Tag: attorney

My Appeal of a Tax Sale in Pennsylvania #law #lawyer #attorney #tax #taking #constitution #Pennsylvania

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As some of you may know or remember, my grandparents’ home was taken in a tax sale. I didn’t care, but my cousin asked me to fight back. I said I’d try, but the deeper I dove into the issues, the more I realized the injustice occurring across the country. Long story short, 1) counties are auctioning off homes for a fraction of their value to recoup relatively small tax bills (in my case, at least a 94% theft of value), and 2) doing so to people who are particularly vulnerable and therefore cannot fight back (e.g., dementia, financial hardship, logistical issues). Despite SCOTUS unanimously forbidding the practice in Tyler v. Hennepin County, it continues because, well, the victims can’t fight back, so there are no consequences for continuing the practice. Thus, the legislature, counties, and even courts allow the unlawful scheme to continue.


Facing local, small-town bias, I lost in the trial court without any stated argument other than, “Those SCOTUS cases aren’t relevant.” Her honor also claimed I was fighting the battle in the wrong type of case, and to justify that, carefully parsed out the relevant part of the statute that says otherwise. I suspect that, as a trial court judge, she simply doesn’t want to overrule a decades-old statutory scheme based on Federal Constitutional grounds, but that’s reversible error. I don’t think either her Honor or opposing counsel expected the appeal. (I don’t think opposing counsel even expected my Answer to his Complaint.)

Now I’m working on my appeal. It’s been a grind. I’m learning litigation on the fly, and certainly screwing up, but so far it hasn’t bit me in the ass yet. The bad news is that it may. I might get my appeal thrown out on a technicality I didn’t anticipate. The good news is that, if it goes through, there’s a good chance that SCOTUS will decide Pung v. Isabella County (MI) by the time my reply brief is due. You see, the way the states have continued to justify this is by splitting hairs on the facts. That’s going to be exceptionally hard for Pennsylvania to do once Pung is decided. It’s even closer to the facts of my case, and I’d bet serious money that SCOTUS will not only rule unanimously in my favor, but also do so with a biting takedown of the unlawful practices of the counties and the dereliction of duty committed by the legislatures and judges. (Note: The Michigan Supreme Court took the taxpayers’ side, but the counties are still doing this because, again, no one fights back.)

Either way, this practice will be unquestionably forbidden going forward, so you won’t lose your potential future case even if I do on a technicality. Pung did the work to make sure of that.

And in case you’re wondering, none of the non-profits are willing to help. I asked all of them, but unless it’s a SCOTUS case, they aren’t interested. Only one even responded, asked for the Order I was appealing, then never replied again. The arguments I made were in part copied from their amicus brief in Tyler, so I know were on the same page. It’s just not yet worth their trouble.

I’ve also tried to get Pennsylvania media to interview me with no luck. If anyone has any media contacts up there, I’d appreciate you putting my case in their ear.

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Yesterday Was Brutal, Which Is Par for the Course for Attorneys #law #attorney #ethics

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If you think being a lawyer is easy, which at this point you’re a dope if you do, I can assure you that it isn’t. Yesterday was an example of why it isn’t, and in a way that wasn’t obvious.

I’ve never played Mortal Kombat. Am I doing this right?

Here’s something to which many non-lawyers can relate. Is there any time period or specific event in your life that you never want to revisit? Yes? Okay, then imagine if someone started asking you about it, and really dug into the weeds, demanding details. Now imagine that you couldn’t respond to those questions with, “Fuck off. Mind you’re only business.” Instead, you had to answer those questions honestly and thoroughly, and if the questioner forgot to ask about a relevant topic, or if their phrasing allowed you to dodge it without lying, you’d have to volunteer the hidden information.

Yesterday, I had my character fitness interview. I’m joining the bar of an additional state, and that’s part of the application process. So, not only did I complete 185-page application (with attachments) detailing my entire life, but then I had to sit face-to-face with a complete stranger and discuss the ugly, deeply personal parts.

An Example

When I first got the call to schedule the appointment, I asked if I needed to bring anything, and my interviewer responded, “No, I have your bar application here, so I have your entire life in front of me.”

He wasn’t kidding, because bar applications are more detailed than any security clearance application I’ve ever completed. My response to that was a joke: “Well, you don’t have my medical records. Should I bring those?”

I admit, this isn’t a joke Bill Burr would tell, but it elicited a chuckle and an “of course not,” and that was that. However, my medical history came up in the interview. It was tangentially related to a topic we were discussing, and I must be honest and thorough in my responses. What should have remained a joke didn’t, and there’s nothing either of us could do about it. If it’s relevant, then he has an ethical responsibility to ask (even though he clearly didn’t want to), and I have an ethical responsibility to respond.

Believe it or not, that’s not the worst of it. That’s just the one example (from the single example of bar applications) that I’m willing to give you. The medical issue in question was a hernia, and I have no problem admitting to that publicly. But what if your medical issues were far more private? You wouldn’t be pleased discussing them with a stranger, would you? As I said, this is a brutal reality of practicing law. We’re under a constant microscope not only today, but yesterday, last year, and 1990. Everything is open to inspection. As the rise of the internet has shown us, no one is 100% clean. We’ve all got regrets, but those of attorneys are always on display even if capable of being hidden, and sometimes you can’t hide from the ensuing discussion despite the number of wounds it reopens.

On the bright side, I’m all but certain I’m going to be approved for membership. Mission accomplished.

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I Ducking Hate Attorneys! #attorney #law #shyster

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Let me rephrase that: I fucking hate attorneys.

While this may seem to be more of the same OGL talk that I’ve been spewing the past couple of weeks, it isn’t.

There’s a batch of attorneys that are always grandstanding or otherwise making things difficult just because they can. Here’s the latest tactic. They regularly accuse my non-attorney coworkers as practicing law without a license. This is otherwise known as the unauthorized practice of law, which has a hand abbreviation that I’ll use here: UPL.

First off, what’s UPL? Every state is different, yet there all the same, so I’ll give you Virginia’s definition care of the Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia Part 6, § I(2):

A person or entity engages in the practice of law when representing to another, by words or conduct, that one is authorized to do any of the following:
A. Undertake for compensation, direct or indirect, to give advice or counsel to an entity or person in any matter involving the application of legal principles to facts.
B. Select, draft or complete legal documents or agreements which affect the legal rights of an entity or person.
C. Represent another entity or person before a tribunal.
D. Negotiate the legal rights or responsibilities on behalf of another entity or person. 

B is easy. If you aren’t dealing with legal documents in some way, you aren’t practicing law. C is also easy. If you aren’t communicating with a court on behalf of another person, you aren’t practicing law. D is also easy. If you aren’t negotiating on behalf of another person, then you aren’t practicing law.

A is where a lot of people get tripped up, so I want to repeat what I’ve said many times before so that these attorneys can’t pull this shit on you one day. Here’s a simple way of explaining this: If I tell you the speed limit is 55 miles per hour, I’m not practicing law. If I tell you you’re speeding, I’m practicing law. What’s the difference? The first statement is saying what the law is. “Thou shalt not drive faster than 55 miles per hour.” Non-attorneys can point out the law to you without engaging in UPL. The second statement, however, involves the “application of legal principles to facts.” That is, I’m taking your specific facts — the fact that you’re driving, let’s say, 65 miles per hour — and applying the law to those facts. Then I’m drawing a legal conclusion about your behavior. If a non-attorney does that, it’s UPL.

Put yet another way, telling you what the law is isn’t UPL, but telling you that you’re breaking the law can be UPL.

Here’s the latest bit of nonsense I’ve had to endure. My processor requested that the attorney underline or capitalize the last names of the parties on a deed. When the attorney tried to be difficult and refused for no good reason, she pointed out that, “the Clerk of the Court has the right to reject deeds if the last names of the parties aren’t either underlined or capitalized.” All she was doing was paraphrasing the law and making a request. She never made any statement saying anyone was going to jail or open to a lawsuit, so she wasn’t applying that law to any facts. A particular attorney called this UPL, claiming she was preparing, revising, or modifying legal documents even while admitting that her statement was merely a “request.” This was nothing more than a scare tactic to scare her into silence and stroke his own fragile ego.

As you can tell, I believe whole-heartedly that these attorneys aren’t getting tripped up. They, in fact, know better; they just know that non-attorneys don’t know better, so they’re abusing their position as attorneys by misleading people into thinking they’ve committed a fucking crime, then leveraging that lie for some personal benefit. These attorneys are garbage. The reason why we’re dealing with this — even over minor issues — is because of the broader issue I’ve already discussed here, here, and here. In short, the Virginia State Bar refuses to address the widespread and long-standing unethical and illegal behavior of attorneys in the Virginia real estate industry, and the legislature is too busy to do anything about it, so these attorneys effectively have immunity for their bad behavior. Despite no one willing to step forward and do the right thing, these attorneys still continue to scare title companies into allowing the malfeasance. What can you do if the relevant authorities don’t care? This is why people hate attorneys and why they absolutely should.

But not me. You should like me. I’m cool.

Rant over.

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