"Sorry, but being paid doesn't absolve lawyers of any ethical responsibility... Lawyers love to claim this but it's simply not true."
In general, the lawyer's ethical responsibility is to represent his/her client. There are a host of other ethical requirements which, if violated, can lead to an attorney being disbarred. I'm not aware of any lawyer who would claim that being paid absolves them of their ethical obligations--which, by the way, include avoiding frivolous filings. Unfortunately, what constitutes "frivolous" is, when looked at honestly and objectively, a tough question particularly since our court systems err on the side of greater access. Compounding the analysis is that what one person thinks is frivolous another may think is a weak, but possible, argument. Making it even more annoying is that the actual strength of a case may be difficult to assess before the case is filed (since frequently a lot of evidence is in the other party's hands and won't be turned over for you to review until discover is well underway).
Patent litigation is particularly problematic, since the language in a patent is almost always very broad and imprecise. The first time the terms actually can be narrowed by the court into something firm is at the Markman hearing--which happens well into the litigation (and after serious expenses have been incurred).
"Just because a client sets a direction doesn't mean the attorneys aren't actually doing it."
True, and if the attorney files something that is frivolous there are two avenues for discipline--registering a complaint with the state's Bar Association and for the other party to file a Rule 11 sanction motion. Unfortunately, State Bars have a tendency to only severely punish when a violation is incredibly obvious... and many courts (particularly the E.D.Tx.) seem very disinclined to grant a Rule 11 motion against either the attorney or the client, especially when the case is a complex one that involves a lot of moving pieces (such as patent litigation).
"And without the attorney wanting to bring the case in the first place, there wouldn't even be any litigation."
First, the client decides whether a case is filed or not--not the attorney. Its one of the powers explicitly reserved for the client alone. The attorney can give advice on whether to file or not, and can refuse to represent the client, but that's about it.
Second, the client doesn't even need an attorney to file suit--they can file on their own (known as filing "pro se"). So, to be fair, without attorneys taking these cases, you'd likely still have businesspeople filing suit so long as the economic incentive is there.
You must live in a parallel universe where there is a scarcity of patent trolls that use vague and obvious patents that should never have been granted to exact a toll from small start-ups who cannot bear the high cost of litigating a patent suit through trial. That is not the world I see.
I'm not sure where you're getting the 80% figure from. From the numbers I've seen, about half of our senators are former lawyers, and around a third of the house of representatives are former lawyers. As a side note, a little under half of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence were lawyers. You can find that here
Also, there is no lawyer 'clan'. There are multiple different types of lawyers, all of which have varying (and frequently diametrically opposed) professional interests. For instance, most plaintiff personal injury lawyers would be vehemently opposed to policies put forward by the defense bar...
... and this ignores the fact that much of the ultimate blame for our current "political class" can be found in the individuals who vote for them and the individuals/corporations who fund their elections.
First, patent litigation frequently involves retaining experts. Both the plaintiff and the defendant will retain and expert (and sometimes even the Court retains one). That's one of the reasons patent litigation gets very expensive for defendants (which feeds in to the reason we have patent trolls (along with the pro-troll Eastern District of Texas, and the complete failure by the courts (especially the E.D.Tx.) to actually use Fed.R.Civ.Pro. Rule 11 sanctions as a deterrent). It may surprise you, but the attorneys don't testify as to whether or not something is obvious--the retained *experts* do so.
Second, if a lawyer is operating on contingency ("tak[ing] a third of the cash") it is often not in their interests to tie up the court--the longer the case takes, the longer it is until the attorney gets paid and the more expenses they rack up in the meantime. It is more profitable for a lawyer operating on a contingency-fee basis to push the case forward as quickly as possible so that they can hold down their expenses and getting their fee award as quickly as possible.
Third, many patent attorneys don't "take a third of the cash." For instance, most of the defense bar bills at an hourly rate. The plaintiffs bar sometimes operates on an hourly rate but some do operate on contingency (typically 25% for settling, 33% for a jury verdict, and 50% if it has to go through appeals). The contingency basis is probably much more common for patent trolls (whose goal is to get in, put pressure on the defendants so that it is cheaper to settle than litigate, and then get out) than for standard patent holders (who are not as adverse to trial, since their claims are usually a bit more solid).
Regardless, if you wanted to point out the actual problem, it isn't the attorneys--it's the businessmen who drive these suits (the attorneys just attempt to represent the businessmen in the best fashion possible). The businesses have found a niche they can exploit because of (a) lax patent granting by the USPTO, (b) plaintiff-friendly jurisdictions like the E.D.Tx. and (c) the high costs of litigating a patent case (due to the expert witnesses and the extremely complex nature of patent litigation (when compared to more common litigation types)). The businessmen set the goals of the litigation, oversee the settlement negotiations, and generally give the overall orders that the lawyers follow. Blaming the lawyers is like blaming the infantry for the decisions of the generals. Under most rules of ethics, the lawyers can choose the day-to-day tactics and their clients have the ultimate say on the overall goals (including when to settle and at what amount). And without the client wanting to bring the case in the first place, there wouldn't even be any litigation.
In short, if you want someone to demonize for the current state of patent litigation in this country, you'd be better off aiming your anger at the businessmen who pursue trolling as a business model.
Wow, I'm impressed that some moderator found that comment insightful, since (a) Al Gore's background is completely irrelevant to the question of whether the person in the article is a *climate scientist* or not, (b) Al Gore's background is completely irrelevant to the question of whether the the person in the article should be relied upon for an independent *scientific opinion* to be incorporated into a scientific report, (c) Al Gore has not, to my knowledge, attempted to speak *as a climate scientist* nor, to my knowledge, has he ever held himself out as *a climate scientist*, and (d) I've yet to see Al Gore attempt to introduce his own theories as to global warming derived from his own *scientific analysis*--my understanding is that he attempts to explain and distill what *scientists or the scientific literature* tell him, rather than relying on his own expertise.
So apparently the bar for 'insightful' on Slashdot these days is 'irrelevant, and comprising a logical fallacy'?
Three things counterbalance against a lawyer being 'sloppy':
(1) Malpractice: if a lawyer is 'sloppy' in his representation of a client, the client can sue the lawyer ofr malpractice, as well as make a complaint to the applicable state bar association. This can result in the lawyer paying large amounts of money to the client, reprimands being placed in the lawyer's file from the state bar, and even the lawyer having his license to practice law revoked.
(2) FRCP Rule 11 Sanctions
Unbeknownst to many oustide the legal profession, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (and most state rules) allow for the court to impose sanctions/award costs for frivolous filings. Extreme sloppiness sometimes falls into this category.
(3) Court's discretion
In its own discretion, the Court can sanction an attorney for sloppiness or other misconduct that wastes the court's time. This can result in a case being dismissed with prejudice (meaning the attorney cannot refile the case, and will likely get pegged by the client for malpractice).
As a former computer scientist turned lawyer, I appreciated it when they tried to block internet access in the classrooms in my law school. They didn't count on directional wi-fi antennas picking up the residual signal from the courtyard (which had wireless access).
This had the wonderful advantage of preventing the non-computer-geeks, who were watching streaming basketball games and such before the access was blocked) from soaking my bandwidth.
It was great to have most of the law school's backbone available for my data-transmission needs...
Um... no, you're completely wrong. The lawyer has numerous ethical duties to his client.
The most notable of these duties is a duty of zealous representation - the lawyer's personal feelings have to be put aside to represent the client's interests.
The lawyer also has a duty as an officer of the court to not make false statements to the court (judge/jury) and to not counsel or assist the client in acting illegally.
Maybe if you were paying attention in your mandatory ethics class in law school, rather than dinking about on the internet on your laptop, you would have learned some of this...
I'm fully aware of the full faith and credit clause. I'm also aware that the Supreme Court, which has the duty of interpreting the constitution, has allowed states in the past to refuse to recognize marriages. In particular, look at cases until 1960 or so - some states were allowed to refuse to recognize inter-racial marriages.
The best link is here. That site, FactCheck.org, is a fair, non-partisan research group solely devoted to debunking false claims in politics and the media.
In short:
One purple heart was for a contusion to the arm and shrapnel taken during the explosion of a nearby swiftboat. He *also* recieved shrapnel shortly before this in the buttock from a too-close toss of a handgrenade at a stockpile of rice to deny the VC foodstuffs.
One of the silver stars being falsely questioned was for charging his swiftboat into an ambush and routing an entrenched VC force.
Regardless, go read the analysis by factcheck, and you'll better understand exactly how fraudulent these slanders of John Kerry are.
You're actually incorrect. The individual states do *not* have to recognize the marriages of other states. Each state is free to recognize or not recognize marriages performed in other states, since (barring an amendment) marriages are a state function, and there is no hard-and-fast requirement to recognize marriages from other states.
*Usually* states will recognize marriages performed in other states, but they do have the option to not do so.
Actually, the key attraction for diskless where I work is the security crap that goes along with controls on harddrives.
For instance, when a secret-level project uses a cluster, then all the hdd's for that project have to be controlled, and removed when the cluster is used for something else. This is a *major* bitch when it's a big cluster.
Sure thing.
Links between Energy Panel and Enron:
here
And...
"That is not to mention the White House itself, where no fewer than 35 administration officials have declared that they owned Enron stock at some point, in some cases running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and several senior figures, including the US Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick, and the White House economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, who served as paid Enron consultants before entering government. Mr Lindsey has been particularly active in blending his political and his commercial interests. For much of 2000 he remained on the Enron payroll, even as he was in charge of the economic platform on which Mr Bush was running for president. And late last year, before the catastrophic nature of Enron's problems became public, he took it upon himself to conduct an investigation into the possible wider economic fallout of a major energy company - he insists he had no particular one in mind - going bankrupt overnight."
Source:
Source: here
\begin partisan sniping\ And oh, the republicans are soooo for helping the common man... when the common man is defined as 'Kenneth Lay' and the 'helping' is changed to 'bilking his employess out of millions'.
An internet browser and/or HTML renderer is NOT properly part of the OS. It is an application that runs ON TOP OF the OS.
So why is this distinction important? Because of the concept of *leveraging*.
If MS has a monopoly in the OS, and it bundles an application in with its OS for the purpose of leveraging a monopoly in that application's market, this action is illegal under anti-trust laws.
So the argument isn't whether an html renderer is a *useful addition* to *bundle* with the OS. The application being useful to have with an OS is completely irrelevant to the fact it was illegally bundled with the OS, and then the code was comingled to try and make them look like they're the same.
Acoording to the Register...
Basically, MS is claiming that removing IE will destroy Win2k, WinME, and the ability for them to develop future operating systems.
Actually, you are incorrect about stackguard. Go read the nice technical deconstruction in phrack concerning overcoming the stackguard compiler's attempt at using canary words to prevent buffer overflows...
No wonder he doesn't get consulting jobs...
on
Macintosh Clustering
·
· Score: 2, Informative
... he's fairly uninformed on clustering.
He claims that you have to have the exact same kernel version on a linux beowulf cluster or it grinds to a halt...... this is, of course, bullshit. Our 96 node cluster here uses different kernels.
And that's just a single example of his lack of experience with clustering...
I would argue that the what-ifs are more important than the actual events. We know what *did* occur, and therefore we can always repeat the pattern of the past... but if we want to break new ground and not repeat the past mistakes we need to look at what *other* things we could have done at the time, and what the probable effects of these different scenarios would have been.
And maybe if we analyze the what-ifs enough, we could come up with a probabilistic science to determine what action to take in current and/or future events to create the best possible outcome.
Although the complexity due to the massive forces interacting would probably render anything like this impossible, considering we can't even predict the weather too far in advance...
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone know who the lawyers / firms are that are defending them in this action?
"Sorry, but being paid doesn't absolve lawyers of any ethical responsibility ... Lawyers love to claim this but it's simply not true."
In general, the lawyer's ethical responsibility is to represent his/her client. There are a host of other ethical requirements which, if violated, can lead to an attorney being disbarred. I'm not aware of any lawyer who would claim that being paid absolves them of their ethical obligations--which, by the way, include avoiding frivolous filings. Unfortunately, what constitutes "frivolous" is, when looked at honestly and objectively, a tough question particularly since our court systems err on the side of greater access. Compounding the analysis is that what one person thinks is frivolous another may think is a weak, but possible, argument. Making it even more annoying is that the actual strength of a case may be difficult to assess before the case is filed (since frequently a lot of evidence is in the other party's hands and won't be turned over for you to review until discover is well underway).
Patent litigation is particularly problematic, since the language in a patent is almost always very broad and imprecise. The first time the terms actually can be narrowed by the court into something firm is at the Markman hearing--which happens well into the litigation (and after serious expenses have been incurred).
"Just because a client sets a direction doesn't mean the attorneys aren't actually doing it."
True, and if the attorney files something that is frivolous there are two avenues for discipline--registering a complaint with the state's Bar Association and for the other party to file a Rule 11 sanction motion. Unfortunately, State Bars have a tendency to only severely punish when a violation is incredibly obvious... and many courts (particularly the E.D.Tx.) seem very disinclined to grant a Rule 11 motion against either the attorney or the client, especially when the case is a complex one that involves a lot of moving pieces (such as patent litigation).
"And without the attorney wanting to bring the case in the first place, there wouldn't even be any litigation."
First, the client decides whether a case is filed or not--not the attorney. Its one of the powers explicitly reserved for the client alone. The attorney can give advice on whether to file or not, and can refuse to represent the client, but that's about it.
Second, the client doesn't even need an attorney to file suit--they can file on their own (known as filing "pro se"). So, to be fair, without attorneys taking these cases, you'd likely still have businesspeople filing suit so long as the economic incentive is there.
You must live in a parallel universe where there is a scarcity of patent trolls that use vague and obvious patents that should never have been granted to exact a toll from small start-ups who cannot bear the high cost of litigating a patent suit through trial. That is not the world I see.
I'm not sure where you're getting the 80% figure from. From the numbers I've seen, about half of our senators are former lawyers, and around a third of the house of representatives are former lawyers. As a side note, a little under half of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence were lawyers. You can find that here
Also, there is no lawyer 'clan'. There are multiple different types of lawyers, all of which have varying (and frequently diametrically opposed) professional interests. For instance, most plaintiff personal injury lawyers would be vehemently opposed to policies put forward by the defense bar...
First, patent litigation frequently involves retaining experts. Both the plaintiff and the defendant will retain and expert (and sometimes even the Court retains one). That's one of the reasons patent litigation gets very expensive for defendants (which feeds in to the reason we have patent trolls (along with the pro-troll Eastern District of Texas, and the complete failure by the courts (especially the E.D.Tx.) to actually use Fed.R.Civ.Pro. Rule 11 sanctions as a deterrent). It may surprise you, but the attorneys don't testify as to whether or not something is obvious--the retained *experts* do so.
Second, if a lawyer is operating on contingency ("tak[ing] a third of the cash") it is often not in their interests to tie up the court--the longer the case takes, the longer it is until the attorney gets paid and the more expenses they rack up in the meantime. It is more profitable for a lawyer operating on a contingency-fee basis to push the case forward as quickly as possible so that they can hold down their expenses and getting their fee award as quickly as possible.
Third, many patent attorneys don't "take a third of the cash." For instance, most of the defense bar bills at an hourly rate. The plaintiffs bar sometimes operates on an hourly rate but some do operate on contingency (typically 25% for settling, 33% for a jury verdict, and 50% if it has to go through appeals). The contingency basis is probably much more common for patent trolls (whose goal is to get in, put pressure on the defendants so that it is cheaper to settle than litigate, and then get out) than for standard patent holders (who are not as adverse to trial, since their claims are usually a bit more solid).
Regardless, if you wanted to point out the actual problem, it isn't the attorneys--it's the businessmen who drive these suits (the attorneys just attempt to represent the businessmen in the best fashion possible). The businesses have found a niche they can exploit because of (a) lax patent granting by the USPTO, (b) plaintiff-friendly jurisdictions like the E.D.Tx. and (c) the high costs of litigating a patent case (due to the expert witnesses and the extremely complex nature of patent litigation (when compared to more common litigation types)). The businessmen set the goals of the litigation, oversee the settlement negotiations, and generally give the overall orders that the lawyers follow. Blaming the lawyers is like blaming the infantry for the decisions of the generals. Under most rules of ethics, the lawyers can choose the day-to-day tactics and their clients have the ultimate say on the overall goals (including when to settle and at what amount). And without the client wanting to bring the case in the first place, there wouldn't even be any litigation.
In short, if you want someone to demonize for the current state of patent litigation in this country, you'd be better off aiming your anger at the businessmen who pursue trolling as a business model.
Wow, I'm impressed that some moderator found that comment insightful, since (a) Al Gore's background is completely irrelevant to the question of whether the person in the article is a *climate scientist* or not, (b) Al Gore's background is completely irrelevant to the question of whether the the person in the article should be relied upon for an independent *scientific opinion* to be incorporated into a scientific report, (c) Al Gore has not, to my knowledge, attempted to speak *as a climate scientist* nor, to my knowledge, has he ever held himself out as *a climate scientist*, and (d) I've yet to see Al Gore attempt to introduce his own theories as to global warming derived from his own *scientific analysis*--my understanding is that he attempts to explain and distill what *scientists or the scientific literature* tell him, rather than relying on his own expertise.
So apparently the bar for 'insightful' on Slashdot these days is 'irrelevant, and comprising a logical fallacy'?
(1) Malpractice: if a lawyer is 'sloppy' in his representation of a client, the client can sue the lawyer ofr malpractice, as well as make a complaint to the applicable state bar association. This can result in the lawyer paying large amounts of money to the client, reprimands being placed in the lawyer's file from the state bar, and even the lawyer having his license to practice law revoked.
(2) FRCP Rule 11 Sanctions Unbeknownst to many oustide the legal profession, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (and most state rules) allow for the court to impose sanctions/award costs for frivolous filings. Extreme sloppiness sometimes falls into this category.
(3) Court's discretion In its own discretion, the Court can sanction an attorney for sloppiness or other misconduct that wastes the court's time. This can result in a case being dismissed with prejudice (meaning the attorney cannot refile the case, and will likely get pegged by the client for malpractice).
As a former computer scientist turned lawyer, I appreciated it when they tried to block internet access in the classrooms in my law school. They didn't count on directional wi-fi antennas picking up the residual signal from the courtyard (which had wireless access). This had the wonderful advantage of preventing the non-computer-geeks, who were watching streaming basketball games and such before the access was blocked) from soaking my bandwidth. It was great to have most of the law school's backbone available for my data-transmission needs...
Um... no, you're completely wrong. The lawyer has numerous ethical duties to his client. The most notable of these duties is a duty of zealous representation - the lawyer's personal feelings have to be put aside to represent the client's interests. The lawyer also has a duty as an officer of the court to not make false statements to the court (judge/jury) and to not counsel or assist the client in acting illegally. Maybe if you were paying attention in your mandatory ethics class in law school, rather than dinking about on the internet on your laptop, you would have learned some of this...
Just wondering if anyone knows what law firm represented Jeffrey Lee Parsons?
I'm fully aware of the full faith and credit clause. I'm also aware that the Supreme Court, which has the duty of interpreting the constitution, has allowed states in the past to refuse to recognize marriages. In particular, look at cases until 1960 or so - some states were allowed to refuse to recognize inter-racial marriages.
The best link is here. That site, FactCheck.org, is a fair, non-partisan research group solely devoted to debunking false claims in politics and the media.
In short: One purple heart was for a contusion to the arm and shrapnel taken during the explosion of a nearby swiftboat. He *also* recieved shrapnel shortly before this in the buttock from a too-close toss of a handgrenade at a stockpile of rice to deny the VC foodstuffs. One of the silver stars being falsely questioned was for charging his swiftboat into an ambush and routing an entrenched VC force. Regardless, go read the analysis by factcheck, and you'll better understand exactly how fraudulent these slanders of John Kerry are.
You're actually incorrect. The individual states do *not* have to recognize the marriages of other states. Each state is free to recognize or not recognize marriages performed in other states, since (barring an amendment) marriages are a state function, and there is no hard-and-fast requirement to recognize marriages from other states. *Usually* states will recognize marriages performed in other states, but they do have the option to not do so.
Actually, the key attraction for diskless where I work is the security crap that goes along with controls on harddrives.
For instance, when a secret-level project uses a cluster, then all the hdd's for that project have to be controlled, and removed when the cluster is used for something else. This is a *major* bitch when it's a big cluster.
Not so. Republicans recieved *much* more
And...
"That is not to mention the White House itself, where no fewer than 35 administration officials have declared that they owned Enron stock at some point, in some cases running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and several senior figures, including the US Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick, and the White House economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, who served as paid Enron consultants before entering government. Mr Lindsey has been particularly active in blending his political and his commercial interests. For much of 2000 he remained on the Enron payroll, even as he was in charge of the economic platform on which Mr Bush was running for president. And late last year, before the catastrophic nature of Enron's problems became public, he took it upon himself to conduct an investigation into the possible wider economic fallout of a major energy company - he insists he had no particular one in mind - going bankrupt overnight." Source: Source: here
\begin partisan sniping\
And oh, the republicans are soooo for helping the common man... when the common man is defined as 'Kenneth Lay' and the 'helping' is changed to 'bilking his employess out of millions'.
Data found here
\end partisan sniping\
First off, that's not true. You are perfectly capable of running Linux without sendmail. Or any MTA to be exact.
Now if an APPLICATION looks for the sendmail APPLICATION, that's an APPLICATION thing not an OPERATING SYSTEM thing.
Sendmail is NOT part of the linux operating system, it's part of a linux distribution at the application level.
An internet browser and/or HTML renderer is NOT properly part of the OS. It is an application that runs ON TOP OF the OS.
So why is this distinction important?
Because of the concept of *leveraging*.
If MS has a monopoly in the OS, and it bundles an application in with its OS for the purpose of leveraging a monopoly in that application's market, this action is illegal under anti-trust laws.
So the argument isn't whether an html renderer is a *useful addition* to *bundle* with the OS. The application being useful to have with an OS is completely irrelevant to the fact it was illegally bundled with the OS, and then the code was comingled to try and make them look like they're the same.
Acoording to the Register... Basically, MS is claiming that removing IE will destroy Win2k, WinME, and the ability for them to develop future operating systems.
Actually, you are incorrect about stackguard. Go read the nice technical deconstruction in phrack concerning overcoming the stackguard compiler's attempt at using canary words to prevent buffer overflows...
... he's fairly uninformed on clustering. He claims that you have to have the exact same kernel version on a linux beowulf cluster or it grinds to a halt... ... this is, of course, bullshit. Our 96 node cluster here uses different kernels.
And that's just a single example of his lack of experience with clustering...
I would argue that the what-ifs are more important than the actual events. We know what *did* occur, and therefore we can always repeat the pattern of the past... but if we want to break new ground and not repeat the past mistakes we need to look at what *other* things we could have done at the time, and what the probable effects of these different scenarios would have been. And maybe if we analyze the what-ifs enough, we could come up with a probabilistic science to determine what action to take in current and/or future events to create the best possible outcome. Although the complexity due to the massive forces interacting would probably render anything like this impossible, considering we can't even predict the weather too far in advance...