Legal Quandary

I'm Missing Out

I'm at home this afternoon making some revisions to a letter for my boss. I may or may not be doing this with the television on. And I realize that law school is seriously cutting into my daytime tv-watching.

Right now I've got Divorce Court on. Judge Mablean is totally berating this girl whose husband is divorcing her for being a "high-maintenance gold-digger."

The commercials are the best part though. In the past 30 minutes I've seen:

1 commercial for Scooters
612 ads for Technical Colleges (one local massage therapy school, two national technical colleges, and one local "medical assisting" school...oooh and one professional truck driving school (those always remind me of Top Gun))
1 ad for "Estrin D" - the first weight loss pill for menopausal and post-menopausal women (huh?)

oh...oh...oh! It's time for the People's Court with Judge Milian. I like her the best of all the tv judges. Or maybe the parties seem so much more real. Damn! Today's Plaintiff is a woman who says she asked someone to take care of her dog while she and her family were living in a homeless shelter. The whole family - with 5 kids - is there with her. Then the girl taking care of the dog decided to keep the dog. Um, allegedly.

I'm just noticing that the podiums in the courtroom have "Plaintiff" and "Defendant" on them. Snazzy. Also - they're not really podiums, so much as little portable lecterns on top of tables. You'd think that People's Court could afford nicer. (I have to give that to the Divorce Court folks - they have a much nicer set.)

They're showing video footage of the dog now. And now the judge is getting choked up over this dog. Now she's telling the audience court about how her husband just became a judge in Dependancy Court and how he makes decisions about child custody. And she can't imagine what he goes through.

Now she's totally laying into the dognapper about what a terrible person she is for taking advantage of people who are going through hard times. Awesome!

More commercials

- 1 Ad for medical testing supplies
- 1 Ad proclaiming cable internet to be better, faster and cheaper than DSL
- Wow. One totally lame and amazingly poorly made "career-a-thon" commercial for a medical training college I've never heard of before.
- A culinary arts school
- 6 ads for person injury attorneys
- Yoiks - the terrible "career-a-thon" medical training commercial is back with a different victim testimonial.

Oh....bummer - small claims court in New York can't order specific performance. The judge is explaining this to the Plaintiff and is more or less advising the Plaintiff to file in New York Supreme Court. You should see the looks of total heartbreak on this family's face, but they say they want to re-file. Now the judge is asking, almost pleading with the Defendant to give the dog back. And the girl said "No, I won't give the dog back."

Damn. That's harsh.

Apparently the case is pending in NY Supreme Court.

Screw it. Time to work.

posted by Legal Quandary at 16:47