If you only read Abnormal Use on weekdays, you may have missed our Sunday, April 1 post, entitled “American Bar Association Denies Provisional Accreditation To Miskatonic University School of Law.”  Yes, of course, it was an April Fool’s Day joke. We figured since our traffic is generally low on the weekends, we could reference something far, far more obscure than usual, in this case the mythos and milieu of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft.  The mythic Miskatonic University – which even has its own Wikipedia entry! – is a fictional institution created by Lovecraft and referenced by other writers who have followed in Lovecraft’s footsteps.  It’s an eerie place dedicated to the study of the ancient and occult. There are even books solely dedicated the fictive school. The existence of Miskatonic University: A Sourcebook, a role playing game guidebook, should tell you something about how Lovecraft’s creations have been honored over the  years.  (And that’s not the only book dedicated to the faux institution.). We thought it would be as good fake university as any upon which to base a parody piece on the ABA accreditation process, but in the end, the reference may have simply proven that we are far, far nerdier than you ever thought we were. (We know at least one of you caught the reference!) By the way, the image above is the cover art for the aforementioned Miskatonic University: A Sourcebook, which pretty much captures the spirit of the school, we think.

By the way, in the interests of completism, we present these links to our two past April Fool’s Day Posts:

“Star Wars Prequels Unreasonably Dangerous and Defective, South Carolina Federal Court Finds” (April 1, 2011)

“Unsatisfying Snickers Bar Unreasonably Dangerous and Defective, Texas Court Holds” (April 1, 2010)

So, five days after this year’s April Fool’s Day, you can now go back and revisit our posts from April Fool’s Days past.  Better late than never, eh? Enjoy.

Behold, the cover of Sam Hill: Private Eye #4, published way, way back in 1950. In that issue, we see that a trial is taking place, and Sam Hill, “America’s hard-boiled, wise-cracking sleuth,” is called to the stand to testify as a witness. “Careful what you say, Sam!” says a villain. “My boys will be watching you.”  Undeterred, Sam replies, “Tell ’em to listen real close, too! They’ll hear the whole truth and nothing but!” Replies another gangster: “If we do, you’ll never leave that witness chair alive!” This is some frightful courtroom conduct. We trust that Sam stayed true to his guns, testified against the criminals, and justice triumphed in the end. Surely he did, right?

As you know, we here at Abnormal Use are big fans of the rock group R.E.M. Back in September, we wrote an obituary of sorts when the band announced its break-up after 31 years. We bring that up so as to direct you to this fantastic piece at The Onion AV Club, in which writer Steve Hyden explores his life-long love the band. It’s the first component of a multi-part series in which he explores the band’s output, starting with the material from the late 1980s, when he first encountered the group and its music.

Speaking of music, a columnist at The Philly Post has published a piece called “Why I Hate Bruce Springsteen.”  What the heck? We’re going to have to ask our blog pals Steve McConnell of the Drug and Device Law blog and Max Kennerly of the Litigation & Trial law blog to investigate this blasphemy. (Hat Tip: @blogness).

In a post entitled “Brainstorming Warning Labels for Purchases of a Legal Education,” Attorney Indy at the Mercho Legal Services blog responds to our writer Frances Zacher’s series of posts this week on legal education.

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

No comic book covers today for this edition of Friday Links, dear readers. It’s an Abnormal Use tradition to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band whenever they come to the region, and so it was this past Monday evening when we found ourselves at Springsteen’s concert at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina.  Present for the show were editor Jim Dedman and author Phil Reeves (along with non-blogger GWB attorney Art Howson). You can find the great set list here (and note that he played “Because the Night!”). We don’t blog enough about Springsteen. Not too long ago, we paused to reflect upon the passing of Springsteen’s saxophonist, Clarence Clemons, who passed away last summer at 69.  In that post, we included a photograph taken at Springsteen’s 2009 Greenville, South Carolina show at the Bilo Center, at which we captured a photograph of E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt holding a handmade sign made by Reeves.  What a day that was. (Oh, and if you haven’t heard it already, here is a link to Bruce Springsteen’s keynote address at the recent South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.).

Whoa! We just learned that we were named the “Blog of the Month” for January 2012 by the Penn State Dickinson School of Law Alumni Connection! Thank you!

The wonderful TweetsofOld Twitter account reports on an 1884 Louisiana on the job injury.  We wonder if it was litigated.

This week, Philip K. Howard at The Atlantic asked “Should the Courts Be Allowed to Repeal Obsolete Law?” An interesting read, that..

This week, Abnormal Use broke through into a new medium, taking the public airwaves by storm.  Our own writer Nick Farr was a guest on KUCI-FM‘s “The Docket” to discuss the legacy of My Cousin Vinny.  Nick enjoyed some great conversation with host Evan Simon about the film and its practical application in our legal careers.  In case you missed it, we understand that a podcast of that interview may be forthcoming.  Keep checking for updates!

As you know, each Friday, we here at Abnormal Use post some to other sites and articles of interest.  Keeping with this week’s theme – the commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the release of My Cousin Vinny – we asked some of our favorite bloggers to share their thoughts on the film and its place in cinematic history.  As previously noted, these are some real heavy hitters in the legal blogosphere.  This week, each of them published their own post on the film’s anniversary and the lessons that we as lawyers can learn from the characters in the film.  Today, we will direct you to those posts and collect our favorite excerpts from each of them.

Jay Hornack of the Panic Street Lawyer blog at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Law and the Art of Automobile Maintenance,” (3/11/12). Hornack, a lawyer and professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, discusses his students’ thoughts on the film and notes that most of them were born after the release of the film in 1992. He also explores the potential musical influences of the screenwriter, Dale Launer, who took a road trip to the South to develop the character of Vinny.(By the way, if you are not following Jay on Twitter, you need to do so here.).

Alan H. Crede of the Boston Personal Injury Lawyer blog, “My Cousin Vinny‘s Version of the Criminal Justice System,” (3/12/12). In his post, Alan raises an interesting point, and one we hadn’t considered before.  Marisa Tomei plays a character who ultimately testifies as an expert in general automotive knowledge. Note: she did so a year before the U.S. Supreme  Court handed down Daubert. Alan also has an interesting take on the Brady v. Maryland implications of the film, in particular, the interaction between Vinny ant the prosecutor and their exchange of information during the proceedings.

Steve McConnell of the Drug and Device Law blog, “An Appreciation of My Cousin Vinny – Twenty Years Later,” (3/12/12). In addition to blogging about medical drugs and devices, McConnell, who hails from Philadelphia, is a pop culture whiz. After comprehensively surveying the 1992 pop culture landscape which produced Vinny (as well as Tomei’s Oscar win for her role a year later), McConnell explains several object lessons trial lawyers from the film.

Kendall Gray of the Appellate Record blog, “My Mentor, Vinny,” (3/12/12). Gray, a lawyer in Houston, uses a series of YouTube clips from the film and notes the “many invaluable life lessons and practice pointers during the film.” Because of those great lessons of import, Gray thanks Vinny for his status as his mentor. These lessons include courtroom decorum, punctuality, the value of directness (and the risks of being too direct), the proper approach to questioning an expert witness, and the importance of home/work balance.

James Daily of The Law and the Multiverse blog, “My Cousin Vinny: The Perils of Joint Representation,” (3/13/12).  We love the guys at The Law and the Multiverse.  In fact, you may remember that we interviewed them just over a year ago. They apply legal analysis to superhero comic books and films. In his Vinny piece, Daily explores an interesting issue: “Simultaneous representation of clients whose interests may conflict.”  Recall that Vinny represents his cousin, played by Ralph Macchio, and another defendant, played by Mitchell Whitfield, both of whom are accusing of murder. Daily explores whether this is, in fact, permissible under the circumstances.

Professor Alberto Bernabe of the Torts blog, “My Cousin Vinny: A Story About Legal Education,” (3/12/12). Discussing the film from a legal education perspective, Professor Bernabe makes an interesting point about the film: “Vinny is terrible at the things we do teach in law school, but very good at the things we don’t.” He may not know the complexities of contract law or legal ethics, but as Bernabe notes, “law students could learn from him as to how to use legal thinking in the complexity of actual law practice.” (By the way, we interviewed Professor Bernabe back in November of 2010).

Max Kennerly of the Litigation & Trial blog, “Every Young Trial Lawyer Needs To Watch My Cousin Vinny,” (3/14/12). Kennerly is a maverick legal blogger, so he was a natural writer to approach about this project. He notes that one reason why the film continues to resonate with lawyers is because “everything that happens in the movie could happen — and often does happen — at trial.” Offering an anecdote from a recent deposition in federal court, Max also observes that the film confirms a legal practice truism: “Lawyers don’t prevail by coming up with great ideas; they prevail by coming up with ideas that convince others.”

Erik Mazzone of the Law Practice Matters blog, “My Cousin Vinny and Resilience in Law Practice,” (3/15/12). A friend of the blog and the Director of the Center for Practice Management at the North Carolina Bar Association, Erik (note the proper spelling of his first name) focuses on the power of resilience.  He writes: ” Throughout the first three-quarters of My Cousin Vinny, Joe Pesci’s Vinny suffers setback after setback. Yet each night he works hard and each morning he comes back to the courthouse to do battle for another day.” It is only through resilience that he finds success as a lawyer.

Kevin Underill of the Lowering The  Bar legal humor blog, “Everything That Guy Just Said Is Bullsh*t: A Review of My Cousin Vinny,” (3/16/12).  Underhill is one of the blogosphere’s funniest legal writers, and so he applies his talents to a new review of the film.  It is not to be missed.

It wasn’t just law bloggers who participated. Our friend Ryan Steans, an old pal and non-lawyer pop culture blogger at The Signal Watch blog, jumped the gun big time and published his review of the film over a month ago. His take is very interesting because he had never seen My Cousin Vinny until 2012, and as a non-lawyer, he did have a very different view than the rest of the project participants.  To him, the film was just a forgettable 1990s comedy that he saw for the first time twenty years after its original release. Concludes he: “[T]he movie sort of fails in part because Joe Pesci isn’t actually funny.  He seems sort of confused and dumb, and emotionally detached from Tomei who is carrying all the weight plotwise and from a comedic standpoint.  It’s satisfying to a certain audience in its utter predictability, but its not much . . . fun.  Still, people refer to this movie all the time, so I am likely missing something.”

Don’t forget that we here at Abnormal Use offered our own thoughts on the film on Monday before our series of interviews published the remainder of the week.  In case you missed them, you can revisit them here:

Nick Farr, “My Cousin Vinny – More Than A Movie,” (3/12/12). In this piece, writer Nick Farr explains how My Cousin Vinny changed both his life and the outcome of a 7th grade student council election. (Yes, you read that right.).

Rob Green, “Lessons Learned From Vincent L. Gambini,” (3/12/12).  In this piece, our newest contributor, Rob Green, offer six practical lessons that lawyers can glean from watching the film. If you think about it, the film is its own continuing education course with many practice tips contained therein.  In fact, we should probably all get CLE credit for watching it again, don’t you think?

Rob Green, “Review: Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just For You,” (3/12/12)  Did you know that years after the film’s release, Joe Pesci released an album in character as Vinny? Rob Green somehow found a copy of this long forgotten album and drafted a review.  Spoiler alert: the album is not for the faint of heart.  Or the faint of ears, for that matter.

That, dear reader, brings our week long anniversary coverage to a close. We’ll be back for the 50th anniversary celebration!

(Editor’s note: The ABA Journal excerpted our interview with director Jonathan Lynn here and our Q&A with screenwriter/co-producer Dale Launer here. Thanks also to these bloggers for their support: Boing Boing, Widener Law Blog, Above The Law, God/Politics/Rock ‘n’ Roll, Lowering The Bar, Nuts & Boalts, The Volokh Conspiracy, and the Northern Law Blog. To see a full index of our My Cousin Vinny twentieth anniversary coverage, please see here.).

Depicted above is the cover of Tales From The Crypt #21, published way, way back in 1950.  Note the newspaper headline: “Cooper Dies in Electric Chair / Convicted Killer Swears Revenge On Judge Hawley As Switch Is Thrown!”  The reader of that paper, presumably Judge Hawley (still in his robe!), looks up to see an undead version of Cooper at the window. Yikes! Here’s the thing: When the executed criminal rose from the chair at the state penitentiary, you’d think the warden or someone would have called Judge Hawley to warn him that a supernatural undead convict – who had only just vowed revenge upon him – was on the way to his chambers!

Friend of the blog Bill Childs, himself of the TortsProf Blog, directs us to this 2009 post from his blog entitled “Some Data Points on Coffee.”  Here’s a teaser: “This year, I decided to ask students to use a food thermometer I have to compare the temperatures of coffee and other hot drinks as served in the Springfield area.”  Check it out.

An important question for our dear readers: Did you get the new Bruce Springsteen album, Wrecking Ball, which was released this past Tuesday? Any thoughts? Here’s one Twitter review we read: “The Boss is back, and he’s really angry.  Really.”

Click here to learn about “assault” “verbal combat” in a Colorado courtroom in 1911. Yes, you read that correctly.

Remember not too long ago when we alluded to big plans in 2012?  Well, they’re almost here.  Stay tuned, and check the site on Monday.

Behold, the cover of The Batman & Robin Adventures #6, published not so long ago in the halcyon days of 1996. But at that time, things were not going so well for the Boy Wonder.  The cover depicts a copy of a newspaper, The National Insider, the headline of which exclaims, “Batman Fires Robin.”  We wonder if Robin sought any advice from an employment lawyer following this report.  For one, who told the newspaper that Robin was fired? Surely not Batman.  Alfred, maybe? Perhaps there’s a potential defamation claim there.  We’re trying to imagine Robin completing a complaint and submitting it to the EEOC.  Can you imagine that pre-investigation mediation?

Friend of our blog Jeff Richardson, himself of the famed iPhone J.D. blog, notes that we are just a few days away from the release of the iPad 3.  Make certain you are reading Jeff’s site next week for all iPad related news.

Eric Goldman has a post over at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog that you’ve got to read to believe.  We know we say stuff like that all the time, but here’s the headline: “Facebook, Google and Lexis-Nexis Get 47 USC 230 Immunity in a Bizarre Case Involving a Missing Sex Toy–Gaston v. Facebook.” Um, okay. How about that? Let’s hope that one makes the case books some day.

Don’t forget!  Today is Texas Independence Day!

The legal blogosphere is consumed with talk of the Washington, D.C. based federal judge who this week struck down the proposed federally required labels for cigarette packages.  As you will recall from our post here, the proposed new label were icky and gross. The district court basically agreed with our assessment.  See here for Findlaw’s Courtside blog’s post on this new development.

And, yes, if you must know, we here at Abnormal Use remain crestfallen that we were unable to catch the Radiohead concert last night in nearby Atlanta, Georgia. (Our editor has seen the band live four times!) We are recuperating – or attempting to – from this existential issue. Here’s the set list from last night, if you must know. Sigh.

This weekend will, however, be dedicated to another musical group, The Monkees.  As you know doubt heard, Monkee Davy Jones died this week in Florida at age 66.  Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. So, for the foreseeable future, we’ll definitely be listening to “Daydream Believer” and “A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You” on repeat. Rest in peace, Mr. Jones.

If you frequent this site, you know we try to showcase legal themed comic book covers on Fridays. Let us tell you this: that gets more and more challenging each week! So, depicted above is Infamous: Lindsay Lohan #1, published not so long ago in September of 2011 by Bluewater Comics (which often produces quickie celebrity bio titles like these).  On that cover, we see the troubled former starlet taking her mug shot about as seriously as she likely takes everything else in her difficult, difficult life. Whatever the case, we doubt the folks in California would allow a prisoner to be so cavalier during the mug shot process.

As you may recall, in the past, our own Frances Zacher has written a bit about the legal issues involving driverless cars.  In a post called “Autobots – First Casualty,” the author of the Living the Meme blog attempts to pick up where Frances left off and explore the issue in further detail.  Check it out.

Get this!  Accordingly to The Lariat, Baylor Law School – our editor Jim Dedman’s alma mater – recently hosted a “People’s Law School.”  At that event, there was a section dedicated entirely to the McDonald’s hot coffee case! Had we been in Waco that day, we would not have missed it!

Speaking of our editor, last week he was hanging out in Philadelphia on a vacation of sorts and he met and hung out with Max Kennerly, the author of famed Litigation & Trial law blog. It was a great time, we hear.  However, if you had overhead their conversation about blogs, Twitter, and BBSs, you would have thought they were huge nerds.

Oh, and you may remember that we’ve been hinting for a while that we have some big plans in store for you, our dear readers, in 2012.  Today is the last Friday in February.  In just a few weeks, in mid-March, you’ll see our first such  blogging project of note.  Be forewarned: it’s a doozey!

Way, way back in the early 1970’s, there was once a television program called “The Young Lawyers,” which starred Lee J. Cobb, Judy Pace, and Zalman King (who passed away earlier this month at age 69). At some point during the show’s run, Dell Comics published the comic book above dedicated to the program. Its tagline for this issue reads: “When a bomber strikes, who is to blame?” We would suggest that the person to blame is likely the bomber. (Maybe they young lawyers never took Crim Law.).

Max Kennerly of the Litigation & Trial law blog offers this great post entitled “The Real Risks of Writing a Legal Blog.”

As you know, we here at Abnormal Use go to great lengths to chronicle the hot coffee litigation.  Some have accused of us of trying to relitigate a long dead issue (or is it beat a dead horse?).  However, it seems these issues may be more relevant than even we realized.  Just last week, at the local Starbucks drive-thru right here in our own Greenville, South Carolina, we overheard:  “Give me a Venti Americano, two Splendas, and . . . make it extra hot!  I mean, really hot!” Contributory negligence, perhaps? Assumption of risk?  Or something more sinister? Perhaps this zealous customer was seeking a golden payday.  Stay tuned to Abnormal Use to find out.

Here we go again!  According to this report by Jon Campisi at Legal News Line, “[a] Philadelphia woman who claims she became burned by a hot cup of coffee at local Burger King is suing the fast food giant in state court.”  The incident occurred on Valentine’s Day 2010, two  years ago this week, and the Plaintiff alleges that “[t]he lid had not been properly placed on the cup, causing the hot coffee to spill on [the Plaintiff]” when the fast food employee handed it to her at the drive thru.  We’ll be following this one.

Hey, deponents, don’t call your 88 year old grandmother “The Creeper” at your deposition.  Okay? Thanks.

Behold! Above you’ll find an image of an old Dell comic book featuring Disney’s own Mickey Mouse! It appears that our hero has donned the garb of a private detective, and he’s even gone so far as to post an advertisement hawking his services as a “Private Eye for Hire.” Perhaps he is even assisting local law firms investigate their clients’ potential claims and defenses. Let’s hope, though, for the mouse’s sake, that he has complied with all state regulations and properly secured his state-issued investigator license.  We can certainly imagine a situation where Mickey Mouse is deposed and vigorously cross examined about his failure to comply with the state’s licensing scheme.  Poor Mickey.

In response to yesterday’s post observing the tenth anniversary of our editor Jim Dedman’s graduation from Baylor Law School, friend of the blog and Baylor lawyer Eric Nordstrom sends in this YouTube movie clip noting the significance of the passage of a decade.  It’s a clip from the 1997 flick Grosse Pointe Blank,  a film we couldn’t love more, so we direct you to itww. on this day.

Earlier this week, we ran not one, but two posts on the perils of social media and how your advocate opponents might use it against you in the future. As you may have seen, our editor Jim Dedman had a general piece on the issue, while guest author Stuart Mauney offered a real life example of his own Facebook posts being used against him at a mediation by an opposing attorney. These posts prompted some discussion in the legal blogosphere. We’re happy to report that Bruce Carton at Law.Com’s Legal Blog Watch picked up on the story. We encourage you to visit his post and peruse his readers’ comments.

Don’t forget: You can follow Abnormal Use on Twitter at @gwblawfirm and on Facebook here. (In fact, check out our GWB 2.0 website for all of our social media endeavors as a blog and law firm.).

If you’re reading this site, you already know that we here at Abnormal Use are huge Internet nerds, and of course, that love of such things extends to Twitter. (An aside: Don’t forget, you can follow up on Twitter at @gwblawfirm). Well, our editor had his 15 minutes of Twitter fame this week when one of his tweets was read on national television on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” You see, at some point last week, the online team for “This Week” asked the show’s viewers to submit questions for the show to be read by Mr. Stephanopoulos (who was vacationing last week and replaced for the day by ABC’s Jake Tapper). Viewers were encouraged to ask questions relating to the issues of the day and use the hashtag #askgeorge. Well, our editor couldn’t resist, and the most important question he could muster was the one you see above: “Why isn’t George F. Will on Twitter?” And as you see above, this past Sunday, “This Week” broadcast that tweet on national television!  Not only did they do that, they took the question to George Will, whose reply is below:

Said he: “I don’t think in 140 characters, but in 751 word chunks.”

He’s, of course, referring to newspaper column link, but interestingly, as some observed, his reply was less than 140 characters.

You may not think this is as cool as we do, but if you do, you can watch the episode in question on the ABC News website. Click here for the online version of the 1/29 episode and fast forward to 46:45 in the video. You’ll then see the tweet itself and the discussion thereof.

And, alas, if you’re bored with today’s discussion of Twitter and political talk shows, don’t worry, we’ll return to legal themed comic book covers next week.