The Estrin Report

The Case of the Pink Poodle

The Chicago Tribune reported today that there is an unprecedented rise in attorneys practicing animal law.

Once an area thought to be only for attorneys with either a heart or frankly, nothing else to do, The Tribune notes that "92 of the 196 ABA approved law schools in the country now offer courses on animal law, up from the nine that offered classes in 2000." Moreover, some top law schools, like Duke, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and Northwestern, found that the price is right for building up their animal law program after each received $1 million from a foundation set up by Bob Barker.

Today's Law.com blog, Legal Blog Watch Alert, says that unfortunately, sometimes the appeal of an animal law case can bring out the beast in lawyers. Susan Cartier Liebel writes here about a case involving a Denver salon owner who was fined $1,000 by an animal control officer because she dyed her poodle pink, the official color to promote awareness of breast cancer.

Though the owner used organic beet juice which did not harm the poodle, she apparently violated a statute that prohibits owners from dying their pets.  Recognizing the public appeal of the case, two young lawyers agreed to represent the owner pro bono and asked another law firm to come on board to help with the PR aspects of the case. The firm declined -- and the young lawyers soon discovered why: the firm had poached the case of the pink pooch, arranging to represent the salon owner themselves!

I am frequently asked by paralegals what the newest areas of law are; where can you go to find jobs that appeal more to your personal interests and passions.  Use your imagination here, folks! Anytime you find a practice specialty heating up, you're bound to find lawyers who need paralegals in that specialty.  So, for those of you looking to get out of a job that's routine and repetitious, consider following this yellow brick road.  You might be pleasantly surprised.

"Five Things You Should Know About Fighting Spam"

Sadly, this scenario sounds all too familiar! But there's a good reason:

"When you started your e-mail client this morning, you were prepared for the usual set of correspondence: your daily dose of corporate politics, a dollop of technical emergencies and the background hum of projects under way. Annoyingly, your inbox also contained a few messages advertising products you would never buy, and perhaps a phishing notice warning that your account was frozen at a financial institution where you don't have an account. Your company has antispam measures in place; surely, the IT staff should be able to keep this junk out of your inbox?

"Perhaps they can, but the task of doing so has become much more difficult in recent years, partly because 85 percent or more of all e-mail traffic today is spam.

[snip]

"The primary directive, for e-mail admins, is 'lose no mail.' If that means that an occasional spam message wends its merry way into users' mailboxes, so be it. E-mail administrators would prefer that users encounter a few annoyances than miss an important business message."

Also, remember that "People are Making Money on Spam," so there may always be strong incentives for spam senders to fight against spam blockers. Who knows, you might want some of that uninvited email....

Paralegal quoted on identity theft

Excellent news -- paralegal advice now being quoted by the press!

"A 90-year-old Manchester woman is out $10,000 cash after falling victim to a Canadian lottery scam.

"Another area woman selling a motorcycle on eBay was lured into wiring $2,000 to British Columbia as part of a phony transaction.

"New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Richard Head recently got a fraudulent e-mail claiming to be from Paypal, but was really sent from an identity thief.

“'It’s a crime that’s affecting everybody,' said Michael Blanchard, a U.S. postal inspector who investigates identity theft crimes in New Hampshire. 'If you’re on the Internet, you’re affected by this.'

"Blanchard joined representatives from the New Hampshire office of the Attorney General and the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of New Hampshire & Vermont on Tuesday to talk to a dozen small business owners about how to protect their business and customers from scams mail.

[snip]

"But foreign lotteries are illegal in the United States, so there is no such thing as winning an Internet lottery, said Denise Costello, a paralegal with the attorney general’s office.

"So if you’ve won something, you shouldn’t have to pay anything, she added."