Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

In Judge Sullivan's decision today rejecting Lt. Gen. Flynn's challenge to his sentencing for lying to the FBI, at pp 17-18 the court tweaks Flynn's counsel for lifting arguments in their brief from an amicus brief in another case. Ethical violation?

Once I was trying to get a case transferred from E DT Tx to Mi, back when EDT was rocket docket home for all patent cases. Local sent me a brief Apple had filed on very similar facts. I pretty much copied it. It was poetry, except you know how no one pays for poetry? Apple paid a lot, I’m sure.

Do I need to confess to someone besides you guys?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Once I was trying to get a case transferred from E DT Tx to Mi, back when EDT was rocket docket home for all patent cases. Local sent me a brief Apple had filed on very similar facts. I pretty much copied it. It was poetry, except you know how no one pays for poetry? Apple paid a lot, I’m sure.

Do I need to confess to someone besides you guys?

I represented a friend of a friend in an unemployment claim appeal as a favor about a year ago. Typically takes a couple minutes at some silly admin hearing to get a bad denial reversed.

Not this time. Lyft filed a brief on why the guy, who'd driven for Lyft for a few weeks, was an independent contractor and not an employee. The brief was 20 pages long. I had no claim against Lyft because they were indeed not an employer. But I kept the brief because it was damn well written, and state of the art up to a few months before the hearing.

I guarantee that brief, and a similar one authored by Uber, are being copied near verbatim by every employment lawyer in the state who runs into the issue of independent contractor vs. employee.