San Diego lawyers to tickle funny bone

03/02/07

San Diego lawyers to tickle funny bone

How would the title - funny lawyer - look on a top attorney's profile? Unsure? Anyway, this time the joke's not on the lawyer, but from the lawyer!

Outside of the courtroom, San Diego lawyers now seek to battle their wits on-stage. Nine lawyers in the area have folded their ties for the moment, attempting to win the illustrious title of funniest San Diego lawyer. The competition is to be hosted by the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program (SDVLP). It envisages showcasing a different side of the legal community through their stand-up comedy competition, says sdbj.com. The competition "LAF-Off", also a fund-raiser, will be held March 8 at the San Diego House of Blues.

Heather L. Rosing, lawyer with Klinedinst Attorneys at Law, and president-elect of the San Diego County Bar Association, will act as LAF-Off's event co-chair. Rosing said the primary aim is to bring all attorneys under one roof and make them aware about program's mission and fund raising. The second aim is to help fund the nonprofit SDVLP. This organization provides legal assistance to people in the area who cannot afford to pay for their legal needs. Each year, SDVLP provides approximately 6,500 clients millions of dollars worth of free legal assistance through 20 staff members and more than 3,000 volunteers. Retired Superior Court judges Gil Harrelson, Herbert Hoffman, and Alice Sullivan will judge the contestants.

Each contestant will be required to perform for five minutes. "Programs like these help bring out the light-hearted side of these intense professionals," said California Western School of Law professor Ruth Hargrove and one of the contestants. "Litigators tend to be performers," said past member of the California Bar Board of Governors Jim Pokorny another contestant, adding "I am going to be spontaneous." The organizers hope to see a good sell.

Troutman Sanders to open office in China
Atlanta-based law firm Troutman Sanders, LLP, will open an office in Shanghai. This is the first Atlanta-based law firm to open shop in mainland China. The firm already operates a Hong Kong office and the two offices will now employ approximately 40 people.

Troutman Sanders' Shanghai office will be led by Edward J. Epstein, Office Managing Partner. Epstein has more than two decades of experience practicing law in China. He will be assisted by Coburn R. to lead the office whose initial staff strength will be 11 legal professionals.

The firm's decision to open a China office comes from its clients wanting to expand business into the continent's emerging financial hub. It is hopeful that the new location will allow the firm to serve its Asia-Pacific clients with legal assistance in mergers and acquisitions, foreign direct investment, private equity and venture capital, and corporate law. The firm's Hong Kong office will help the new office to assist its North American and European-based clients with investments and operations in Asia. It will also help the Asia-based clients with their U.S. and Asian investments and operations.

FUN NEWS

Stealing a soda to sail through life
Since that fateful day on March 3, 1934, when John Dillinger threatened his way out of the Lake County jail brandishing a gun blackened by shoe polish and carved from a bar of soap, the jailers in Crown Point have worked hard to grow bonds of attachment and prevent inmates from even thinking about leaving the jail. In fact, of recent, the jail has become so popular that it has become overcrowded. The recent population explosion inside the jail compelled the authorities, who exhibit a strange reluctance in giving up their inmates, to have a review of inmate files. Out popped Edward Hammer-Perez whose recorded residential address was the state psychiatric hospital, and whose weak mind had been influenced by all that love in the County jail. Before stealing a soda to get the Court convict him to his personal paradise, Perez had reportedly declared that he had just come out from jail and felt determined to go back there again. The inmate's review found that Perez had been in for 17 months just on the pretext of stealing a soda.

Perez gained admission on July 2, 2005, but when his psychiatrist visited the jail in February 2006, the Jail authorities, influenced by their strange reluctance syndrome, reported that Perez was not in the jail. When the psychiatrist went to the judge, the defense attorney submitted that Perez was already free. The jail authorities later said that they had kept Perez in because they never had a release order. The judge said she never made a release order because the defense reported Perez to be free. However, nothing explains why the jail authorities misled the psychiatrist except the strange reluctance syndrome. Seems some other people are more in need of psychiatric help than poor Perez.