It’s a little fuzzy, so I’ll summarize: during a Zoom trial before the Michigan Court of Appeals, this Michigan lawyer held his middle finger up to the camera while his opponent was speaking. When the judges questioned him regarding the gesture, he said, apparently, something like “Not me! I can’t imagine what you are referring to!” even though his actions were recorded.
Ethics Alarms 
Idiotic.
Apropos of almost nothing, upon being admitted to the Sconnie-Bar, the legal one, not one of the many thousands peppered across Cheese-Land, I noted that my oath to “abstain from all offensive personality,” something absent from the oath of the Bar of the State of Minnesota (“Nice”), may portend my future absence from all things Facebook.
Alas, no.
-Jut
“SCONNIE!?”
Paulie? Steve? Beuler? Anyone? Is this an acceptable slur? And why haven’t I heard it before???
I guess even lawyers can be morons.
Two words: Sidney Powell. Wait, four: Michael Cohen. No! Six! Michael Avenatti.
Got your
I could name a few more from the local bar. My opponent and I BOTH carried the idiot ball on a case that things snowballed on. He threatened to have me disciplined, then I threatened to have him charged criminally, and finally the judge told us both enough already, this was about the case, not about bruised egos.
According to the lawyer, he wasn’t flipping off the judge but his computer because he didn’t think it was working properly. Having suffered technological structural failures right in the middle of hearings (read that as bumping the mouse, which was hovering over the “x” box on the zoom screen and disconnecting from the damn hearing and/or punching the wrong button on the phone resulting in hanging up the call), I am not sure I don’t disagree with what his defense.
jvb
That’s an “I am an idiot” defense, then. He flipped a bird to an inanimate object, the computer, ignoring the fact that the animate objects would see it. “You won’t believe how stupid I am!” This is the equivalent of court. If the lawyer gave a middle finger in the directing of a judge in a trial, and said, “Oh! I was expressing comtempt for Willima O. Douglas, whose portrait is behind you!” would that fly? I think not.
Maybe that’s true. I can tell you how many times I have screamed at my cell phone (today – 17 times) because the stupid thing doesn’t work. Should he flip off an inanimate object? Probably not but I can understand what happened.
jvb
I remember a Woody Allen line from one of his movies: “I only get mad at inanimate objects.” Suffice to say, I can relate. It beats the hell out of getting mad at people.