December 26, 2022

Notable Lawyer Screw Ups of 2022--End of Year Edition

 Mercifully, most of my taskmasters are off skiing this week, so, at the request of IP Law Ass,  I'll provide analysis on that poor sap who couldn't figure out integers or how to pay a filing fee.

(Note to IPLAss--I think Fresh or CalJur can send you a link to get into the Blogger thing so you can post. But you'll need a burner Gmail account to do it)

Anyway this first blunder happened in October, so if you saw it earlier, just pretend you didnt.

A Kirkland associate named Zoya Kovalenko was fired and she later sued the firm for wrongful termination/sex discrimination. When she filed her complaint she forgot to remove some interesting notes she made to herself.  Whoops! The following screenshot should give you nightmares:


 Apparently Ms. K--who is representing herself-- has never heard of "track changes" or highlighted comments.

Ok moving on to the unfortunate Utah lawyer, Steven Call, voted one of Utah's "Legal Elites."
Mr. Call decided to upload documents in a bankruptcy matter at the last legal minute (11:40 pm at night) and spent an agonizing half hour doing battle with a unfriendly Electronic Case File system that demanded actual numbers for the "integer box."

After after trying every letter/number/symbol on his keyboard, he somehow got the ECF to  accept his info and materials at 12:19 am.  Too late!

The 10th Circuit was not sympathetic to Mr. Call's claims that the ECF malfunctioned. The court noted that the Utah Bankruptcy Court has a help desk that attorneys can call "during business hours," and that Call was required to receive training before he could even register with the ECF system.

Analysis: The fact that Mr. Call went the DIY route at 11:40 at night, without an assistant, associate or paralegal providing guidance and backup, is insane. 

I also bet Mr. Call wasn't the person who "received training," it was probably his para.

 


 



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