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Pokemon Lawyers Sue Themselves
dex writes "The law firm of Milberg Weiss, lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Pokemon lawsuit, have discovered they are coporate counsel for one of the defendants. According to this article they will probably now be barred from participating on either side. " See the recent story about it on Slashdot.
The info from the pokeleague is here. I posted it on the earlier story, though I doubt anyone read it.
I *love* how lawyers talk about "just discovering" a dual-agency representation as if they had just uncovered something they'd misplaced a long time ago.
You *know* they knew it up front -- when was the last time a law firm went "Wait. Who are my clients again?" -- and you know they would do it as long as they felt they could get away with it.
These kind of shennanigans shouldn't go unpunished. They should be forced to cede all of their billings for their newest client (in this case, the plaintiff) to whomever the plaintiff chooses as replacement counsel and at the hourly rate the new counsel charges, as well as deducting all billings accrued during the dual agency representation from their original client.
Unless you slap lawyers on their wrists when they reach into the cookie jar, they tend to keep reaching into the cookie jar.
But their "Join A Class Action" web application form has to be seen to be believed. They really do have a page with I am interested in participating in an action against the following company:, and a long selection box.
This has been covered already.. If you don't believe me, check this post on that "previous discussion".. It even includes the same link.. Ha! ;)
~ Kish
Actually, this is standard practice now. I recently got into a car accident with myself, but it was really my fault, so I sued me. Sure, my driver's licence is chock full of red marks, but the money comes out of the insurance company's pocket anyway. And the returns are higher than my increased insurance premium, so I take home a little at the end of the day. I'm suing myself for abuse next ;-)
Ah, the joys of MPD.
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
"Pokemon Lawyers Sue Themselves"
If I didn't know better, I'd think I was reading The Onion.
The downside to this is that our court system is now clogged with silly lawsuits.
It seems we live in the decade of the speculative lawsuit. If that's not illegal gambling/lottery, I don't know what is.
My girlfriend is in law school, so I teased her about the "sign up online" form. She told me that these firms bringing class action suits are actually obligated to publicize the case (via newspaper ads, etc) in order to include all interested / qualified parties so that the subset of people who originally decided to complain aren't privy to "unjust enrichment" It makes sense for the legal system to get as many people as are interested involved up front because if the suit results in a huge award, other parties who might have been eligible will all bring suits of their own. Better to get everyone involved from the start in one large suit rather than twenty smaller ones. She wasn't sure the intention of these policies was to have web-based signup forms, but, hey, whatever. Law on the Internet...
I'm not too big a fan of this lawyer crap, but I just thought I'd pass on some info that came my way.
-Dan