In Civil-Contempt Cases, Jail Time Can Stretch On for Years

Ah, my favorite legal topic covered over in the WSJ…civil contempt. If you get into court much and thus need to deal with entering orders and inevitably enforcing orders ya better know your 4 types of contempt and how to get them and how to defend them.

Do Ya Need a New Calendar?

One would think that this wouldn’t be too big of an issue for us well-educated legal professionals but for the record in the first 35 days of 2009 I’ve been party to 3 separate cases where opposing attorneys have failed to appear. I’m not sure that I’ve ever had that happen a single time in the past and now three times in just over a month.

I’m not sure why, in one case I think the lawyer’s client was unhappy with a result and may have stopped paying but you still MUST formally withdraw. Why open the door to a letter from the ARDC? If you have a record-keeping problem, calendar in two places one likely digital and one hard copy…simple, next question.

So Here's What Happened...

And I think it's an instructive tale for you small firm practitioners out there: I took a long vacation (10 days) to Michigan's Upper Peninsula and I've (and this blog has too) paid the price since my return. I have no complaints and I don't think the Firm's suffered in the least, I just haven't had a lot of extra blog time. On a very positive note, January '09 has been one of the busiest months in our history and would expect for our monthly profit to show that (Hasn't everyone heard the news that the economy is soft and dissolving marriages/financial partnerships might be best delayed??).