There is a fine line between zealous advocacy and doing too much — the side you land on is usually determined by the outcome. One example would be Clement Vallandigham’s zealous defense of his last client. He represented a man who was accused of shooting someone to death in a bar brawl. His client didn’t have a gun on him, but that wasn’t enough to prove he didn’t do it. Vallandigham’s theory of the case was that the deceased actually could have just shot himself by accident; which Vallandigham then demonstrated at the cost of his life. Zealous or doing too much? Hard to tell. While it did cost him his life, his client walked!
While we’re on the topic of lawyer demonstrations, a federal judge recently ruled that a group of lawyers has to go apologize to Philly residents. ABA Journal has coverage:
Lawyers who wakened South Philadelphia residents with a looped recording of a screaming woman to prove a point in a lawsuit must go door to door to issue in-person apologies, a federal judge has ruled.
In an Oct. 10 opinion, U.S. District Judge John F. Murphy of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said lawyers for former inmate Termaine Hicks will have to mail written apologies to nearby residents. At least one lawyer will have to go door to door to apologize to those living closest to the recording.
Let it be known that there was a big point to prove: they were representing a man who was alleging that officers framed him for a rape he did not commit. He said that he heard a woman screaming from two blocks away and went to the source of the sound. The City’s lawyers tried to prove that he couldn’t have heard a scream from two blocks away by relying on an acoustics expert’s judgment and a siren test. Hicks’s lawyers responded with a much more apt test:
The 122-decibel recording broadcast for more than an hour beginning at 5:30 a.m. Sept. 23. That volume is “somewhere on the border between uncomfortable and painful and is similar to an ambulance siren, a rock concert or a chainsaw,” Murphy wrote…Lawyers for the plaintiffs acknowledged that “residents were clearly upset,” Murphy said. One man came over with a baseball bat. A woman yelled at the acoustics expert. Many wanted to know who was responsible for the recorded scream and asked whom they could contact to complain.
The main issue seems to be that no one in the community was given notice that the test would be conducted. Going around to apologize to the affected Philadelphians is an understandable punishment. Zealous advocacy or doing too much? I think the determinant will be whether the apology range will be in a one block radius or two.
Lawyers Ordered To Provide Door-To-Door Apology After Their Early-Morning ‘Scream Test’ [ABA Journal]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.