. Interference by NSA caused law firm to file lawsuit against itself…And loses!
Late last year, a Chicago judge was surprised to receive a filing by a well known firm which named itself as defendant. That is unusual, unusual enough for Marquel to investigate.
Marquel spoke to the judge, “what does that mean if a law firm sues itself? Is it the same as someone suing himself? And if so does that mean that the person loses? Which one would lose?”
“Hold on, hold on,” cautioned the judge. “Let me try to answer your questions in order.”
“So,” urged Marquel,” my first question…”
“Believe me I heard you,” interrupted the judge, “they were good questions and I think I remember them all. It is unusual for a law firm to sue itself. But, in a sense, it can happen in cases of liquidation or when one part of a partnership is suing the rest of the partnership. Normally a person cannot sue himself. There would be something schizoid about that and certainly not justiciable. But most partnerships are not people, not even legal people, so there is always that possibility. And in that sense one part of the partnership would win and the other technically lose. But that wasn’t the case here.”
“What did happen,” asked Marquel.
“There’s not much I can tell you. The papers were filed by a party in Indonesia, I believe. The law firm consented to a dismissal since they pleaded ignorance of the matter. In that sense, you see, the plaintiffs lost because their case was dismissed. But they were also defendants so in a sense they won!”
“Wow,” marvelled Marquel, “if only every case would be like that. You lose but you win. Great.”
“But normally we would sanction the parties for filing a frivolous lawsuit.” Said the judge.
“But not this time?” Asked Marquel.
“It’s kind of funny,” said the judge without a smile, “But usually one party will complain of frivolity. But here it really was up to me to raise the issue myself since the law firm wasn’t about to complain that it was being frivolous. And I didn’t see the grounds in these circumstances, so I just dismissed with no penalties.”
“Can you tell us more?” Asked Marquel.
“I’m afraid not,” he demurred, “you’d better speak to the firm. There were some international, political, even national security issues involved.”
Duly warned, I visited the law firm. I spoke to the managing partner, a tall man with a crew cut, who told me there wasn’t much to say.
“That lawsuit was filed by persons unknown. We went to court because we’d been sued. Imagine our surprise when we got to court and saw our partners at the plaintiff’s table. They told us our office clerk told them we had a case on so they showed up and were just as surprised to see us at the defendant’s table. We both looked at the papers and saw we were suing ourselves! It made no sense. The judge dismissed the case and that was it.”
“So what’s the Indonesian connection?” I asked.
“Who told you about that?” He asked, as he pressed a button on his phone. Four more lawyers suddenly entered the room, all staring at me. “Who told you?”
This didn’t seem like normal law firm behavior to me so I let my imagination take over. “It’s general knowledge.”
“Like hell it is,” said one of the four, the tallest one.
Maybe it wasn’t. Could I be in trouble? Did the judge tell me something he shouldn’t have? I was peering at their letterhead when I saw they had offices in Jakarta. “The office in Jakarta said so.”
“Is that so?” Asked the tall one. “Well it’s not so, at least no one knows. It was filed anonymously by some prankster. It could have come from anywhere and it obviously didn’t come from us. And our Jakarta office closed last year. End of story. You’ve got no story.”
I had a feeling I should agree and just leave. So leave I did. I was off to Indonesia on the first plane out. In Jakarta, once I’d got my bearings, I went straight for the law firm’s branch office. It didn’t look closed and the receptionist looked like she was working. I asked to see a lawyer, any lawyer.
“We have no more lawyers,” she said, “they’re all on vacation.”
“How many lawyers? Is the office closed or open?” I asked.
“Oh no, we are open. They’re just on vacation.”
“Why would they all go on vacation at the same time? Is it a very close knit office where they do everything together? Closely?” I asked.
“They were told to go on vacation by several gentleman.” She said.
“What kind of gentlemen?” I asked
“All kinds. I mean they were just normal people, a bit imposing, and the funny thing is they all had crew cuts. Weird.”
“Could I have the lawyers’ home addresses? It’s extremely important. Matter of national security.” Said I.
“Isn’t that strange. Those gentleman said the same thing.” She exclaimed.
There were two partners, an associate, and a clerk on the list. I thought I might have better luck with the clerk. Plus, if they really were on vacation, the clerk was the most likely to stay home.
His house was in the Jakarta suburbs which means the same slums but with more mud between the shacks. I knocked on something that looked solid and a somewhat obese, ruddy faced, man of indeterminate age asked me in. He didn’t have a crew cut.
I explained that I was looking into the lawsuit against the firm by the firm.
“I had nothing to do with that,” he insisted. “In fact nobody had anything to do with it.” He saw me squinting. “What I mean is nobody at the firm had anything to do with it.”
“Then who did?” I asked.
“Those guys…There were four or five of them and Alan, the senior partner, said we should do what they said.” He recounted.
“Tell me,” I asked, “did any of them have crew cuts?”
He started to giggle, and had trouble stopping but finally took a deep breath and said, “All of them! What jerks!”
“I don’t understand any of this. What’s going on?”
“It’s quite simple. We represent Indonesia in trade negotiations with the US. Basically the US wants Indonesia to sell out all its industries, what they have of it, agree to outrageous prices on everything based on elevated intellectual property standards, buy all their food, clothing, books, computers, pharmaceuticals and literally everything at prices four times higher than they pay now. We were protecting their interests as lawyers and we know U.S. trade law and practice pretty well.”
“And?” I urged.
“Well, we didn’t know it but the CIA and NSA were monitoring all our calls, faxes l, and emails. The US trade negotiators knew our positions almost before we did. It seemed funny but they had counterproposals prepared and printed before we even delivered our own.”
“Isn’t that a violation of something?” I asked.
“Well I suppose attorney client privilege comes to mind first among many other things but these guys don’t give a shit if you’ll pardon my French.”
I didn’t think that was French but the guy was clearly stressed, so I just urged him to continue, saying, “pas du tout.”
“But that wasn’t enough. We figured out somebody was leaking information–they actually thought it might be me at first but they eliminated me right away,” he said.
“How?” I queried.
“Like I said we all knew something was up so they planted information. They saw I didn’t leak it but they kept planting information and even told me about it when they were sure it was someone outside the firm.”
“Did it work?” I asked.
“At first fantastically. The Indonesians were doing really well until I guess someone in Washington realized they were losing points even though they had us tapped up to our noses. So finally they sent out these thugs. CIA.”
“What did they want?” I asked.
“To take over the negotiations. They threatened to send us to Guantanamo. I thought it was absurd but Alan said they could do it.” He said.
“Really?” I asked.
“Oh yes. They had an order from that secret court in Washington.” He said.
“What did it say?” I asked.
“I really don’t know. They said it was too secret for us to see it.” He said.
“Then how do you know what it said?” I asked.
“They told us we were ordered out of the office. From then on they acted as the attorneys for the Indonesians.” He explained, plainly angry. “They went to the negotiations and ‘negotiated’ with their buddies, the US representatives. They gave away everything we had won when we had outfoxed them.”
“I’ve never heard anything so scandalous. These must be rogue agents.” I suggested.
“Not at all. This is how the US does foreign policy. All those wiki leak whatever documents show they tap everybody, literally everybody, and use the information to their advantage.” He asserted, raising his voice.
“So what about you?” I asked.
“I’m small potatoes. Not even a lawyer.” They didn’t order me to do anything so I’m free to talk. I’m telling you they’re idiots. They’re running the law office. Guess what?” He asked.
“What,” I complied.
“Not one of them’s a lawyer! They’re running the office and they don’t know what they’re doing. That’s why that lawsuit was started.”
“The one against the firm by the firm?” I asked.
“Exactly. They wanted to shut the whole firm up so they sued the firm. But then they couldn’t sign it as the CIA, and blow their so called cover, so they signed their names as the lawyers of the firm. They sued themselves! You know what I think…I think they actually think they’re lawyers now.”
“Well they seem stupid enough to be,” I admitted.
He sighed. “You’re right. I was thinking of going to law school but now I think I’m too smart for that. Not that I’m any genius but from what I’ve seen if you’re of normal intelligence you’re too smart to be a lawyer.”
“So what do you plan to do?” I asked.
“Maybe a government job but I’m really afraid I couldn’t cut it, so to speak,” he said, once again in a fit of giggling.
“Well,” I asked, “except for the giggling, you seem like you’re pretty together, especially under stress. Why couldn’t you ‘cut it?'”
“I couldn’t live with a crew cut,” he said simply. “Never.”
“Me neither, ever,” I agreed.
You may follow Marquel on Twitter @MarquelatTPV.
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“And?” I urged.
“Well, we didn’t know it but the CIA and NSA were monitoring all our calls, faxes l, and emails. The US trade negotiators knew our positions almost before we did. It seemed funny but they had counterproposals prepared and printed before we even delivered our own.”
Marvelous. Loved:
“So what do you plan to do?” I asked.
“Maybe a government job but I’m really afraid I couldn’t cut it, so to speak,” he said, once again in a fit of giggling.
“Well,” I asked, “except for the giggling, you seem like you’re pretty together, especially under stress. Why couldn’t you ‘cut it?’”
“I couldn’t live with a crew cut,” he said simply. “Never.”
“Me neither, ever,” I agreed.
Ditto
Always finely tuned. “I didn’t think that was French but the guy was clearly stressed, so I just urged him to continue, saying, “pas du tout.””
I don’t get it. Why pretend behind some international organizations that we give a fuck?
I like the crew cuts image..I know what you’re talking about
The sad thing is that when they bomb or attack us again, in retaliation, innocent Americans will suffer. None of these mother fuckers will be touched…That’s sad…Nice article.
You’re a smart Bro, Marquel. I like you