This is no lawyer joke. Honest: Lawyers...
This is no lawyer joke. Honest: Lawyers can’t act like jerks. It’s the law.
The L.A. Daily Journal reports that a largely forgotten paragraph in Section 6068 of the State Bar Act declares “it is the duty of an attorney” to refrain from exhibiting an “offensive personality.”
“If it was enforced, we’d have one-third of the lawyers we have today,” former L.A. County Bar Assn. President Richard Chernick quipped to the Journal.
The State Bar provision appears to date back to the last century when courtrooms were often violent arenas, especially in a frontier town such as L.A.
Historian W. W. Robinson recounted a pre-Civil War incident in L.A. in which “angry attorneys began drawing not only upon inkstands, but also upon canes, chairs and finally pistols (as) the marshal tried in vain to restore order.”
Judge William G. Dryden, meanwhile, “crouched . . . out of range of flying objects and bullets (and) yelled: ‘Shoot away, damn you! And to hell with all of you!’ ”
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A kinder and gentler brand of attorney: Although courtrooms are now more peaceful, L.A. attorney Patricia Phillips declared a few years ago that there were still too many “personal dogfights” between barristers. Phillips, a former member of the State Bar’s Board of Governors, suggested in 1989 that the bar adopt a voluntary code of conduct for barristers. It would include these provisions:
* “I will return telephone calls.”
* “I will not be late for court or for appointments.”
* “I will cooperate with my opponent as much as possible.”
* “I will never take cheap shots.”
We’re sure the State Bar will get back to her any day now.
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Dead ducks?Cary Baker of Studio City saw the appropriate delivery vehicle parked outside a Hollywood restaurant. (See photo)
New gang in town: Our item on the building with the message that says, “Graffiti No Longer Accepted Here!” brought a note from Sherry Gottlieb. She owned the now-defunct sci-fi bookstore, “A Change of Hobbit,” in Santa Monica.
Gottlieb recalled that years ago the business moved into a brick building whose back wall was covered with “several competing gang graffiti tags.” She blotted out the graffiti and enlisted a local youth to spray-paint the loading door with the store’s name (taken from the Tolkien children’s classic), plus the initials “SM,” in gang-style lettering
She adds: “The local gangs apparently respected our tag because no new graffiti appeared on the building for the nine years we were there.”
No doubt, the store’s tag appealed to the child in every gang member.
miscelLAny:
As a promo for the 1930s-era film, “King of the Hill,” a studio will hold a marbles tournament Saturday at noon at the Century City Shopping Center. A press agent, caught up in the excitement of the event, exulted that “shooting marbles is an alternative to shooting drugs or guns!” Just say marbles?