Pro Bono Lawyer Fights C&D With Humor

Zordak writes "When Jake Freivald received a questionable Cease and Desist letter from a big-firm attorney, demanding that he immediately relinquish rights to his website http://westorage.info, his pro-bono lawyer decided to treat the letter like the joke that it was. In a three-page missive, the lawyer points out the legal, constitutional, and ethical problems with the letter that led him to conclude that the letter was a joke. He concludes, in a postscript, with an unsubstantiated demand for $28,000 in overpaid property taxes, and offers to lease the city the domain name 'westorange.gov' in exchange."

Comments

Oh my god, get the website right

[Sowelu]

It's westorange.info, not westorage.info. The editing is ridiculous.

It's political dirty fighting

[Camael]

Yup, found plenty of dirt here, no idea how true all this is but it seems to be some bad blood involved.

Freivald, who also ran for West Orange’s town council (and briefly created another website expressing dissatisfaction with a Weichert realtor a while back), tried to find out why his WestOrange.info website was being targeted by the town. Freivald gave a speech about his website and his surprise at receiving the letter, at a town council meeting on June 11. He expressed concerns about why the town didn’t address the “confustion” they were worried about through other methods, other than sending the cease and desist letter. Then Freivald asked for transparency.

The morning after the meeting, Freivald received this email in response to his questions about the letter from West Orange Mayor Robert Parisi:

        Good morning the Administration authorized the sending of the cease and desist letter at the request of members of the Public Relations Commission that believe the sites and the confusion they arouse, undermines the efforts of the Commission and the work they do in promoting the Township. As the Commission is officially sanctioned and funded by the Township, the Administration respected their concerns and agreed to send the letter.

There’s just one problem. Freivald is a member of the Public Relations Commission (PRC), along with Prakash Khaitan, Chair; Michelle Cadeau; Cynthia Cumming; MaryEllen Morrow; Jonathon Ridley; Josefina Velez, Vice Chair; Patrecia West.

It does seem unusual that the town council is messing around with their own PR committee.

Plus, Freivald is/was pretty active politically so that might be where he ruffled some feathers.

Re:It's political dirty fighting

[dywolf]

It seems that the alternative journalist he ticked off is a volunteer member of hte same Council that he is a volunteer member of. She wrote some inflammatory things about his wife's charity group (dealing with special needs kids), he got ticked, said some things, and the journalist in turn threatened blackmail of the "stop saying bad things about me, or we'll stop covering your wife's charity in the press at all". he of course didnt take that lying down and criticized the hournalist more... ...and so now the journalist, in the name of hte council that they are both volunteer members of, contacted a lawyer and had the C&D sent.

So in the end the C&D Lawyer is a middleman in their dispute.
Now, he sent a very poorly written C&D and deserves all ridicule he has recieved on that (and failed in his own due diligence if he can so easily be trumped by such simple things as facts, as the shown in the response letter). but he was also just being used a pawn in the battle between the two individuals.

this is how it looks frm what ive found.

Re:County Lawyer

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Specifically, Mr. Trenk has recently tried to conclusion bid litigation involving over $100 million.

Luckily, "tried" is the verb in that sentence. The "to conclusion" is an adjectival phrase.

Re:County Lawyer

[Arancaytar]

Adverbial, I believe, since it modifies "tried", not "bid litigation".

Re:County Lawyer

[Sarten-X]

Yes, that's exactly what it's saying.

The term "tried to conclusion" means that the matter was brought to trial, and the trial has completed, as opposed to being stalled in an endless cycle of motions and counter-motions, or settling out of court, or otherwise not finishing.

Considering that some lawsuits last several decades, simply saying that he brought a particular litigation to trial isn't really enough, because it's vague as to whether the trial is still ongoing. Similarly, ozbon's proposed alteration is vague, because it leaves open the question of how the litigation was completed. It could have been laughed out of court during pre-trial.

The language used was specific, concise, and complete. Since the majority of a lawyer's work involves reading and writing legal documents that must be specific, concise, and complete, this is a good thing. Your lack of understanding is due to your assumption regarding the definition of the word "tried". If that's a significant barrier to your understanding of his website, you should probably be looking for a dictionary, not a lawyer.

Re:An how a professional comedian does it:

[bluefoxlucid]

Unamused, Warner Bros. requested that the Marx Brothers at least outline the premise of their film. Groucho responded with an utterly ridiculous storyline, and, sure enough, received another stern letter requesting clarification. He obliged and went on to describe a plot even more preposterous than the first, claiming that he, Groucho, would be playing “Bordello, the sweetheart of Humphrey Bogart.” No doubt exasperated, Warner Bros. did not respond. A Night in Casablanca was released in 1946.

Entire exchange can be found on 27bslash6.com.