[Peace-discuss] more lawyer stuff

[carol inskeep]

Folks,

My two cents on the Gerstein business:

- I agree we should pay Gerstein the $100. And I think Peter’s right that we really need to stand by any commitments we make.

- I also wanted to document in a post my hesitations about Gerstein:  (sources at the bottom)

Gerstein has been censured twice by the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commision (in 1978 and 1991) for writing letters to other attorneys that include offensive language and/or threats. One letter to the opposing attorney in a case involving Kraft Foods included the following:

"…I have never met, in a limited basis, a more despicable self-made piece of dog shit than you. You are a fucking slime-ball and a fucking slime-bag and I piss on your existence. What I want to tell you specifically is to take this letter and jam it up your asshole, resulting in severe paper cuts. You are a used condom of the highest order."

In 2002 Gerstein’s law license was suspended for 30 days on a four count complaint for letters he sent to two other attorneys and to two claims adjusters. The letters called other male attorneys "idiot", "fool", "boy", and women were called "honey", "sweetheart", and "Mother Superior".

I’d like to see us look at some other possibilities in earnest before we go with Gerstein. I think his use of personal attack weakens his effectiveness, and wouldn’t serve AWARE.

I’m on the working group for this and I will do my best to help come up with some other alternatives.

I always hate when we (in AWARE) get bogged down in discussions like this – it’s hard to all agree as a group on how and what should be done. We seem to work best when small groups of us get things down outside the group! I’ll do my best to work with the working group to come up with something that will help move this forward to something we can all feel good about…

cpi

Here’s my sources:

http://www.stcl.edu/faculty-dir/mcgaugh/insulting_letters.htm

Link to a Chicago Tribune article from 2002 about Gerstein’s 30 day suspension

http://www.clr.org/Gerstein-Marvin-Ira.pdf - PDF of documents from the 1991 case, including the quote above

Related links to News Gazette coverage

http://www.news-gazette.com/story.cfm?Number=9809

http://208.5.125.166/ngsearch/index.cfm?&page=displyStory.cfm&yearfolder=the02news&file=120602%5Fngstory%5F12834%2Etxt&search=marvin%20gerstein&theorder=asaphrase – more on the 2002 suspension

http://208.5.125.166/ngsearch/index.cfm?&page=displyStory.cfm&yearfolder=the01news&file=072601%5Fngstory%5F9808%2Etxt&search=marvin%20gerstein&theorder=asaphrase

http://208.5.125.166/ngsearch/index.cfm?&page=displyStory.cfm&yearfolder=the99news&file=020899%5Fngstory%5F4359%2Etxt&search=marvin%20gerstein&theorder=asaphrase

 


		
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