Stir-Craziness During the Pandemic
We're all going a little stir-crazy during this pandemic, but sometimes it seems that someone has turned the occasional oddness of the legal system…
June 01, 2020 at 12:04 PM
5 minute read
We're all going a little stir-crazy during this pandemic, but sometimes it seems that someone has turned the occasional oddness of the legal system up to 11. Recently, we had the U.S. Supreme Court making history with its first telephonic oral arguments, and all anyone can talk about is "the flush heard 'round the world." In the midst of oral arguments during Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, and just as attorney Roman Martinez was arguing that the right to robocall is protected by the First Amendment, the distinctive sound of someone flushing a toilet projected across the court's live audio. Was the culprit a tech-challenged justice who forgot to mute? We may never know, but the incident certainly gave new meaning to live streaming or "doo" process.
And speaking of toilet humor, a recent cease-and-desist letter provided a master class in the art of giving one's adversary crap. Attorney Kevin Christopher took exception to the company Poo-Pourri denigrating his poop spray-manufacturing client, Turdcules at a tradeshow. In a very entertaining cease-and-desist letter that covered everything from Poo-Pourri's insinuations about the toxicity of Turdcules' product to its attacking of Turdcules' bearded mascot, "The Craptain," Christopher made fun of the rival company's attempt to portray itself as "classy." Chiding his counterpart at Poo-Pourri that it was hard to regard a company that sought trademark rights to terms like "brown load" and "yule logs" as classy, Christopher reminded him to "just remember at the end of the day both companies sell poop spray, not diamonds." Whoever prevails in this dispute will certainly be flush with success, if not smelling like a rose.
Some might say this pandemic has left some of those in the legal profession with too much time on their hands, and that's definitely true of some law professors. University of Iowa law professor Gregory Shill came up with the "Yada Yada Law School," a free online 10-week lecture series through the prism of the beloved TV show "Seinfeld." The Zoom school isn't about nothing, but instead has volunteer professors from schools like Stanford teaching about contracts, constitutional law, criminal procedure, and other subjects using clips from "Seinfeld" to illustrate key concepts. Shill had no problem attracting professors with a fondness for Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine, for the series that starts June 3; he's filled such "positions" as the "Newman U.S.P.S. Professor of Law," the "Jackie Chiles Chair in Constitutional Criminal Procedure," and the "Art Vandelay Dean and Kenny Rogers Roasters Foundation Chair in Business Law." As Shill says, "The idea is to provide some entertainment during quarantine while offering some educational value." I can't argue with that, Professor Shill; we're all just "Puddy" in your hands. I bet students will get an education that's real and spectacular.
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