Following a deposition where an attorney referred to opposing counsel not once, not twice, but four times as an “arsehole”, a federal district judge in Pennsylvania ordered the potty-mouthed lawyer to take a CLE class in civility and have an “informal meal” with the arse, er, opponent.
In her 12-page opinion, the judge quoted Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew: “And do as adversaries do in law, Strive mightily but eat and drink as friends.”
While the offending attorney, Lewis Hannah, avoided sanctions and told The Legal Intelligencer that sharing a meal is “an excellent idea”, it sounds like the deposition was a pretty ugly one. Hannah’s opposing counsel, James Ellison, ended the depo when Hannah referred to him as “boy” – especially unfortunate considering Ellison’s client “is a black man who claims he was fired from his post as a school janitor in retaliation for lodging a formal complaint that a white female principal had called him ‘boy’,” the Intelligencer reported.
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