JDKJ said:
scott pilutik said:
JDKJ said:
Double A said:
So... apparently, they firmly believe it's illegal to sell people self-help stuff to defend yourself in court?
Can someone PM me when they start making sense and stop acting like assholes?
Actually, that's not at all what they're saying. What they are saying is that if you use a legal form to file a motion and you fail to include in that motion a part required of all motions and which therefore renders your motion defective, then you and the person who sold you the legal form and instructions to complete it should have to reimburse them for the cost of responding to your jenky-ass motion.
Is there a link to the USCG sanctions motion anywhere? I'd prefer not to have to resort to PACER if possible. At first glance, the claim that the drafter of a form should have to reimburse plaintiff's attorneys for the form(s)' failure to include certain boilerplate, albeit statutory, language, seems dubious, unless perhaps the attorney/form-drafter signed the form as an affirmant. How else would Blumberg stay in business? Moreover, if it's accurate that the defect is as you describe, it's also easily curable. Pro se litigants (especially defendants) are often granted a wide degree of procedural latitude and are rarely sanctioned for defects of the type described here.
Here ya go:
http://torrentfreak.com/hurt-locker-sue-lawyer-who-helped-bittorrent-defendants-101124/
Agreed. I assume that, other than trying to taking advantage of the defects to thereby get the motions summarily kicked and to send the movant back to start over from Square One, Plaintiff's counsel is just trying to rattle their cage and convince them to throw away their lil' package of legal forms. And perhaps convince Syfert to stop supplying them. But thinking that they'll actually come out $5000 ahead is a bit of a pipe dream.
But, at the same time, the latitude granted pro se defendants, while wide, is not without limits. Keep fumbling your way through the process and the Court could easily grow weary of your fumbling ass.
And I doubt Mr. Syfert's services are comparable to a well-respected and well-used service provider like Blumberg. There's an air of "fly by night" about him.
And a more important distinction may be that Blumberg doesn't hold themselves out as attorneys. On their face, they're just a provider of legal forms. I imagine they're smart enough to cloak the provision of their services with "the provision and use of our forms in no way constitutes legal advice and should not to be taken as a substitute for retaining the services of an attorney" disclaimers. Therefore, they wouldn't be subject to 28 USC 1927 sanctions (which are limited to parties and their counsel). On the other hand, I do believe that Syfert is associating himself in his capacity as an attorney with the provision of his legal forms. It may be a stretch to seek the imposition of sanctions upon him in this case, but it ain't entirely laughable, either.
Thanks. I realize that the analogy to Blumberg isn't entirely apt, but I've not scrutinized the forms in question either; but I would expect USCG to have drawn attention to the lack of a similar disclaimer in its motion and I didn't see that. It seems like the kind of thing any attorney would, by instinct, naturally include. (Whenever I post anything in any internet discussion that might be construed as advice, I make sure to disclaim, as do most attorneys).
I see your point about Syfert possibly holding himself out as an attorney, but a few things argue against this, the first being the low cost of these forms. I don't think a litigant can reasonably expect to have received legal advice for $19.95. The second is that, generally speaking, whatever cause of action may or may not exist against Syfert belongs to the purchaser of the forms, not the USCG--just as the USCG would have no cause of action against me if I was a relative of a defendant and wrote, say, a friendly email to that litigant advising what steps he/she should consider taking. And the proper forum for that cause of action/petition is most likely a bar association complaint/petition/grievance.
And without knowing the actual content of the form motions filed by the defendants, I'm going to also guess that they contained more basis in law than the USCG admits in its response, given the overreaching tactics employed by the more-leveraged copyright attorneys in similar cases thus far. As an even more general observation, I think courts are going to be skeptical of the new law-firm business model employed by the USCG, which is kind of like a reverse class-action in which the class is defendants instead of plaintiffs, and be unlikely to allow them much leeway, though judges will obviously differ.
