I am banned in China!

According to The Great Firewall of China, my URL is blocked on Chinese web servers! There goes my Phase II marketing strategery!

I Am Finally Officially Registered with the Office of Dispute Resolution.

On Saturday, I received my official registration letter with the Georgia Office of Dispute Resolution. This will allow me to be registered with the ADR programs of the local courts in the metro Atlanta area. For those of you who don’t know Georgia, there are more than 150 counties. In the metropolitan Atlanta area, within an hour’s drive of my home, there are no fewer than 10 counties, nearly each one with its own Superior Court. I can now sign up to be on the roll of approved mediators and also do some small claims court and pro bono mediation. This will hopefully raise my profile and allow me to gain some solid experience.

God Files an Answer; Asserts Lack of Jurisdiction

I guess I was wrong.  God could find some lawyers.

The ABAJournal.com reports that the Clerk of the Court in Douglas County, Nebraska has actually received TWO answers to loopy State Senator Ernie Chambers’s earlier lawsuit against God. “No contact information was on the filing, although it lists St. Michael the Archangel as a witness. Several local lawyers denied that they wrote the response.”

Medication and Arbitration???

Today’s Friday Funny comes from real life. My lovely wife ran into an old friend and potential business prospect (for her music licensing business) the other day. As she was temporarily out of her own business cards, she gave her friend one of mine because I would, of course, forward on the relevant email.

This person, who will remain nameless, looked at my card, which has my logo on it:

and said,

Medication and Arbitration? What does he do? Drug people and then get them to agree to settle their case while in a doped up haze?

That might not be a bad idea…..

It looks like the Pants Judge won in the end…

While everyone’s favorite jurist Roy Pearson failed to persuade anyone that losing his pants was worth $54 million in damages, it appears he may just have the last sinister laugh. The AP reports that

The owners of a dry cleaner who were sued for $54 million over a missing pair of pants have closed and sold the shop involved in the dispute, their attorney said Wednesday.

Let’s hope karma comes back to bite this jackass in those ugly maroon pants when the government agency for which he works “reviews” his current status.

Father of Accused Molester Wants to Jail Watchdog Group

The Athens (Ga) Banner-Herald reports that an Oglethorpe County lawyer has asked the Georgia Court of Appeals to reverse a Superior Court Judge’s refusal to issue an arrest warrant for the head of the internet watchdog group “Perverted Justice.” For those unfamiliar with the Dateline:NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” program, Perverted Justice is a “watchdog” group that log into internet chatrooms with fake online personas as underage children to expose sexual predators. They occasionally work with Dateline to expose some of these lowlifes on national TV.

The father of a 32 year old Georgia man caught in the televised sting blames Perverted Justice for “enticing” his his son to drive 175 miles to meet a 15 year old girl. The father claims that if his son is guilty of attempted child molestation and statutory rape, then Perverted Justice is guilty of solicitation of those crimes.

While Superior Court Judge Thomas Hodges found probable cause that von Erck’s actions fit the definition of solicitation, he ruled that von Erck can’t be charged with solicitation because the potential 15-year-old victim did not really exist. “The Court finds that one cannot solicit an attempt when the substantive crime solicited cannot be committed,” Hodges wrote.

Putting aside for a moment what this creep did and the fact that his idiot father is clearly upset at the wrong people, it looks like von Erck and Perverted Justice may not be off the hook just yet. What Perverted Justice has done appears to fit the legal definition of criminal solicitation under OCGA s16-4-7, which states,

A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony, he solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.

The statute further states that,

It is no defense to a prosecution for criminal solicitation that the person solicited could not be guilty of the crime solicited.

The Georgia Court of Appeals will decide within 45 days whether to hear the appeal.

Hello to the Participants at the LEADR ADR Conference!

Since Geoff was kind enough to include my website in his presentation, I thought I would bid you all a warm welcome and hello from Atlanta, Georgia. I trust that you are all enjoying the presentation and the rest of the program(me?). Of course, I wish I could attend. Maybe next year!

Best regards,

Chris Annunziata

Lawmaker Sues “God”

ABAJournal.com reports that “A Nebraska state senator has sued God in an effort to make a point about frivolous lawsuits.” State Sen. Ernie Chambers says his suit makes the point that he can sue anybody.

In a related story, after a search among the heavens failed to turn up any candidates, God has reportedly contacted Satan in an effort to find a defense lawyer.

Yes. I went “there”.  (and I’m in good company – Leno made the same joke last night)

Even Lawyers Get Scammed

Perusing Above the Law, I came across a fascinating article from the Washington City Paper entitled, Wanted: Gullible Lawyers. The story describes how

a graduate of Columbia Law School—that’s me—and almost 80 other people, who really should have known better, got suckered into giving away all our personal details as well as up to two months of our lives for “jobs” that never actually existed. And then you learn why it all happened the way it did.

The story is a sad and pathetic commentary on how the apparent arrogance of lawyers and the uncertainty of today’s legal market can combine to make what would, upon cold, rational reflection seem fishy or too good to be true, appear like an excellent opportunity.

Excellent Resource on Georgia Domestic and Family Law (including mediation)

I recently found an interesting, informative and frequently updated blog about Georgia family law and divorce law, the Georgia Family Law Blog. Run by Stephen M. Worrall, a Marietta based domestic attorney, it contains tons of great information on Georgia domestic and family law, including mediation.

I plan to visit the site often as I hope to expand my practice into domestic mediation in the next few months.