Above, you’ll find the cover of Bugs Bunny’s Halloween Parade #2, published way, way back in 1954. That’s about as family friendly a Halloween comic book cover as we could find for this festive occasion (and you should have seen some of the frightful alternatives we considered).  As you’ll recall, in our most recent edition of “Friday Links,” we directed your attention to our recent and past Halloween related posts. We encourage you to revisit those scary entries from our archive of posts.  As always, we here at Abnormal Use and Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A. wish you a safe and happy holiday.  Be on the lookout for interesting Halloween product stories for us!

Above, you’ll find the cover of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special #2, published many moons ago in the halcyon days of 1994. For some reason, Halloween is an overrepresented holiday in comic books, although what would you expect from a medium replete with costumed protagonists?

Ah, 1994. Those were the days. Did you know that on October 31, 1994, the band Phish covered the super majority of The Beatles’ White Album at a gig in Glens Falls, New York? We remember hearing about it that year, but the show was not released – officially, at least – on CD until nearly a decade later. That has little, if anything, to do with Batman, but it has everything to do with 1994.

Whatever the case, whether you’re celebrating Halloween early this weekend, or if you’re waiting until the official day next week, we here at Abnormal Use and Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A. wish you a safe and happy holiday. If you’re in the Halloween spirit already, though, you can check out some of our past Halloween posts.  Here is our very first, if brief, Halloween post from October 31, 2010 to be compared to our equally short Halloween post from October 31, 2011.  But there’s far more substantive Halloween content in our archives! Do you remember Steve Buckingham’s fabled “I Want My Halloween” pop culture post from just last year? Or, how about last year’s “The Top 6 Paranormal Products on eBay Right Now“?  Earlier this week, we ran “Halloween Fear Fest Leads To Litigation.” Oh, and back in 2010, in a scary edition of “Friday Links” redubbed “Scary Links,” we brought you a list of our favorite scary movies. How’s that?

In some other non-Halloween related news, our own Chris Kelly, the partner in charge of our Charlotte office, had an article published this week in The Transportation Lawyer: A Comprehensive  Journal of Developments in Transportation Law (October 2012 – Volume 14, Number 2).  The title: “Judicial Note and Google: Ancient Doctrine and Internet Search Engine.” Believe it or not, there’s a whole subset of jurisprudence out there on Google Maps, which is a helpful utility to any transportation lawyer. Check it out!

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

Here’s the cover to 2005’s Daredevil: Redemption #5 which, we must say, appears gritty, stark, and somewhat depressing. But that’s how comics are supposed to be now, right? What did Daredevil do, exactly, to merit the attention of Lady Justice, who doesn’t look particularly pleased? According to one Daredevil website, the story is based, in part, on the West Memphis Three, and the narrative sees far more of Matt Murdock (Daredevil’s lawyer alter ego) than the costumed superhero. Here’s a brief summary of the entire six issue limited series, courtesy of Amazon.com:

In the small, God-fearing town of Redemption Valley, a young boy’s body is found dead and mutilated. Is it a ritualistic killing? The local bad boy, Joel Flood, is arrested and put in jail. A black-garbed, “devil-worshipping” metalhead, he must be guilty… or is he? Enter attorney and super-hero Matt Murdock, brought in to save the troubled teen from what looks like a witch-hunt by an outraged community desperate for justice… and the death penalty. This may be the most important case of Matt’s career. A loss means justice denied and certain death for his client.

That’s some heavy duty material there.  No wonder it caught Lady Justice’s attention.

So we hear that Newsweek will go the way of so many other print magazines before it and go all digital.  Alas.  Back in the day, we were Newsweek subscribers, but then again, so were lots of folks.

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!

Did you know that you can follow our fearless leader, Mills Gallivan, on Twitter? To do so, simply click here.

Why are superheroes always on trial? Above, you’ll find the cover of The Trial of Thor, published not so long ago in 2009. Why, pray tell, was the God of Thunder put on trial?  Summarizes the website Comicvine: “Did Thor snap? After an epic battle against the Frost Giants, the Thunder God is accused of murdering innocent Asgardians. It sounds impossible . . . except that Balder the Brave is an eyewitness to the carnage. Did the mayhem and stress of war finally push even the greatest of heroes over the edge?” We hope that Thor’s defense attorney subjected Balder the Brave to a vigorous cross examination; we suspect that there is some good impeachment material there, after all. Although we’ve not yet read the volume, we suspect Thor escaped severe punishment. (To see our coverage of “The Trial of Superman,” see here, here, here, and of course, here).

As you know, we here at Abnormal Use are huge, huge nerds.  This is why we couldn’t resist sharing this article from Mental Floss entitled “Alternate Histories: 7 More Ways the World Could Be Completely Different.”

Friend of the blog Walter Olson, of the Cato Institute and the famed Overlawyered blog, visited and spoke to students at the University of South Carolina this past week.  See here for some Facebook coverage of that event.

What does the canceled 2002 science fiction television show “Firefly” teach us about contract law?  Josh Gililands answers that question. “Firefly,” as you may recall, was a television series created by Joss Whedon, the same auteur responsible for TV’s “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and this year’s The Avengers.  We’re not sure what he knows about contract law, but oh, well. (Hat tip: friend of the blog Dan Loyd).

As we near the end of 2012, the “blogosphere” as we know it is now, depending on your estimate, about ten years old.  Of course, there were precursors to what we now know as blogs, and those proto-blogs, or whatever we want to call them, pre-date what came to be known as the blogosphere.  A few months back, Overlawyered celebrated is thirteenth anniversary, meaning that it began its existence in 1999.

I can remember reading Overlawyered in the law library of Baylor Law School in Waco, Texas way back in 2000.  (Ah, the days of yore and legal studies.). Considering the amount of work involved in perpetuating a blog, it is amazing that the site has endured as long as it has, especially in light of the fact that it is run by just one person: the indefatigable Walter Olson.

2002, though, was the year blogs officially burst onto the scene, and a handful of sites that began that year celebrated their tenth anniversaries this year.

However, many of the blogs that began that year – or in the years that followed – have sunk into the depths of the Internet ether. I recently stumbled across an old folder of Internet bookmarks from the 2000-2002 timeframe, and most, if not all, of those websites are now lost to history.  So too are many, many forgotten legal blogs, which began years ago and failed or died somewhere along the way.  But blogs like Overlawyered and others have long endured, and it’s fascinating to chart their evolution.  One of the joys of a blog’s archives is that a reader can revisit commentary and case law and trace the origin of issues over the past ten years. We can learn legal history from a blog’s archives, just as we could from a collection of a newspaper writer’s collection of editorial columns, and there’s some great value in such a repository of wisdom and commentary.

But, all this got me thinking about the nature of the legal blogosphere and how blogs evolved and what the future has in store for them. Are their efforts to preserve the state and federal legal commentary that has accumulated over the past decade?  Are there really readers who revisit blog archives to ascertain how issues were debated and consensus evolved?  With courts themselves now citing blogs, what efforts are being made to preserve and protect those entries? What use is a court’s citation to a legal blog entry if the blog no longer exists? What can we learn from 10 years of blog posts and accompanying reader commentary?

We here at Abnormal Use do not have answers to these questions.  We’ve only been doing this blogging thing for two and a half years. But they are questions worth asking.

Above, you’ll find the cover of Robocop #17, published way back in 1991.  “You have broken the law and betrayed us all!,” exclaims Robocop, who probably should never have received his own comic book series.  He  continues: “The sentence, Officer Lewis, is death.”  Something tells us this is not permitted by the sentencing guidelines in the future.  You would think Officer Lewis would at least have her union rep present for this “proceeding.”  But something isn’t right here. Robot cops get to charge, convict, and sentence their fellow officers?  If that is the “future of law enforcement,” that is not a good thing.

By the way, do you know how difficult it is becoming to find legal themed comic book covers after publishing one a week for nearly two years?  Wow. Although, in fairness, you probably had a sneaking suspicion that it was becoming a challenge when you saw that this week’s issue featured Robocop.  We’re really having trouble maintaining a straight face every time we type “Robocop.” Oh, well.

By the way, as we mentioned yesterday, this post – the one you are reading this very moment – is our 750th post.  We observed the anniversary yesterday (so as not to make this edition of Friday Links too self indulgent), but we must confess that this is quite an occasion for us.  Way back in January of 2010, when we started this blogging thing, 750 posts was an unimaginable goal.  And yet here we are.  Thank you for your support.

It’s been a while since we checked in on the North Carolina Law Blog.  Just this week, though, that site ran “Choosing a Practice Area: The Smaller, The Better” by Joyce Brafford. Check it out.

Apparently, hazing lawsuits, or at least the incidents they are based upon, are not new.

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

As you know, perhaps all too well, we here at Abnormal Use love to observe arbitrary anniversaries.  And so it is today that we celebrate the occasion of our 750th blog post.  Mind, this post – the one that you are reading right now – is actually our 749th post.  Our official 750th post will appear tomorrow.  But, as you may also know, each Friday, we serve up the latest edition of our patent pending “Friday Links” column, so we decided to pat ourselves on the back today – one day early – for reaching 750.

(“Friday Links” is already self indulgent enough without us focusing on our number of posts.).

This is not our first such post; we’ve done a few of these before: Our first milestone, 100 posts back in May of 2010, then 500 posts in November of 2011, and for some reason, 700 posts back in July of 2012.

This site would not be possible without the support of our firm, Gallivan, White, & Boyd, P.A. (now with offices in North and South Carolina).  The real heroes, though, are our authors: Nick Farr, Rob Green, Frances Zacher, and Steve Buckingham, all of whom go above and beyond the call of duty each week to submit posts offering timely and fun commentary.  They are the reason we’ve been able to reach this latest milestone, and here’s hoping that we reach 1,500 posts some time in the future.

By the way, above you’ll find the cover of Action Comics #750, published not so long ago in the halcyon days of 1999.  There are not many comic book series which have reached 750 issues.

What is up with the mugshot procedures in the Gotham City Police Department? Apparently, it’s a free for all, and as depicted above, criminals can make a mockery of their mug shots with impunity. Surely the booking officers there have a bit more control over the process, eh? By the way, that’s the cover to Gotham Central #15, published not so long ago in 2004. (To see a different comic book mug shot profiled some time ago on Abnormal Use, click here.).

If you’ve ever asked yourself “where does [Plaintiff’s lawyer and blogger of note] Max Kennerly stand on frivolous lawsuits?”, then this series of tweets is for you.

Although we’ve knocked Bob Dylan in the past (here, a brief reference  here, and here), we must confess that we really dig his new album, Tempest.  Who knew he still had it in him? To learn more about it, see here.

Speaking of music, we note that the opening lyrics of Angel Olsen’s new song, “Miranda” are, in fact, the famed Miranda warnings. It’s a sad love song, though, not a ballad of criminal procedure. The song appears on the album Half Way Home, which was released earlier this month.

Congratulations to Abnormal Use blogger Nick Farr,  and his wife Jill, on the birth of their new son Hayden Andrew Farr, 9 lbs and 21.5 inches long born on 9/22 at 7:05 am. You can follow Nick on Twitter here!

We, as lawyers, learn many, many rules from many, many texts, including statutes, cases, regulations, and such.  But what allows a practitioner to rise above the rest is his or her knowledge of the unwritten customs of the practice of law.  These practices vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, state to state. The most universal of them all, though, is the old familiar rule:  no depositions should start before 10:00 AM local time. Really, this informal custom is part of the glue that holds our profession together.

Really, this should be incorporated into some future draft of the state and federal rules of civil procedure.  Generally, most lawyers follow this unwritten custom, taking into account the fact that colleagues planning to attend a deposition may want to stop by their own office first or travel from another city before arriving at a deposition.  The standard 10:00 AM start time even permits an attorney flying in from a far away jurisdiction to possibly catch an early flight and arrive on time.  If not, this standard start time allows those who fly in the night before to accustom themselves to their new surroundings and make it to the deposition without unnecessary haste. All in all, the custom preserves some level of peace and tranquility.

I raise this issue because lately I have seen a number of notices calling for the deposition to begin at – gasp – 9:00 AM.  Oh, the humanity! Mind you, these instances were not circumstances where the deposition needed to start earlier than 10:00 AM. Rather, the noticing party just decided to set the deposition start time at 9:00 AM. Alas. Of course, there are exceptions to the informal rule, typically doctor depositions, because physicians may only be able to present themselves at some unusual time before or after business hours. And, of course, there’s always the occasional witness who may only be available at some strange and unusual time. But generally, depositions should start at 10:00 AM.  No question.

Above, you’ll find the cover for Daredevil #16, published not so long ago in, well, 2012. (We’ve previously mentioned Daredevil, and his lawyer alter ego Matt Murdock, here and here, and we even interviewed Daredevil writer Mark Waid a year ago.). This is a pretty depressing cover. Although we’ve not yet read the issue (because it is so new), it appears that Murdock and his long time friend and law partner Foggy Nelson are parting ways. Murdock’s name is even crossed  out on the firm’s front door.  That’s not good. We knew that there were some tough times out there for the legal profession, but when Daredevil has to leave his law firm, it’s getting ridiculous!

Of course you know of Edward Herrmann, the character actor who played the evil head vampire in The Lost Boys. He’s played FDR on screen an few times, too. The Onion A.V. Club recently interviewed him as a part of its “Random Roles” series, and in so doing, they asked him about his role in The Paper Chase, the classic law school film.  Here’s what he had to say:

Oh, that was fun. I was in New York, I got there in ’70, and it was basically my first proper movie. Besides, of course, that immortal performance in Lady Liberty. [Laughs.] We shot it up in Kleinburg, in Ontario, and there were two big soundstages, and they built that lecture hall on one of the stages. Next to it was a film that was being directed by a director I eventually worked with, a wonderful director named Dan Petrie, who did the Roosevelt films [Eleanor And Franklin], and he was doing one with Ben Gazzara and Yvette Mimieux and Ernest Borgnine [The Neptune Factor]. It was about submarines, and they go down and there are creatures that eat them and all of this stuff. It was science fiction. And, oh, God, I’d go over there during lunchtime, and I saw all of these sets, all of these aquarium tanks where they had versions of the characters made out of fish food so that the fish would eat them. And I thought, “Boy, this is a real movie! All we’re doing is talking!” [Laughs.]

But Anderson was fun. It was a bunch of great actors. Graham Beckel and Tim Bottoms. But John Houseman came up, and it was touching, because he was nervous as hell, and he kept blowing his lines. It was a little scene in the office, one of his first scenes, and I felt the need to be cordial… me, the old veteran, who had never made a proper movie. [Laughs.]

But it was very useful, because down the street there was a Bette Davis festival going on. And they were proper 35mm prints, and I saw for the first time, classic, top-of-the-line Warner Bros. ’30s sob-sister movies, and… I began to see, “What’s all this fuss about Bette Davis? She overacts, she’s got splinters in her teeth from eating the scenery. But who’s this guy George Brent? He’s wonderful… because he doesn’t do anything!” And it helped me in The Paper Chase, because James Bridges was directing, and he was really wonderful with us youngsters. With the study table, the camera would go around and pick up all of our close-ups and stuff, and I was acting my socks off. And he said, “Great, cut, print. That was wonderful, but… they can see that in the balcony, so can you just pull it back just a little bit?” So I did. “Great, cut, print. Okay, that was in the mezzanine.” We did it again. “Now we’re in the orchestra.” I brought it back and brought it back until I thought I wasn’t doing anything. But then I went to see George Brent, and I realized, “He’s not doing anything except for being he’s the guy he says he is.” And that was a real lesson in film acting.

By the way, we’re pleased to announce that Todd R. Davidson has joined our firm’s Greenville office as a partner. With 23 years of experience as a transactional attorney, Todd will be a great addition to our firm’s Business and Commercial Practice Group. We have not yet convinced him to join the blog, though. But we’re working on it!