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RE: [atlarge-discuss] icannatlarge.com



At 08:33 PM 9/23/2002 -0700, Bruce Young wrote:
Judith Oppenheimer wrote:

|  All of this "take the risk, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it"
|  bravado (or "let the cards fall where they may") comes at a significant
|  *personal* legal and financial risk that is beyond the burden of what
|  anyone assumed when they became a panelist.

I agree.  Judith shouldn't be asked to risk her career and future, or
faulted for being concerned over same.

|  What Joanna, Walter and Bruce did was entirely appropriate, given the
|  advice of private counsel and the extraordinary circumstances.
What Judith says creates a different discussion.

Except by reasonable inference from what seems to have happened, I am not privy to the specifics of the advice that was given, nor do I know who gave it. However, if anything is clear, it is that the issue is not a simple one. I have said myself that it is a gray area, neither black nor white. (I think I have given up trying to persuade one list member to state actual facts to back up his assertions, which have little support in trademark law as I know it.)

Under those circumstances, did Joanna do the right thing by seeking out legal advice? Yes, she did.

Should she have consulted us before seeking legal advice? Perhaps, *if* we were better organized, but we're not. It is a fact that it takes forever to get things done here, this was a situation that required extremely prompt attention. Does anyone seriously believe that a consensus of the membership could have ben obtained in a sufficiently short time frame?

Should she have followed the attorney's advice? Generally, that is why one consults an attorney, is it not?

My advice, had I been asked (and I do not suggest that Joanna should have asked me, we don't know each other) might have been different from the advice she was given, or it might not have, but it doesn't really matter. Reasonable attorneys - yes, make your oxymoronic jokes, I don't care ;-) - can differ, but if even reasonable attorneys don't necessarily agree, what can one expect of a layperson, other than to follow the advice of the attorney with whom she has had the most communication?

And what is the point of having a Panel, and a Panel Chair, if they don't have some semblance of authority to act in special cases, even though we've not yet made all the rules?

John raised some serious issues, and while I view the issues somewhat differently than he does, I support absolutely Joanna's decision to seek out, and act on, legal advice she was given. This is a serious matter, Joanna would have been reckless if she had not sought learned guidance.

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James S. Tyre mailto:jstyre@jstyre.com
Law Offices of James S. Tyre 310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)
10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512 Culver City, CA 90230-4969

"Unflattering though it may be, the truth is that
lawyers in the American system are officially fungible."
--Streit v. Covington & Crowe (2000) 82 Cal.App.4th 441, 448


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