This odd and amusing tale is via Lowering the Bar, of course − although I think I read about it somewhere else, probably in a gossip column − but while it tells one of those anybody can sue anybody for anything (although it may not be a real lawsuit) stories, there’s a nice lesson here from the lawyer representing a putative defendant.
What’s the lesson? Smart, confident lawyers know how to communicate without jargon, but with a sense of humor and even a soupçon of not-entirely-sincere compassion:
“Like Your Client, This Claim Won’t Fly”
Think I’ll add a new category for legal correspondence, and this letter is going in it.
It’s from a lawyer representing Dan Bilzerian. I’d never heard of him, but Legal Cheek describes him as “Instagram playboy Dan Bilzerian” and “Instagram sensation Dan Bilzerian” so I’m betting he has something to do with Instagram. Anyway, a few weeks ago he threw a porn actress into a swimming pool, or almost into a swimming pool, and she hurt her ankle on the edge of the pool. Legal Cheek says that this incident “shocked the world,” but it didn’t. You know what else didn’t shock it? That this very rich person then got a letter from the allegedly injured porn star’s lawyer.
The letter of interest here is not that one, but the response letter, which turns out to have been written by Tom Goldstein, an experienced Supreme Court advocate who may be the most high-profile attorney ever to write a letter to a porn star’s lawyer.
Ah, but as the genius W.S. Gilbert wrote, “Things are seldom what they seem,” and this is one of those things. So read on: “Like Your Client, This Claim Won’t Fly” – Lowering the Bar.