Going Legal for a Minute

I don’t like to go legal very often on my blog, but I saw this and thought it was kinda funny. Keep in mind that commercial litigation isn’t exactly a hotbed of comedy so I take my laughs wherever I can find them.

In this case, a lawyer representing himself in his own bankruptcy case got caught allegedly trying to play fast and loose with the Court. The judge ordered Lawyer to do something. Lawyer didn’t comply with the Judge’s order. The judge then ordered Lawyer to appear and show cause why he shouldn’t be sanctioned and held in contempt. The lawyer failed to appear again. The judge got on the phone with the U.S. Marshalls, and told them to haul this lawyer’s ass into court. (I’ve seen this judge do this before). Below is part of the Order entered in the case after the Lawyer finally appeared before the judge:

I didn’t post this part, but the Judge also ordered the lawyer to “write a letter of apology to the United States Marshall’s office for not turning himself in immediately when they called him, apologizing for making the Marshall’s office spend substantial time and using numerous personnel in attempting to locate him, and acknowledging a substantial amount of taxpayer dollars have been expended attempting to locate him” (personally, I think I’d rather see my tax dollars and the U.S. Marshalls’ time being put to better use, but that’s another story).

Even though this is a public document, HIPPO requires that I redact anything that would identify the parties or disclose my location. But this is a real live legal document. You can trust me, I’m a lawyer.

Update: I forgot to add that Lawyer showed up at the next hearing with a document containing only 700 handwritten sentences. The Judge made him return to Court and produce the remaining 50 handwritten sentences.