Kinsella Law

Re this post–this article appeared today in New York Lawyer, listing my blog as a source of the voicemail left by Winston & Strawn associate Ankur Gupta [voicemail here]. I despise incompetence so actually tend to side with Gupta.

Some excerpts from the article:

An expletive-laden voice-mail message, reproduced on blog KinsellaLaw.com, left by an associate at one law firm for a colleague at another is making the rounds in cyberspace, with young lawyers seizing on the message as a symbol of declining civility within the profession.

In the message, Winston & Strawn associate Ankur Gupta in Chicago berates an associate in the New York office of Latham & Watkins for apparently complaining about changes Mr. Gupta and his colleagues requested on a mortgage document. Mr. Gupta tells his fellow lawyer that he should save his “[f**king] breath” and that if he continues to complain about the changes, Mr. Gupta will make his “life on this deal very unpleasant” by involving his client. The Winston & Strawn associate concludes by advising the Latham associate that if he will not act as a “monkey [f**king] scribe,” his work will be given to a secretary at Winston & Strawn.

Forwarded to lawyers across the nation, the message has unleashed a firestorm of Internet message board commentary.

In my view, all this noise about “the decline in civility” is part and parcel of lawyers’ attempt to keep their profession licensed so as to keep out competition. It is arrogance to believe civility is more the domain of attorneys than “normal” people.

Update: Related posts:

• Cold Callers
• More on humorous voicemails
• Re: Associate’s Foulmouthed Voicemail Makes the Rounds on the Internet
• Professional Courtesy
• Lawyers and Summer Associates

According to the attorney who sent it to me: this was a voicemail message “that an associate at Winston & Strawn left for an associate at Latham. Latham is representing a borrower in a real estate transaction and W&S; represents the lender. I don’t know what correspondence preceded the voicemail but as I understand it, W&S; asked Latham to make some cosmetic changes to mortgages a day before closing and Latham responded by email that they thought the changes were unnecessary. The response from W&S; is pretty unbelievable–a pretty abusive voicemail. This is soon to be part of law firm urban legend along with that summer associate from Skadden [I earlier guessed–wrongly–that they meant here Tucker Max’s story, The true story behind “The Now Infamous Tucker Max Charity Auction Debacle” email –SK]–it’s already making it’s way around the email circuit. Enjoy!”

And along those lines, an oldie but a goodie: Voicemail message, with increasingly frustrated obscenities, purportedly left by trademark applicant/appellant with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB); resulting Final Order concerning disclipinary action of the attorney (linked here).

Physics Today has free guides to The Fundamental Physical Constants (latest recommended values for the constants based on the 2002 adjustment); and Guide for Metric Practice (summarizes the SI system of units).

• 6,765,948: VCSEL assembly with edge-receiving optical devices
• 6,765,939: Multiple reflectivity band reflector with non-uniform profile and laser system employing same for laser wavelength monitoring
• 6,763,053: Laser having multiple reflectivity band reflector
• 6,763,046: Method and system employing multiple reflectivity band reflector for laser wavelength monitoring
• 6,746,777: Alternative substrates for epitaxial growth
• 6,736,550: Housing for passively aligning an optical fiber with a lens

Although I personally like footnotes and find them indispensible in academic writing (and much better than endnotes, which I despise), I’ve always liked the following comments by Bryan Garner, in The Elements of Legal Style (page 93). Garner notes that although footnotes can usefully refer you to other references, “you can hardly ignore, at the foot of every page, the notes that ‘run along, like little angry dogs barking at the text.’ These days, the notes are more likely Great Danes than chihuahuas.” [Quoting S.M. Crothers, “That History Should Be Readable,” in The Gentle Reader 172 (1903; repr. 1972).

U.S. Pat. No. 6,730,538, issued May 4, 2004: Fabricating electronic devices using actinide oxide semiconductor materials (University of Tennessee Research Corporation);

U.S. Pat. No. 6,735,224, issued today (5/11/04): “Planar lightwave circuit for conditioning tunable laser output” (Applied Optoelectronics, Inc.)–my first one as a co-inventor.

These and others listed here.

Another great and free patent downloading tool: www.pat2pdf.com (thanks to Martin Meder). And courtesy the Nipper, you can pull down FREE pdf copies of EPO/PCT filings here.

Others available here.

Excellent article by Gary North, Don’t Invest in Copyright-Protected Companies.

I’ll be on the panel “Ethics Issues in Licensing” at the upcoming PLI seminar, Understanding the Intellectual Property License 2003, Hotel Intercontinental, Houston, Sep. 18 – 19, 2003.