Dewey Cheatham & Howe: Blog

Max Baucus Drunk? This Is How Lobbying Works

noreply@blogger.com (Albany Lawyer) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:48:00 +0000

A number of people have pointed to the following video as an indication that Senator Max Baucus was drunk while speaking in the Senate chamber.

Really, this is a testament to the success of our firm's lobbying practice. A member of our team had met with Senator Baucus shortly before this occurred.

Consistent with our methods, she used all appropriate measures, and quite a few inappropriate ones, to persuade the Senator to support a key loophole in the health care reform package. She assures us that alcohol was really a minor player in this incident.

Fast growing law firm

noreply@blogger.com (Albany Lawyer) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:18:00 +0000

Our satellite office in Albany got this funny letter in the mail today. Images are below, but here are some highlights:

Dear Attorney
...
If you are at a point in your legal career that requires a new direction ...

Instead of "Dear Attorney" it should say "Dear Loser".

[Our] firm has become one of the fastest-growing law firms in the Capital Region.

Right. That's what everyone wants in a law firm - fast growth.

Our exponential growth and exemplary reputation have recently allowed us to obtain several top-quality attorneys from long-established firms.

1. We don't think these guys know what exponential means.
2. Exemplary reputation? We ain't heard of you down here in the city baby! Of course, Albany is a backwater.
3. We suspect the "long-established local firms" fell apart, and the losers who didn't have their business fell for this sucker pitch.

We can work with you to develop an ethically compliant formal agreement that will allow financial compensation for matters referred between our practices.

We can do better. We're not constrained by these ethical requirements. We'll shelter any referral compensation through off-shore entities. And our staff provide services you won't want to tell your spouse about. Call us at Dewey Cheatham Howe.

We are also eager to speak with solo practitioners who are exploring their options to make the transition into retirement.

Eager? Really starting to sound desperate now.

The Lawyers' Guide to Crime: Part One

noreply@blogger.com (Albany Lawyer) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:53:00 +0000

Here at Dewey Cheatham, we often come across cases where our clients are so stupid they should go to jail for being idiots. We do our best to keep them out anyway.

Based on this experience, we feel it's time to advise the general public, and especially the criminals. In this installment, inspired by Glamour magazine, we're going to have some Do's and Don'ts.

Don't leave drugs out in the open.
Do hide your drugs. Use the trunk. This works for underage girls and dead bodies too.

Don't tell the police anything. Where you're coming from, where you're going, how much you had to drink, etc.
Do remain silent. You've probably heard it on TV -- You have the right to remain silent .... Use it!

Don't smoke pot in the car. Cops can smell it.
Do come to our office if you're female between the ages of 15 and 25. We'll supply all the drugs and KY too.

Don't consent to searches. For crying out loud, if you have drugs in your car, why would you let them search?
Do refuse searches. Yell out as loud as you can: "No you can't search my car!" You want bystanders to hear so you have witnesses.
Do record all police encounters if possible. Record audio and video if possible. Cops lie like crazy and judges pretend they believe them. You want good evidence.

Don't speed excessively or drive like a maniac if you are doing something seriously illegal. Aim for 5 mph over the limit.
Don't drive a [censored]. Okay, it's not a nice word, but that's what a lot of cops are thinking if you drive around in the wrong kind of vehicle. You probably know what we mean, but just in case:
There's no better way to get stopped, frisked, searched and more than to drive one of these babies. Don't believe us? Then read this story.
Do drive the kind of cars driven by soccer moms. Think Volvo wagon. If cops see you in that, the worst thing they'll think is that you're banging the au pair, and they'll respect you for it.

Don't be rude to the police. It doesn't help.
Don't suck up either. Might make them suspicious.
Do pretend to be a little nervous. You're supposed to be. The guy has a badge, a gun, and he's shining a flashlight in your face. Showing a little fear adds to the power rush and makes him feel good.
Do show a PBA card if you have one. Usually doesn't hurt and sometimes it helps. Window sticker is even better.

This guide is a work in progress. Stay tuned!

Interesting Politics

noreply@blogger.com (Albany Lawyer) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 04:49:00 +0000

You have to appreciate how interesting politics can get when you combine it with lawyers on the Internet. A great example is Ken Runion. He's a lawyer and a bastion of local politics in little old Guilderland NY. Lately the Ken Runion team has been messing around on the web in a highly ineffective manner.

That's in the Albany area. There was some funky web stuff there in 2008 between Tracey Brooks and Phil Steck. They were running for Congress in a primary and one accused the other of web shenanigans.

And the problem is spreading. Christine O'Donnell is running for US Senate again in Delaware. What's our role in all of this?

Well, at Dewey Cheatham & Howe, we find that chaos really helps our business hum. While other major law firms are laying off hundreds of lawyers and other staff, we continue to hire, and we get the sleaziest of the sleazy. Business is good. We'll be hiring more. Just keep that crazy politics going on and we'll have more work than we need - but we'll take it if they pay up front.

Lobbying the Stimulus

noreply@blogger.com (Albany Lawyer) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:14:00 +0000

There's been some great news coverage about lobbyists flooding Washington in an effort to get their pieces of the economic stimulus pie. Of course we're working on this ourselves.

While we're based in New York City, we have people in all the important places - and DC is a big one. Some of you may remember when one of our DC lobbyists came to New York to visit Eliot Spitzer.

You see, the whole registered lobbyist route is a sham and we don't waste our time with it. Congress and the Executive Branch are full of men. Nearly all of them are rich and horny. What do you think is more effective - a $2000 campaign contribution or a toot on the tooter?

So if you're the CEO of a large corporation and you want some stimulus, contact our lobbying practice at Dewey Cheatham & Howe. Cut us a corporate check for $100K and you'll easily bank $1M or more out of the trillions coming from Washington.

And we know times are tough. So while you're riding back to your office on the corporate jet, we'll have one of our "lobbyists" keep you comfortable. Now that's service with a smile.

But don't ask us for Tracey Brooks. She doesn't work for us.

Bernie Madoff and Charles Ponzi - Representative Clients

noreply@blogger.com (Albany Lawyer) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:24:00 +0000

We certainly were taken aback by recent events surrounding Bernie Madoff. Bernie is one of our best clients. We've been taking care of him, and his investment funds, for years.

Frankly, we are shocked by all that's happened. With our guidance, Bernie Madoff has been pursuing a well-established investment strategy with a long history. When he got started he asked us for our advice, and we reached back into the vault to the old days when we represented Charles Ponzi.

Just like in the good old days, it all was going great. Unfortunately, when the markets turned south, the investment strategy failed. It happens with all kinds of investment strategies, and this one is no different. Bernie is catching way too much heat for doing what many others have done. He just did it bigger and better. And when it failed, it failed bigger and better.

But just like with Charles Ponzi, Bernie Madoff did some things right. He got his money first, and he made sure his lawyers got paid. So we're all set. The people who are complaining ... well, there's one simple explanation. They're losers, and losers whine.

Get over it. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get going. Maybe we can help. Give us a call.

Marc Dreier Lets Us Down

noreply@blogger.com (Albany Lawyer) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:48:00 +0000

I suppose we should feel bad for Marc Dreier. He's the founder and head honcho at Dreier LLP, just up the road from us. And he just got popped for some kind of serious criminal misconduct. Something about dressing up as a union lawyer or a drag queen (who can tell the difference anyway).

But we don't feel bad for him. He had it coming. So do we of course. But we've been getting away with plenty of crap Dreier hasn't even thought of, and we'll keep getting away with it.

Just look at his firm website for an example of what they do wrong. Here are some quotes from their "overview" page:

Dreier LLP is a unique group of talented lawyers and remarkable people who have joined in a professional enterprise vigorously dedicated to advancing our clients' objectives.

Stop lying dammit! We're in this for ourselves. Sure some clients think we're helping them, but most are savvy enough to know we're just using them to steal someone else's money. As long as they get a bit along the way, they're happy.

We are not just an association of attorneys but a collaboration of attorneys, who typically had built successful practices elsewhere but sought in Dreier LLP a more current, more resourceful, more supportive environment to maximize their abilities and results.

What kind of nonsense is that? Association? Collaboration? We're all part of one big conspiracy really.

We look for and give our clients every opportunity and advantage to meet their goals. We look to foster their success and share in their success. We believe we are our clients' most important allies.

They just keep getting it backwards. We foster our own success and if a little bit trickles down to the clients, they're lucky they get something. And we're not their allies. They need us and that's all there is to it. If they could get by without us they'd drop us in a heartbeat.

We are a law firm that is relevant to whatever our clients are doing or hoping for.

That's not bad. Maybe it's good marketing or something.

But Marc Dreier showed everyone what it's really all about. Good lawyers get in position to steal hundreds of millions of dollars. His problem is he's only a good lawyer. Great lawyers get away with it. Welcome to Dewey Cheatham & Howe.

Criminal Defense: The Delay Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Albany Lawyer) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:46:00 +0000

In our criminal defense practice, we employ a variety of strategies to help our clients evade responsibility for their actions. One of our favorites is the Delay Strategy.

For starters this has nothing to former congressman Tom DeLay. While we have in fact managed to substantially delay the charges against him in Texas about violating campaign finance laws, we've been playing this game since long before our Tommy-boy was even born.

The Delay Strategy is simple, even elegant. We do everything we can to make the case take as long as possible. The longer it takes the more chances there are that the cops or witnesses involved will die, disappear, retire, move away, etc. We don't go out of our way to make these things happen, but it's just a matter of time. Of course there are cases where our clients can afford those kinds of services in addition to our regular legal work, but usually we just hope the delay does it on its own.

The numbers behind this approach are pretty compelling. You figure that most cops retire after 20 years. So right there about 5% of cops will retire if your case hangs around for just one year. A whole variety of things can also happen. They can die, change jobs, get arrested, and so on. So if there's just one cop involved in your case, and you can stall for a couple years, you're already at about a 20% chance of a big problem for the prosecution.

Now take the cases where there are two or three cops and maybe one or two other witnesses. If you can stall that one for a few years you might get to a 50% chance of winning on that alone.

Combining the Delay Strategy with all of the other options in our arsenal, you can see how Dewey Cheatham & Howe can dramatically increase the chances of you beating the rap. And with our hourly billing approach, the longer it takes, the more money we make too. So everyone wins.

Defending Pirates

noreply@blogger.com (Albany Lawyer) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:41:00 +0000

For some reason, our clients in Somalia have been getting a bad rap in the media. We at Dewey Cheatham & Howe are proud of our long history defending pirates. Piracy is a well-established profession with traditions dating back centuries.

With the latest outbreak of negative media, we have moved into high gear. First we acquired a Somali law firm. This was an easy move. Lawyers there work for peanuts. Literally. Poor bastards are hungry. Even the ones with nut allergies are willing to take the risk. Something about peanuts not really being nuts or something like that.

Anyway, we made our presence known by offering to negotiate with ship owners on behalf of the pirates. We hadn't actually signed them up as clients yet, but figured once we had a solid package in hand we'd win them over.

The negotiations were helped by our past representation of many of the ship owners and the ultimate owners of the oil, chemicals and weapons on the ships. Some of our old clients were a little annoyed about some notion of a conflict of interest, but we reassured them that we were only interested in our own profits before anyway.

We are now working on the pirates to get them on board. They killed the first Somali lawyer we sent over. Apparently they want more than peanuts. We'll try fruit next, and if that doesn't work we may have to go to our regular 50% contingency fee.

There have been some disturbing signs that Somalia might move towards a stable government. We're pretty sure we can keep that from happening. We wouldn't want that cutting into our billings.

We're hoping that we can get our prospective clients to go after bigger fish. Sure an oil tanker has a substantial cargo, but if we could get them to nab a big cruise ship we think the ransoms would go a lot higher.

Al Franken: Applying Our Legal Skills

noreply@blogger.com (Albany Lawyer) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:16:00 +0000

At Dewey Cheatham & Howe, we are honored to be part of the Al Franken legal team. Stealing elections in court has been a proud tradition at our firm for decades. Thanks to the Bush-Gore 2000 presidential election, the Supreme Court has now made it socially acceptable as well.

While Franken has other firms doing the grunt work of litigating the minor issues, we are sending our top associates and interns to wine and dine key judges. We have a pretty good idea which courts the case will go to, and a visit to the Minnesota Supreme Court seems likely at some point. We expect to get the most mileage out of Dakota County, where judges already have a reputation for fixing tickets. We figure, if they'll fix a DWI for a neighbor, imagine what they'll do in an election if we get photos of them with a hooker. And if it doesn't work out, we can always sign up the spouse as a divorce client.

Just another day for Dewey Cheatham & Howe.

Welcome to Dewey Cheatham & Howe

noreply@blogger.com (Albany Lawyer) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:45:00 +0000

Welcome to the Dewey Cheatham & Howe blog. We'll be giving you the inside scoop on the hottest legal news. Stay tuned.