I'm reminded of an anecdote about a lawyer who retired long before I started to practice. Back in the 1950's and 60's, when everybody was polite as can be and the practice of law was genteel and collegial, he found that many of the polite letters he received from lawyers merited the same polite response, so he had a rubber stamp made to facilitate his prompt reply. Afterward, when he received a letter proposing something he found disagreeable, he would apply the stamp and promptly return the letter to its sender: "F--- You, Detailed Letter to Follow".
Ah, the good old days.
That said, it was pretty dumb to say "shut the fuck up". When you're trying to make the other side look bad, you want to look as good as you can and not hand them ammo. This is a textbook case of why you don't let loose with F-bombs, not because of the delicate sensibilities from lawyers, but because you don't want to be explaining to the judge why it was no biggie.
ReplyDeleteI can't argue with that.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that in retrospect even he wold agree not only with that, but that a better course of action would have been to end the call when the client started to talk, and to make clear that the client was not to participate in any future phone conferences unless mutually agreed between counsel.