Category: Uncategorized

I spent most all of yesterday trying to sell old baby stuff and books.² I mostly wanted to unload the books.  Over the years I've accumulated a bunch, and, after going through them I found a few that I had no intention of reading again.  

I was very surpised to sell three Kant¹ books and a book on formal logic.  The popular stuff didn't really move.  The classics didn't move either.  Neither did my dog.

Is it possible to read a transcript of your trial and not think yourself to be a complete idiot.  Compared to this guy, I'm a child with a microphone.  My cases are important to me, and, obviously, my clients, but nobody will go to jail and nobody, except in rare circumstances ,will be out milllions of dollars.

And, for extra context, while I'm writing, I'm watching a documentary on Sarajevo (free on hulu).  Not exactly about Sarajevo; about a war photographer in Sarajevo.

Getting back to the point, transcripts are embarassing.  But, they give you a chance to learn; to really understand your mistake; to mull them over; to think about them non-stop until you manage to snap yourself out of it.

All that aside, reading other people's transcripts is a great way to learn.  If I can find a transcript, especially one related to my area of law, or from a solid trial attorney, I read it.

For those of you who follow my "what I'm reading" posts, I've put everything aside and I'm reading Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson.

Did you know that your brain is sabotaging you?  I'll bet you didn't.  Is your writing sabotaging you?  Just get weird with it.  But don't get too weird.  Sentences would look strange without two spaces after a period.  I like the extra space.  It's comforting.

Can someone please find an episode of House where someone doesn't get intubated.  Everybody gets intubated.  It's worthy of a dissertation.  Can't someone just have a foot fungus.  One that doesn't cause the lungs to fail.

I've been seriously toying with the idea of quitting blogging altogether.  I hear it's a waste of time.  But what's the alternative.  As much as I dislike writing, I have no other outlet.  Nobody would watch a video of me talking unless I fell down a ditch midway.  Even then, everyone would skip to the part where I fall on my face.

Maybe I'll just open up a used book store.  A really big one.  Like the Strand.  But bigger.

I wish this headache would go away.

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1.  I read them in undergrad.  I still don't understand.

2.  Read this post on books.

I had a case in the NYLJ the other day.  I think it was June 13. Myrtle Ave. Chiropractic Pc v. Allstate Ins. Co., 056130/04.  Up until now, I've only had articles there, so, it's pretty cool.    Sure, it's nothing fancy like all you biglaw types deal with, but it's better than a kick to the balls.

Nothing particulary interesting has happened since my last post, at least as far as the CPLR goes.  I noticed that the New York Courts Reporter site now has RSS feeds. But when I tried to subscribe, it got all screwed up.  Until they straighten it out, its easier to just use the site.

I got a new phone; the HTC incredible.  I'm torn between it and the iphone, but I'm edging towards the HTC.  They keyboard is kind of crappy and it doesn't handle emails as well as the iphone or blackberry.  The Maps/ Directions app is great.  If you spend a lot of time emailing, go with a blackberry.  For everything else, go with an iphone or the HTC.  Personally, like I said, I edge towards the HTC.

Here is a gratuitious picture of my dog, Marvin. In the picture he is looking up at my youngest daughter, hoping that she will give him some of the slurpee that she stole from my wife's friend.

It's been awhile since I did my whole writing and motivational roundup.

• What's so bad about the passive voice?
• Analysis Paralysis
• Your atmospehere is causing you to fail
• 7 Steps to Success
• 100 Times a day
• 7 Must Read Lessons from Muhammad Ali
• 7 Must Read Success Lessons from Dale Carnegie

If the whole, sunshine up your ass thing, thing isn't for you, head over to Failblog, but make sure to click the link to Very Demotivational.  Not quite along the same lines is Crime & Federalism, where, after reading for a while, you will realize that you are a fat stupid hypocrite.

Should you want to help me, while you help yourself, get yourself a Dropbox account.  For each of you who opens an account (completely free, unless you want to pay for more storage) I get some extra space.  It's a really cool thing to have.  You can store a bunch of crap on the interwebs and access it from anywhere.  It comes in handy, trust me.

While I wrote this, I ate an entire box of maple cookies.  I felt that you need to know that.  Butterfly effect and all.

Hopefully some new and interesting decisions will come out this week.  Otherwise, you will just get more of this.

Finally, if you are reading this, and you just graduated law school, you are screwed.  Not because you are reading this, though, it probably doesn't help.

There's as good reason.  Well, there are two good reasons.  First, no much has come out lately.  Second, I switched firms.  Same area of law.  So, I've been busy dealing with that.

I'm going to try get some of the recent decisions up here today.  Check back tonight.

Oh, and if anyone is interested, my brother¹ started a company (T.I.N. Box Partners) that makes yardage book covers (it's a golf thing). They are pretty cool .  I don't do much in the way of golfing, but from what I hear, people keep track of yardage and what not.  The picture below has a scorecard in the cover, but it holds a little notebook normally.

1.  He is a golf pro or an assistant golf pro in Florida.  It's one or the other.

In my other thankless endeavor, I found out I was nominated for an award. I’m special.

Occasionally I see a decision and want to read the briefs or underlying papers.  if it's recent enough, the Appellate Division (the vast majority of the cases I post are Appellate Division cases) might still have the file.  The Second Department sends everything back to the lower court when they are done with it; not sure about everyone else.

So, let's assume that you want to pull the briefs.  First, you'll need either the index number of the Appellate Division number.  Sometimes both will be on the decision.  Sometimes neither.  Usually, at the very least it will have the Appellate Division number.

Let's start with a decision: Miller
v Bah, 2010 NY Slip Op 04753 (App. Div., 2nd, 2010)

If you have the Appellate Division number, you can go to the Appellate Division and see if the file is there.  If the file was send back to the lower court, you can take the index number and pull the file with that.  If you don't have either, the Appellate Division can probably get it for you if you tell them the caption.  

If all you have is the caption, and you don't want to talk to the Appellate Division, you can head over to elaw or ecourts.  I'm going to use ecourts for an example.   Head over there and click on Webcivil Supreme (the lower court was the supreme court).

Then click party search.

Now put in the name of one of the parties, or both.  I used both.  Initially I tried using one of the names, but the search results sucked.  I put Nassau County because that's where the case came from.

And the results.

If you click on the index number, you get the box on the left.  If you click "show motions" on the box on the left, you get the box on the right.  Aside from the parties matching up, notice that the date with the circle (on the left) corresponds with the date of the order in the decision.  It looks like we have the right case.

Now you have enough information to walk into the lower court and pull the papers. 

Using e-law is much easier, but you have to register.

It might be easier just to call the court.  But if you don't want to do that, and don't feel like registering for elaw, you can do this.

It's been argued that it takes 10,000¹ hours to become proficient in any given endeavor.  Maybe proficient isn't the right word.  Exceptional.  It takes about 416 days–assuming 24 hour work per day–to become exceptional.  For a lot of people, this is old news.  For others², this is old news and wrong.  As for me, I just think it's interesting.

And for some reason, it reminds me of David Foster Wallace and his book, Infinite Jest. If you read the book, you probably know what I mean.  David Foster Wallace committed suicide in 2008³. He was exceptional. It didn't matter.  Greatness is not the same thing as happiness.  It's easy to confuse the two. 

Strive to be great.  Put in your time.  Try to make sure that at the end of those 10,000 hours, that you haven't killed yourself in 1 hour increments.

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1. Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell.  Which, by the way is a great book.  Blink is better.  Read both.

2. Seth Godin

3.  The world is worse off for not having him here.

Most of my posts are short on substance and style.  I find a case, I cite the rule or section, and I copy and paste the portion that I think is relevant or interesting.  Sometimes I see a case worth writing about.  But more often that not, it would take far too much time to actually write about it.  Take Shady Grove for example.  That case is a big deal.  It deserves more attention than I gave it.  I just don't have the time.  Let's not forget that I have a job.  One that requires me to do work and not blog.  Nobody pays me to keep this up.

I start and stop projects with regular frequency.  Sometimes when I'm sitting at home or on the train I think of something and start writing because I need to get it on paper so I don't forget.  I keep on writing until I hit a roadblock, get tired, or one of my kids makes me put cartoons on the computer.  Spending a few hours on the train every day gives me time to think about stuff.  For whatever reason, my mind usually wanders towards the CPLR.

Right now I have a two page article on CPLR R. 5015, most of which is footnotes.  I think there are 14 of them and most of them take a few lines.  I was toying with the idea of turning into a law review¹ article or a law journal article.  It's interesting stuff.  Really.  But I run a 20% chance or so of finishing it.  In a couple of days I will find something else to start writing about and forget about 5015.  A few months from now, I will find the 5015 article and try to remember why I thought it was so damn interesting in the first place.  I won't remember.

In a way, you're lucky I don't write more.  I do that on the no-fault blog.  I already have two posts about people walking in front of me and me being aggravated by them.  For some reason it makes sense over there.  Over here it just seems silly.  I picture most of the readers here to be nerds, and not the sort of nerds who want to read about that stuff or who will find pictures of a bare chested Warren Buffet riding a gecko remotely amusing.  Maybe I have you all pegged as the wrong type of nerds.

I'm sure someone was wondering why.  Now you know.  There, don't you feel better.

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1.  A man can dream.

When I bought it I thought "wow, I can't believe I snagged this domain," and did the blog as an afterthought.  After too many months of not posting–because I don't have the time to update three blogs–I'm canceling the hosting.  http://www.newyorkevidence.com is officially dead.

If anyone is interesting in buying the domain, let me know.  Otherwise I will probably just have it point to this blog.

Most of you don't know, but there is a recent addition to 22 NYCRR 202.5, namely, (d)(1).

(d)(1) In accordance with CPLR 2102(c), a County Clerk and a chief clerk of the Supreme Court or County Court, as appropriate, shall refuse to accept for filing papers filed in actions and proceedings only under the following circumstances or as otherwise provided by statute, Chief Administrator's rule or order of the court:

(i) The paper does not have an index number;

(ii) The summons, complaint, petition, or judgment sought to be filed with the County Clerk contains an “et al“ or otherwise does not contain a full caption;

(iii) The paper sought to be filed with the County Clerk is filed in the wrong court; or

(iv) The paper is not signed in accordance with section 130-1.1-a of the Rules of the Chief Administrator.
The County Clerk shall require the payment of any applicable statutory fees, or an order of the Court waiving payment of such fees, before accepting a paper for filing.

There are only four reasons that a clerk and reject papers. Four. Well, there are others, but they require the Chief Administrator or a court order. You'd think CPLR R. 2102(c) would be enough. Rule 2102(c), for those that don't know and are curious, tells us, "A clerk shall not refuse to accept for filing any paper presented for that purpose except where specifically directed to do so by statute or rules promulgated by the chief administrator of the courts, or order of the court."

Why do we have this new rule? Good question. Article 78. There was one over in the Bronx and an earlier one in New York. I'm not sure why we don't see more of these. Enough of them, and you'd probably see less filings rejected for bizarre reasons.  Or at the very least, less clerks playing judge.