Lawyer #1, published by Challenger Comics not too long ago.  Although the concept is pretty self explanatory, we’ll go ahead and ask: What is Tiger Lawyer? Well, according to this site, the series centers around “a Bengal Tiger that happens to be a high-profile criminal defense lawyer.” The series was created and written by Ryan Ferrier (whose work we previously mentioned here back in May of this year).  One thing is for certain: the title character appears to be a fierce litigator. (If you want to see some excerpts of Tiger Lawyer in action in the courtroom, click here for some previews from the Challenger Comics website).

Well, you may have heard that the USA Network this week canceled “Fairly Legal,” the series starring Sarah Shahi as a quirky lawyer turned mediator. Alas.  We weren’t big fans of the show, but we have written about it on occasion.  Back when the show premiered in January of 2011, we reviewed the pilot and premise and also interviewed the show’s creator and show runner, Michael Sardo. (We thought we were pretty cool at the time for scoring the Hollywood interview.). When the show returned for a second season earlier this year, we were on the case again with a new review. Now the show belongs to the ages.

Is this truly the end of Buckyballs, about which we wrote here and here? (Hat tip: Overlawyered).

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