Lawyers Behaving All Kinds Of Badly

Episode Notes

Transcript

[Music]

Intro:

Joe Patrice:°Hello.

Kathryn Rubino:°Hello.

Joe Patrice:°Welcome to another edition of the Thinking Like a Lawyer.  I’m, Joe Patrice from Above the Law.  podcast.  I’m Joe Patrice, that’s Kathryn Rubino.  We’re from Above the Law, that’s Kathryn Rubino.

Kathryn Rubino:°Also of Above The Law.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah, also.  Yes, and we’re here to talk about some of the big stories of the week in the legal world. Something to digest if you will; of the happenings across the legal landscape, yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:°What did you do this weekend Joe?

Joe Patrice:°I — 

Kathryn Rubino:°Are you just going to answer the question?

Joe Patrice:°What are you talking about? I’m confused.

Kathryn Rubino:°I thought there would be a sound effect that I’d have to grumble about before you answered the question, because it’s our small talk segment.

Joe Patrice:°I mean this is not that because like, I’m not ready for that.

Kathryn Rubino:°you’re not ready to answer the very easy question of, “How was your weekend?”

Joe Patrice:°No, you asked what I did, and that’s different than, “How was it?” And I feel like, if I were to say, “How it was?” Then I’d say, 

[Music]

Kathryn Rubino:°By the way, you’re welcome.

Joe Patrice:°More enjoyable though —

Kathryn Rubino:°You’re welcome.

Joe Patrice:°I did not consider this our small talk segment, but you just jumped right into it.

Kathryn Rubino:°We did the intro and then do Small Talk, that’s what we do.

Joe Patrice:°Right. But I don’t think we were done with the intro, like where we have –okay.

Kathryn Rubino:°This is who we are.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:°That’s the intro, that’s the intro. It’s not rocket science here, buddy.

Joe Patrice:°Okay.

Kathryn Rubino:°Buddy, how was your weekend?

Joe Patrice:°Better than my weakest turning out to be.

Kathryn Rubino:°Well, I know you’re an Oregon fan.

Joe Patrice:°Yes.

Kathryn Rubino:°And we’ve had a pretty notable college football paly.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah, it seemed it turned out pretty well. That was a result that I was certainly though was, — I pretty much though that was how the game was going go.

Kathryn Rubino:°Did you? Did you really?

Joe Patrice:°When Oregon’s best defensive players were healthy and when they’re all were hurt, I though, I thought, well no. But I guess, even without the best players on the team, it turned out —

Kathryn Rubino:°Yeah, Kayvon Thibodeaux was out. Oregon’s probably, the number one overall draft focus was all.

Joe Patrice:°Certainly in the top three, yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:°Certainly, what a what a lot of people are saying at this point, “Aw, it’s a high ankle sprain, but somehow, still managed to take out the number three in the nation, the Ohio State.”

Joe Patrice:°Oh, yeah no. What I mean, formerly number three I guess which —

Kathryn Rubino:°Oh, yeah that’s true. I guess, the new rankings are —

Joe Patrice:°now, brings Oregon o four and then, yeah, and we’ll move on from that.

Kathryn Rubino:°Nicely played, so as if the season will end right now, —

Joe Patrice:°Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:°– Oregon will be at the playoffs.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah, there you go.

Joe Patrice:° Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:° I mean you know.

Joe Patrice:° It doesn’t end right now. A blast.

Kathryn Rubino:° It’s week two. It’s week two. I know it.

Joe Patrice:° But how about you? How was your —

Kathryn Rubino:° I guess, well it sounds worth talking about sporting, I was very upset about the results of the F1 Race.

Joe Patrice:° Okay.

Kathryn Rubino:° Totally not upset. Okay, so. Daniel Ricciardo came in first and then Joe Norris came in second both of them McLaren which is perfectly lovely. Their delightful followers on the Instagram/social media they seem absolutely delightful, but I was very upset because Max Verstappen current points leader crashed into Lewis Hamilton, my favorite driver and the defending world champion.

Joe Patrice:° It did seem like a fairly ill-advised move.

Kathryn Rubino:° Yeah. Well, he’s going to get a three-grid penalty during the next race.

Joe Patrice:° Okay.

Kathryn Rubino:° Which I like so many people out in the world only became a fan at F1 Racing as a result of the Netflix TV show Drive to Survive which I highly recommend. It’s super fun and gets you up early on weekends.

Joe Patrice:° Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:° Because they’re generally international I think there’s one. This year, there’s one U.S. race, but generally they’re internal so, you know, other China zones are a thing. So, you got to get up early to pay attention and it’s a lot of fun. And I have to say as a Mercedes fan, they have the best colors. They have such great colors. It’s like this delightful like sea green/teal like kind of a color, and black which I mean —

Joe Patrice:° Classics.

Kathryn Rubino:° –not it’s just freaking cool.

Joe Patrice:° Fair.

Kathryn Rubino:°So, I’m here for it. It’s like a greener shade of like that teal color. I like it a lot. 

Joe Patrice:° Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:° And I really enjoy wearing their paraphernalia.

Joe Patrice:° And welcome everybody just joining us on this weekly pantone podcast where we talk about different shades, minute differences between shades of gray.

Kathryn Rubino:° These things matter. Listen, just because you don’t care about copyright law, it doesn’t mean.

Joe Patrice:° I do care about copyright law, what?

Kathryn Rubino:° I’m just saying, you feel like you know, the specific shade you use in your in your trademarks is important.

Joe Patrice:° Well, now that seems kind of quasi-legal.

Kathryn Rubino:° I did something here.

Joe Patrice:° A concept which means it is no longer 

[Music]

Joe Patrice:° Small Talk time.

Kathryn Rubino:° You’re but I deserve some credit for queueing you up for a thing that I dislike.

Joe Patrice:° No.

Kathryn Rubino:° Because I care. I care.

Joe Patrice:° That’s a testament to how much I’ve gotten into that brain. Yeah, I know it’s just like a poison that has taken root —

Kathryn Rubino:° Now, you are in fact poison.–

Joe Patrice:° — now complicit in your own —

Kathryn Rubino:° — in your toxic haven.

Joe Patrice:° Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:° Yeah, how about that.

Joe Patrice:° Speaking of toxic, I guess, 

Kathryn Rubino:° Or poisons.

Joe Patrice:° Yeah, 

Kathryn Rubino:° Yeah, that was one of our bigger stories of the week. A former —

Joe Patrice:° And now you might think that what the big story would be the Britney Spears Conservatory shift ending and that was the toxic link which you was actually a story, but not one that was like all that was huge for us, but one that at least you should be aware of that that conservative shift is ending. But the actual toxic transition we were doing is this.

Kathryn Rubino:° Yeah. Which you know, kudos for taking another story. Yeah, but a former big law attorney Elghareeb who worked at a trio of different law firms as an associate through the years, Allen Ovrey, and Herbert Smith Freehills and Milbank was arrested and charged. He apparently injected food at three different grocery stores in West London with blood.

Joe Patrice:° Okay, I have questions.

Kathryn Rubino:° Yeah, I don’t think you’re the only one, but I’ll do what I can.

Joe Patrice:° So, I guess why is not a good one to start with because that’s probably wrapped up in a bunch of stuff, but let’s try. Why?

Kathryn Rubino:° Unclear.

Joe Patrice:° Okay.

Kathryn Rubino:° So, he went to three different grocery stores apparently on the same block in London and injected food with blood although the authorities are still doing analysis to find out what exactly was in this syringe and went through and injected and then at the third one, he also threw eggs, and at that point is he was arrested.

Joe Patrice:° Man, this is like the worst ending to a Scooby Doo. He would have gotten away with it if weren’t for those pesky eggs.

Kathryn Rubino:° Well, unclear route that he would have gotten away with it. But yeah, and so, there was like an alert that went out for anyone who purchased any food in any of those grocery stores that day to just throw it all out. They didn’t know exactly the scope of it when it initially happened. And yeah, he’s charge with contaminating or interfering with goods.

Joe Patrice:° Were these like meat products were like, it’s blood mixing with other blood or I mean, like he’s giving you like a Jell-O Twinkie, like what’s happening here?

Kathryn Rubino:° It’s unclear exactly —

Joe Patrice:° Okay.

Kathryn Rubino:° — what was injected, but there were food packages that were sent off for the chemical testing, and I guess, we’ll find out more. As the case goes through, he’s expected in court later in this month. He was remanded to custody, and a plea hearing is scheduled later this week, so I don’t have like actually any information about what he says about what happened, but yeah, that’s what we know right now.

Joe Patrice:° Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:° I mean, listen I’ve been Above the Law about for a few years now. You’ve been at this job even longer than I have; this has to be the most bizarre big law story.

Joe Patrice:° Oh, that’s something I’ll bet.

Kathryn Rubino:° It’s certainly is.

Joe Patrice:° It’s certainly up there. But that sounds like, that sounds like something we’ve got to research. But I mean —

Kathryn Rubino:° This is, this is pretty big. It’s just bizarre.  I don’t know what happened? I don’t know why? I don’t know why anyone would. I mean, that’s the kind of thing that you would – that would be jaw dropping no matter who it was. But when you – I don’t know. I guess there’s just some kind of weird expectation that somebody who’s an attorney and worked at a prestigious location would not do this. But that is a lie that we tell ourselves.

Joe Patrice:° I’m just really hoping that what was going on here is that, he was deeply embroiled in a lawsuit against on defending another grocery store, and this is all for work.

Kathryn Rubino:° You think this is litigation.

Joe Patrice:° I’m hoping this was strategy because otherwise, it’s really disturbing.

Kathryn Rubino:° I find it more counter more disturbing if it’s litigation strategy.

Joe Patrice:° I mean —

Kathryn Rubino:° And we don’t know what was in it either if it was poison, if it was it’s just something that would just be just an additive. Who’s to say exactly what it was. But I guess, scientists are to say, and will and some point will in fact say it. But as of right now, that’s an unknown. It’s just a bonkers case that is out there.,

Joe Patrice:°Yeah, well.

Kathryn Rubino:°I mean, there’s not much more anything to say, but that that happens, that happens. You should be aware.

Joe Patrice:°So, amateur food scientists, a big law turned to amateur food scientist.

Kathryn Rubino:°That’s one way to look at it. For sure.

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Kathryn Rubino:°Yeah, that was a story.

Joe Patrice:°I mean that seems like, the most bizarre thing that a lawyer could possibly have done in recent memory, and even like within the confines of the whole run of us in this place. It can’t possibly be that there’s another story of an insane lawyer within the course of the last week.

Kathryn Rubino:°Well, I’m not going to use the word insane because I think that that has a Patrice: ° lot of connotations and I don’t think we know anyone’s mental state at this point that’s involved in either of these of cases. But it is certainly eyebrow raising, let’s say.

Yeah, this is actually a follow up story to one that I reported on back in May of this year, when a Vermont Carrie Legus was arrested for brandishing a gun at a grocery store, which not advised.

Joe Patrice:°What is it with grocery stores.

Kathryn Rubino:°That’s true these are grocery store segment apparently, but yeah, she was arrested back in May, because she brandished a gun, because she was apparently uptight or did not enjoy this COVID protocols at the store. There was a sign that advised folks about social distancing at the store, she apparently shook the sign and then brandished a gun, and the clerk of the store is the one who reported that, apparently police have also said that after she was confronted, she has told police that everyone at the road is military and she though that someone who was hiding behind the sign shooting at the road to be clear the only gun was hers, and it was loaded in fact.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:°So, that was the story back in May. We knew all the details then, the update is that the Vermont Professional Responsibility Board recommended a 9-month sentence from the practice of law. She has been on interim suspension since the incident in May, but apparently 9-months is what they deemed was appropriate in this case, but the Disciplinary Board also noted that the attorney improperly claims Fifth Amendment privileges and would not answer any questions during their inquiry into exactly what happened during the incident, and they said that also played a role in their decision to issue the 9-month suspension. Although, it is appealable and it’s unclear whether if not if she will appeal it, and also, it hasn’t happened yet, but it looks like a 9-months suspension is what’s in the cards for her.

Joe Patrice:° I mean you know, that’s just the military was trying to do to her at the whole time.

Kathryn Rubino:°Well, actually she actually blamed her ex-husband.

Joe Patrice:°Oh, that’s the new? Okay.

Kathryn Rubino:°No, that was for another thing that she said that it was all her ex-husband’s doing. So, I don’t know.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:°But yeah, that was an interesting turn.

Joe Patrice:°I mean look, we’ve seen a lot of these and it’s complaining about COVID protocols. We’ve seen a lot of these —

Kathryn Rubino:°Mm-hmm.

Joe Patrice:°–incidents. Usually, it’s a funny video of somebody going wild at Trader Joe’s usually not a loaded gun involved, but —

Kathryn Rubino:°It does change things a little bit.

Joe Patrice:°You know, I mean?

Kathryn Rubino:°It’s not great.

Joe Patrice:°Everything’s bigger in Vermont, I guess. Pushing it a little bit further. Yeah, I know. He was able to boil down the unnecessary violent COVID protest to its barest essence, and streamline it if you will.

Kathryn Rubino:°Streamline?

Joe Patrice:°Yeah, which is why we’re going to hear from the folks at Lexicon.

[Music]

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Joe Patrice:°All right. So, I guess you wanted me real quick to talk about something else and then we’ll transition to your thing. The one thing that you have asked me to at least mention because at least it’s out there and wild. A prominent lawyer in South Carolina was shot last week in the head. He thankfully for him, he survived. It appears to have grazed him, but he was shot while trying to change his tire. This is extra weird as it appears as though the tire might have been tampered with so that it would go out so that he would be able to be ambushed on the side of the road.

Kathryn Rubino:°A-ha!

Joe Patrice:°This comes a few months after his wife and son were found murdered.

Kathryn Rubino:° A-ha!

Joe Patrice:°His son at the time under suspicion in the death of another person, and there are —

Kathryn Rubino:° A-ha!

Joe Patrice:°– also some rumors that the son had also killed a housekeeper in the past at least was suspicions that were tossed around which then never went anywhere because the powers that be in the area decided not to press charges, and it’s at this point that I mentioned that this family is what were one of the most powerful like legal families in that area in South Carolina. They have a firm of their own which this lawyer and many of his family work at. He no longer works there as once he was shot in the head, and it started coming out that he’d apparently been taking money from the firm

Kathryn Rubino:° A-ha!

Joe Patrice:°He has now consented to have his license suspended in the interim.

Kathryn Rubino:° A-ha!

Joe Patrice:°It’s been a real rollercoaster of this story, and it all comes to —

Kathryn Rubino:°This feels like somebody over wrote some movie of the week.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah, yeah. It really does, right?

Kathryn Rubino:°This is, this is, that is the most bonkers —

Joe Patrice:°Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:°– story that we’ve discussed. I mean, tragic also because people are actually dead in it, but wow —

Joe Patrice:°– Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:°That’s a moment. That’s a moment.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah. Just to add anything else to it, the guy’s other brother is apparently been involved to a hit-and-run a few years ago too.

Kathryn Rubino:°What?

Joe Patrice:°But like, it was– yeah. Well, it gets weirder. The speculation around the hit-and-run is that, it might have been like, intentional, because there might have been a relationship there. Like, it’s all kinds of crazy. Like, the more I start reading about these lawyers which I was covering it’s just because you know, 

Kathryn Rubino:°A lawyer —

Joe Patrice:°– a guy got shot in the head —

Kathryn Rubino:°– a lawyer got shot in the head and survived, and that’s probably enough to like piqued our interest, and maybe —

Joe Patrice:°– Right, and then it just got deeper, and deeper and very like – you got me thinking of was that midnight in the garden of good and evil book just like how in that quintessential southern town like everything was like extra messed up, and that the further you dig, but that was exactly how I felt as I started going down the rabbit hole of reading old South Carolina news clippings about these people to like, figure out —

Kathryn Rubino:°Wow.

Joe Patrice:°– what was going on. It’s some weird stuff. The stuff about the brother I hope it’s not true and that’s fine, but obviously, there was some talk about this prosecuting him for that hit-and-run in the past which then never went anywhere so, hopefully that was the correct result and not a shady result. And yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:°Wow, that’s intense.

Joe Patrice:°So, we’re following

Kathryn Rubino:° That’s intense. That’s a hell a lot to dela with.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah. It’s a horrible set of circumstances that seems to be compiling on top of each other.

Kathryn Rubino:°I mean, I will be legit to be surprised if Ryan Murphy doesn’t do something with this.

Joe Patrice:°Right, yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:°But this feels, this feels like prime inspiration.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah.  yeah.  So, yeah. There’s that, but that’s just an interlude that you wanted me to quickly run down.

Kathryn Rubino:°We’ll we’re on the subject of bonkers stories and I thought it made some sense.

Joe Patrice:° I mean look, I didn’t want to make it sound like a kind of hacky. Though speaking of people who are hacks, you have the story about —

Kathryn Rubino:°Oh, you see I was going to go with murder. Amy Coney marriage is murder irony.

Joe Patrice:°Oh, there you go. That was good and high flying too, whichever.

Kathryn Rubino:°Yeah.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:°Let’s just go with it. Anyway yes, a big story happened over the weekend was Amy Coney Barrett spoke at an event saying that her goal was to convince folks that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.

Joe Patrice:°Oh?

Kathryn Rubino:°I mean, a big eyeroll right there. But the thing that really got me is the location of this speech which she could have given basically anywhere.

Joe Patrice:°Yes, I mean obviously, there were many places where she could have given the speech.

Kathryn Rubino:°And she’s actually concerned about the court being perceived partisan.

Joe Patrice:°Right.

Kathryn Rubino:°She could make that speech at any university probably, right?

Joe Patrice:°I’m sure.

Kathryn Rubino:°No, she didn’t. Well, it was at a university, it was at University of Louisville, but it was at the 30^th of the McConnel Center. 

Joe Patrice:°Oh, I wonder if that in any relation to Mitch McConnel?

Kathryn Rubino:°It is.

Joe Patrice:°Oh, is it?

Kathryn Rubino:°It is the same character.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah, I assume he wasn’t there.

Kathryn Rubino:°Oh, he was looking on.

Joe Patrice:°Oh, he’s sitting up there with her.

Kathryn Rubino:°Right there, right there, the pictures. I mean the pictures. God bless Twitter, right? Some of these images that people and memes that have happened as a result have been very, very entertaining. So, I highly approve of that. And yeah, I know with Mitch O’Connell, the very man who kept Acholia’s seat vacant for almost a year, because he didn’t want Obama to appoint a justice and then turned around and immediately in record breaking pace confirmed Amy Connie Barrett into Ruth Bader Ginsburg seat. That man, that man is who they were honoring in his center. And I think fixed the courts’ Gabe Ruth said, “You know this has every look and feel of a partisan event and if she actually cares about that, and maybe not speaking and have something that looks and feels like a partisan event, is a place to start if you actually care about the court being perceived as non-partisan.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah, I mean it really is. It raises the question of whether of not she’s really as dumb as a lot of the talk around it, was or if she’s like intentionally just bad faith trolling people. 

Kathryn Rubino:°She has a lifetime appointment, why not troll?

Joe Patrice:°I guess, it’s just feels—I don’t know.

Kathryn Rubino:°Heading the majority of mainstream coverage has been not – verily it mentions the fact that it takes place there, but without any sort of commentary that, “Hey, it’s just Amy Connie Barrett calls for non-partisan court.” Like, that’s how the majority of the outlets are covering it.

Joe Patrice:°Well, I mean, yeah. Okay, we’ll here’s the thing of that, and I’m the first to criticize the way in which mainstream media covers the court. I do think that at least for instance, I think it was the U.S.A. Today that it was the headline that I saw which I thought while maintaining the journalistic I believe, unnecessary practice of forced objectivity where they just pretend or we can’t talk about these things even though we see them. I do think that there was a clever editorial, because they made sure that the picture that they went with, we’re not a bunch of partisan hacks had bot her and McConnel with in the frame.  So, you could see that that was – 

Kathryn Rubino:°Sure.

Joe Patrice:°and I thought like that was a subtle move. But I —

Kathryn Rubino:°I think that any coverage absolutely, one hundred percent needs to plainly state McConnel’s widely-hypocritical stance on filling Supreme Court seats when you look at Scalia’s seat and Republican’s with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  I think you don’t mention that, you’re doing a grave disservice to the people that you supposedly serve.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah. As I’ve said before, I’m one of those people who thinks one of those seats should have been filled —

Kathryn Rubino:°Yeah.

Joe Patrice:°– by one of them, but not both.

Kathryn Rubino:°Correct.  I mean, yes. I think everyone who isn’t —

Joe Patrice:°Right.

Kathryn Rubino:°– a part of the hack thinks that.

Joe Patrice:°The rule has to be one thing or the other.

Kathryn Rubino:°Correct. I don’t think anyone who is not literally a partisan hack object to that.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah and this is why I think that Staggart’s term limits can fix this problem long term. But on the side, I want to go back to the journalism question, because I do think it’s interesting because there is there is this forced objectivity which is problematic and leaves to the situation where we don’t get a good view of what’s happening. I do think though, and this is one of those moments, and maybe this is just Twitter being twitter-life not real life, I feel as though as the backlash to those stories has been and fairly widespread. I mean, in my threads, I just keep seeing people not really even in the weeds of legal news people pop up with you know, “She was at McConnel’s.” Like, everyone seems to be focusing on that fact, and at least in the secondhand news market as I’m going to call it. And I think that, that is part of the news cycle in the world of social media too.

Kathryn Rubino:°But I do think that there’s a vast difference between Twitter-life and real life.  I think that most people are not actually on Twitter as ubiquitous as it may be.

Joe Patrice:°Sure.

Kathryn Rubino:°And everything is you know, there is all the research that says that, people don’t read the corrections or don’t read the follow up or if they do, they don’t stick with them, and that what ticks in folk’s memory is the first instance that they hear a story, and the details that are chosen in that first iteration. So, I think that that’s really problematic and more of the point, even if there is backlash, and even if people are appropriately contrite, don’t do it in the first place.

Joe Patrice:°Right.

Kathryn Rubino:°I mean, we’re in a real bad place in terms of journalism right now, right? Like, the whole backlash and slash and existence of the term “fake news,” right? Has really caused genuine trouble with our country, and I think that this doesn’t help the problem.

Joe Patrice:°No, it certainly does. I get your point and you seem to suddenly be making a reference to story there your point about how people’s reactions are the first thing they see, and there is something to that, and I wrote a piece on this this week about the way local news talks about criminal justice, and the ways it phrases. You know, the story was something along the lines of, “The police wanted to search his house, but he said, ‘he wanted to talk to his lawyer’”, and I’m like “Get it? What?” That is how that works.

Kathryn Rubino:°So, it should work, yeah.

Joe Patrice:°But in the way in which media can kind of subtly invade the mind with the idea of these things will be constitution things are annoyances rather than the actual way the whole country is supposed to work. So, I wrote that story and I need not really go into that deeply. But I one points that I made in there that you kind of referenced in this was, “Yeah, the first thing you see is what you remember.” Which is why I give credit to the folks who even though the story was kind of strait- laced, that made that point of having the picture be there with headline, “We’re not a bunch of partisan hacks.” I felt like that was very much the flipside of this where somebody utilized the headline and image as a way to convey a message that may not have come across the article proper, but was worthy of being picked up by people who would see it on a first impression.

Kathryn Rubino:° Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm. Wow, I think that being more explicit is probably a good think, but I hear what you’re saying.

Joe Patrice:°Well no, I’ve never been much of a fan of —

Kathryn Rubino:°Yeah, subtlety is also a loss to a lot of folks.

Joe Patrice:°I feel like objectivity in journalism is a largely false concept being factual is different.

Kathryn Rubino:° Mm-hmm. That other side is yeah, —

Joe Patrice:°Yeah, factual is not the same as objective and objective is just a way to mute her the access to that. And like, what’s bizarre about is, everybody who champions this dumb “J school” concept, it’s like, when you think about like, when you think about like, the people who are the people of journalism, they’re all people who went explicitly opposed to that, right. Your Edward R. Morrows of the world works sitting around and going, “Well, I mean Joan McCarthy has a point.” 

Kathryn Rubino:°But McCarthy says, yeah. Yeah no, you’re right.

Joe Patrice:°It’s like the whole journalism’s, — because it’s a lot of times your view of the any kind of field is who you view as your heroes, and when that’s at odds with what you view as your stated philosophy, I think that’s weird, but nonetheless. But speaking of journalism school, I will toss this one out another little nugget, not really a full story, but there was a tweet that went the other day where somebody as saying, that Wall Street Journal had written a piece saying that, “Journalism schools are too expensive.” And people probably shouldn’t go there, and somebody complained that, “Could you imagine if other professions are doing this? Could you imagine if lawyers went around telling people not to go to law school”?  And I was like, “Yeah, that’s – welcome to Above the Law, you know, whole business model.”

Kathryn Rubino:°Well, I do think that there’s a little bit of a distinction there, because my red of that is that people who become journalists, but without going to journalism school, but are still active in the field versus no one’s – above the law is not saying that, you should read the law and then take the bar exam, right? that is not our position. 

Joe Patrice:°Despite the number of articles that you’ve written about Kim Kardashian.

Kathryn Rubino:°Correct, doing that exact thing.

Joe Patrice:°Doing that exact thing.

Kathryn Rubino:°A hundred percent. But you know, listen, she’s famous for other reasons, and also her work in criminal justice reform is truly noteworthy.

Joe Patrice:°It’s good and useful.

Kathryn Rubino:°It’s actually a tremendous benefit to society, and if she’s able to use that benefit, because she is everything that she is, so be it. At least, she’s using it for good now, and that’s my soapbox on Kim Kardashian. But yeah, ETL is not going around saying, “Read the law, that’s a better way to do things.” So, anyway.

Joe Patrice:°No regret thus far.

Kathryn Rubino:°I think that’s it.

Joe Patrice:°Is it?

Kathryn Rubino:°Okay. Anyway, I feel I just like, ground up and that was it.

Joe Patrice:°Yeah, no, and I mean, that’s right. Cool, then we can kind of sign this out of session —

[Music]

Joe Patrice:°– or gavel. 

Kathryn Rubino:°Is that a gavel. It does look like a hammer. I mean, I guess, they’re kind of similar. 

Joe Patrice:°They’re kind of similar. Yeah.

Kathryn Rubino:°Yeah.

Joe Patrice:°And unique in almost similar way. But yeah, the way that I was trying to see how to test the new stuff, see if there are more things —

Kathryn Rubino:°Keep trying, and go back to the drawing board.

Joe Patrice:°– that you can freely enjoy. Anyway, so yeah, that brings us to the conclusion. You should be subscribed to this show so you could get new episode when they come out. You should be giving reviews, stars, as well as writing something. Even the act of just saying, it’s awesome is important” because it shows engagement and that allows all the surfaces to pump it up, so the more people will find the show. You should be reading Above the Law, because we talk about all these stories before we even get to talking about them here. They usually appear there first. We are on social media. She’s @kathryn1, the numeral one. I’m @josephpatrice as far as Twitter goes. I’m sure, we’re at other places too. You can probably find those, but Twitter’s kind of the newsy place. You should listen to the Jabot which is Kathryn’s other show, but first Above the Law, I’m in the legal tech week journalist roundtable. You should also check out the other shows from the Other Legal Talk Network. Thanks again of course to Lexicon, and Nota powered by MT Bank, and peace.

[Music]

Okay. You see again, I think you jumped the gun on that.

Kathryn Rubino:°Yeah, I know. I tried to jump this down again, you know it’s funnier.

Joe Patrice:°Oh.

Kathryn Rubino:°It’s all, you know, this whole comedy is.

Joe Patrice:°Oh, that, that’s what you, okay.

Kathryn Rubino:°Timing.

[Music]

Podcast transcription by Tech-Synergy.com

 

 

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