West Virginia Business Litigation Lawyer & Attorney : Law Office of Jeffrey V. Mehalic : Charleston, Huntington, Parkersburg

    I am happy to announce that on Monday, July 14, 2008, I will host Blawg Review #142.   I'll post a reminder as the date gets closer, but I wanted to mention it today.  Blawg Review is a weekly summary of submissions from varied and various legal blogs.

    By the way, fellow Charleston law blogger, Bob Coffield, who blogs at Health Care Law Blog, is an old hand at hosting Blawg Review, having hosted #44 and #97.  I think it's time for him to sign up again.

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    Tom Ricks is The Washington Post’s military correspondent and the author of Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.  He writes a weekly column in The Post's Sunday edition called “Tom Ricks’s Inbox,” which, as the name suggests, “aims to give readers a snapshot of the conversations that play out in Ricks's e-mail inbox.”

    His column from August 12 was entitled “Ten Lessons the Army Has Taught Me,” and was based on a post from an anonymous blogger at walterreed.blogspot.com about what the Army has taught him. Here are the lessons in summary fashion.  But do yourself a favor and read the column, which has an explanation for each one. 

1.               Always have a notepad, pen, watch, knife, and flashlight on hand.
2.               Have a copy of everything. If it’s important, have two copies.
3.               Make friends wherever you go.
4.               Make an SOP. Know the SOP. Work the SOP.
5.               Sleep.
6.               Don’t go cheap.
7.               Find humor everywhere.
8.               Don’t tolerate oppression.
9.               Tell your story.
10.             Never forget.

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    In June, I wrote about the gag order imposed by Putnam County Circuit Judge O.C. Spaulding in the medical malpractice cases pending against Dr. John King.  The order was prompted, at least in part, by a video that appeared on YouTube, which purported to show one of the plaintiffs pushing a shopping cart, which she apparently had testified she was no longer able to do.  The trouble was the woman in the video wasn't the plaintiff, she was someone unrelated to the litigation.  At a hearing on June 8, the defense lawyers admitted to giving materials to their media consultant, who provided them to (unnamed) third parties.  The court also entered an order, effective June 8, sealing all pleadings filed in the cases.

    Now, according to Associated Press reporter Larry Messina, whose story appeared in yesterday's Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette, on June 26 (more than two weeks after the gag order was entered), another video was posted on YouTube, which consisted of clips from six of the plaintiffs' depositions, followed by clips from surveillance videos of five of the plaintiffs, showing them purportedly engaged in activities they said they couldn't perform.  Messina's attempts to reach the poster were not successful, and I was unable to find the video today on YouTube when I searched for it.  Judge Spaulding is apparently aware of the video, but has not indicated how he intends to proceed.

    Obviously, the video was intended to portray the plaintiffs negatively, but even if its goal was to make them look sympathetic, it is prohibited by the gag order.  Judge Spaulding should make a serious inquiry into how the video ended up on YouTube, and sanction whomever is responsible.  The other Putnam County judge presiding over the King malpractice cases, Edward Eagloski, has already revoked the pro hac vice admission of a Texas lawyer who had appeared on behalf of the defendants, and the same thing could easily happen here.

   

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    Thanks to Bob Ambrogi's post yesterday, which alerted me to the ABA Journal's redesign of its site, including its new Blawg Directory.  The directory is well organized, particularly its alphabetical listing of blawgs by topic.  There are also instructions on how to submit a blawg for inclusion in the directory.

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    Just as there are patent trolls, I have learned, thanks to legal marketing consultant  Larry Bodine, that there are domain trolls, whose business is registering domain names in which someone has shown an interest, but has not purchased, then offering the names for sale, usually at exorbitant prices.  Larry warns that you should not check for the availability of a domain name through sites like www.whois.com, but to use your Web browser or to Google the name to find out if it's available. 

    Larry Seltzer, a columnist at www.eWeek.com, wrote about the practice last year, and identified an entity called Chesterton Holdings, which is a domain squatter (a more polite term for domain troll), and described how Chesterton acquired domain names.  I also came across an outfit called Internet REIT, which is a very sophisticated domain squatter.  According to John Cook, who writes a blog for the online Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Internet REIT has bought up 400,000 domain names.  So don't be surprised if the one you want is among them.
   

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