[HN Gopher] Don't watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons ...
___________________________________________________________________
Don't watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits
Author : Tomte
Score : 230 points
Date : 2025-05-02 04:49 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| redwoodsec wrote:
| Why?
| Moosdijk wrote:
| Read the article and find out
| edm0nd wrote:
| Why not?
| archerx wrote:
| The lawyer is an idiot and has bad taste. Saved you a click and
| cookie banner BS.
| wiradikusuma wrote:
| Also, sometimes we (developers) like to use wacky data for
| testing purposes. For example, I like to put Batman as a dummy
| user, and my QA likes to upload cat pictures when testing
| uploads/images.
|
| We do it so it's obvious it's test data, and also we're lazy to
| think of more "real" data.
|
| Just say some users expect real(ish) data for testing. I had a
| client who was totally not happy when he saw Batman and Superman
| in the test data.
| ghssds wrote:
| Your client needs to remove the broom stucks in their ass. Your
| story reminds me of the uptight people angry about the Anubis'
| catgirl.
| DoctorOW wrote:
| I give Abubis a special pass, because they sell a business
| oriented version without the character. The true cost of
| using FOSS is you don't have any say in what the developer
| does.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Au contraire, FOSS allows you to fork and make
| modifications.
| hk__2 wrote:
| This just confirms OP's point that "you don't have any
| say in what the developer does", since the only way to
| get your modifications in if the developer disagrees is
| to maintain your own version of the code.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| This is also true of paid software, except you have to
| start from scratch.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| I forget how the phrase goes, but it's something like,
| "Someone else can do it _better_ than you, but no one
| will ever care more about what you _need_ than yourself.
| " The point basically being that there are tradeoffs: you
| are either okay with imperfection, or you have to do it
| yourself. It appears true, whether it be for software
| development or home repair.
| cperciva wrote:
| _For example, I like to put Batman as a dummy user_
|
| I can't remember the details, but I've heard a story multiple
| times about a fake-sounding name being used in testing -- I
| think US military payroll? -- and causing problems when a real
| person had that name. Can anyone here remember this?
|
| In any case, "batman" is just about plausible enough that it
| could be real. I tend to use names like "Mr. Testy
| Testalicious" which (a) contain the string "test", and (b) are
| so wildly absurd that I'm confident nobody will ever collide
| with it.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| lol I read something else right there
| eesmith wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(surname) - 'Batman is a
| surname of English origin. It originates from Saint
| Bartholomew and means "a friend or servant of Bart."'
|
| It lists a few people, like "Daniel Batman (20 March 1981 -
| 26 June 2012) was an Australian sprinter."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Batman
|
| A few DDG searches finds others with the surname Batman who
| are not famous enough to be on Wikipedia.
| cam_l wrote:
| Aside: Batman (John) is also a well known name in
| Melbourne, au.
|
| He was a kind of founding father. He negotiated a fake
| treaty to steal the land from the local Kulin nation. He
| wanted to call it Batmania.
|
| Also responsible for organising hunting parties for
| bushrangers and multiple massacres and genocide of
| aboriginal people in NSW, VIC, and TAS.
|
| Total fucking cunt.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Batman
| userbinator wrote:
| Batman is definitely a real name...
| https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24911186
| spiffytech wrote:
| I used to use Test T. Testerton until coworkers critiqued
| that "Test T" reminded them of male genitals.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Our first user at one company was Richard Test. He had user
| ID 1001. Well-meaning people deactivated his account
| several times over the years because it looked fake to
| them.
|
| Sorry, Richard. I hope you were more amused than annoyed.
| wolfgang42 wrote:
| I've told your story about Mr. Test to several people
| over the years but I've never been able to remember where
| I got it from. I'm glad to have finally found it again,
| and thank you for the anecdote!
| indrora wrote:
| One of the audio checks I've heard over the many
| conventions I've volunteered for is "Ice Ice Icicles, Cue
| Cue Cuticles, Test... Test... Testicles" with the final
| word pronounced like Hercules.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| [sigh]
|
| Now all I can think of is, "of course, you'll be playing
| the part of Sans Testicles."
| cratermoon wrote:
| I have this one baked into my dummy data:
|
| Ralf Kramden 1060 W. Addision Chicago IL 60613 United States
| jszymborski wrote:
| I usually use Adele Dazeem as in [0]
|
| [0] https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/adele-dazeem-idina-
| menz...
| pluies wrote:
| Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr, famously had issues with
| IT systems: Tim: There're so many places we
| could start, but in the process of doing homework for this, I
| found mentioned, and I wanted to do a fact check on this, of
| you having plane tickets automatically cancelled, and other
| issues related to your last name. Is that accurate? Did those
| things actually happen? Caterina Fake: This has
| happened to me many times, in fact. And I discovered that it
| was actually the systems at KLM and Northwest that would
| throw my ticket out, my last name being "Fake." And I have
| missed flights and have spent way too many hours with
| customer service trying to fix this problem. Here's another
| thing too, is that I was unable for the first two years of
| Facebook to make an account there also. And probably all of
| my relatives.
|
| https://tim.blog/2019/02/21/the-tim-ferriss-show-
| transcripts...
| BurningFrog wrote:
| People named Null are also having struggles in the modern
| world:
|
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160325-the-names-
| that-b...
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| lol so much data gets converted into strings at some
| point when passed around. Definitely encountered systems
| where you have to check for both null and "null"
| adolph wrote:
| This seems like a good spot for the link to @patio11's
| "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names"
| So, as a public service, I'm going to list assumptions your
| systems probably make about names. All of these
| assumptions are wrong. Try to make less of them
| next time you write a system which touches names.
|
| https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-
| programmers-...
| fuzzer371 wrote:
| See, the issue is a lot of people have stupid names.
| msla wrote:
| I get what he's doing, but some of these are not
| actionable:
|
| > People's names are all mapped in Unicode code points.
|
| So... what? What do I do with this? My program has to use
| something to represent text, and since I fail to be a
| large multinational consortium, I can't invent my own
| character set and expect it to work.
|
| Also:
|
| > Confound your cultural relativism! People in my
| society, at least, agree on one commonly accepted
| standard for names.
|
| This is pretty much true in countries with naming laws,
| yes.
|
| > People have names.
|
| People in a database will have certain records which will
| not be NULL. Whether you call one of those records a
| 'name' outside the context of that database really isn't
| my concern.
| varun_ch wrote:
| > Try to make less of them
| rzzzt wrote:
| Major Major Major from Catch-22?
| lapetitejort wrote:
| DOGE is going to delete Jon Tester [0] from the list of
| historical senators
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Tester
| sokoloff wrote:
| There was a bank that wasn't happy with "Rich Bastard" being
| used as dummy data but not being replaced in the mail merge,
| resulting in a couple thousand of their wealthiest customers
| getting a mailing with the salutation "Dear Rich Bastard,"
|
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dear-rich-bastard/
| daveslash wrote:
| I learned a long time ago to be very careful with mock,
| dummy, or test data.... because some people will just push
| anything to prod, take screenshots during your demo and paste
| it into the official documentation... you name it.
|
| I was giving a demo on how to set up multiple computers in a
| federated setup using Active Directory, ADFS, etc... I had
| about 5 VMs named things like Hank, Peggy, Bobby, Boomhauer,
| Bill, and a test user HHill, 123 Rainy Street, Arlen, TX --
| someone screenshotted and took notes during the demo and now
| that's in some formal training somewhere material.
| Thankfully, it's all internal.
|
| When I and doing dev work and I need an available port, just
| any port, I use 666 -- because it's never used by anything
| and also _DOOM_. I gave a sprint demo and I used 660 instead
| of 666 to demo that the customer can specify the port number
| of screen X. Someone put that in the internal and also
| customer facing documentation... so now my company 's product
| is default setup on 660, even thought it's completely user-
| configurable. Thank God I didn't demo with 666...
| ryandrake wrote:
| I've never really understood developers' apparent need to
| add cutesy stuff into their work product's test data,
| variable names, easter eggs and so on. Adding this stuff is
| all downside risk with no technical benefit that you can
| explain in a written postmortem that will be read by your
| boss's boss's boss.
|
| I mean, I get the motivation: You're working on a boring,
| dry, SeriousBusiness project, and have a creative itch that
| needs to be scratched. We all have a nonzero desire for a
| little joy and irreverence at work. But, man, scratch that
| itch with hobby projects, not stuff that's going out into
| the public! Or start a "wear a funny shirt day" at work or
| something like that. I know this is unpopular and makes me
| look like Debbie Downer, but our projects already have
| enough technical risks without deliberately adding more.
| kmoser wrote:
| There's a saying: "Don't post anything online you
| wouldn't want grandma to see." The developer equivalent
| is "Don't use test data you wouldn't want the client [or
| boss] to see." This also applies to variable names,
| function names, and comments in code.
|
| For a project that involved creating fake companies and
| user records, I purposely choose to use characters from
| Star Trek, Star Wars, and the Simpsons for each of the
| different companies. They're whimsical, non-offensive,
| and as an added bonus, if I see Homer Simpson listed
| alongside James T. Kirk, I instantly know there's a data
| integrity problem.
| Tade0 wrote:
| That last bit is the main reason why I use odd or
| otherwise out of place test data[0]. Test data should
| never leak into production. Ideally there should be no
| means of that happening.
|
| [0] Recent example: tissue sample, species: dog, tissue
| type: bone. Valid combination, just not present anywhere
| in prod.
| Atreiden wrote:
| If dummy data ever proposes a "technical risk" to your
| projects, I might argue you're using the term wrong.
|
| Variable names are different, and I'll give you that, but
| creating humorous dummy data in lower environments
| shouldn't ever be an issue. Injecting a little fun
| legitimately helps overcome despair, and the harder and
| more difficult your project/company is, the more it needs
| a dose of lightheartedness.
|
| No matter what the scrum boards that reduce us to story
| points say, we're all human beings. When everything is
| very high stakes, you're in a perpetual state of fight or
| flight. It's literally physiologically bad for you.
| Blowing off steam helps.
|
| As a test of our new Sev1 alerting system, I created a
| phony alert "The hordes of Mordor are descending upon our
| data center".
|
| It was well received by the team.
| yallpendantools wrote:
| > not stuff that's going out into the public!
|
| Well, the problem is, in almost all the examples here so
| far, said stuff was not meant to go out into the public.
| If your customers end up seeing your product's test data
| and---heavens above!---variable names, there is an
| organizational issue that needs to be addressed, cutesy
| stuff or no cutesy stuff.
|
| Also, isn't the point of QA testing just to throw all and
| any data to your system? Would you rather have a system
| that's tested against the eventuality that someone abuses
| UTF-8 in a textbox or a full SeriousBusiness system with
| zero whimsy and cutesy stuff? Someone's whimsy cutesy
| stuff is someone else's street address.
|
| I think you just put a finger on why I absolutely loathe
| SeriousBusiness Banking Software: they were designed,
| implemented, and tested in a vacuum that even normal
| users end up putting a toe out of line that just breaks
| the assumptions of the spec. You have to be extremely
| average down to your name to peacefully coexist with
| them.
| mattkevan wrote:
| When designing, the standard practice is to use Lorem Ipsum -
| sort of mangled Latin that works like normal text but is very
| recognisable. This backfired once when I did a website for the
| Jesuits - the feedback they gave was that the design looks good
| but they were all baffled by the text and could I do something
| about it please.
|
| I'd not considered that they might be the only client where
| everyone was fluent in Latin.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| Reminds me of the Catholic friend who once told me that he
| had done IT support for every Catholic religious order with a
| presence in the city where he lived, except two.
|
| The Carthusians didn't use computers, and the Jesuits didn't
| need his help.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I've seen too many stories of placeholder text ending up in
| production... so I better make it worthwhile and include some
| Lovecraft quotes [0] because everyone needs more gibbering,
| cyclopean, eldritch adjectives in their lives.
|
| [0] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft
| kevinmgranger wrote:
| Rust had something similar: https://github.com/rust-
| lang/rust/issues/13871
| RajT88 wrote:
| A friend of mine uses a scraped list of heavy metal band names
| for QA testing how well systems deal with weird characters.
|
| He is, himself, a weird character.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| I'm a big fan of using Emoji for names of test/dummy users. It
| helps test your application and dev stack's end-to-end Unicode
| compliance. It is less likely to conflict with real data (so
| far as I'm aware we haven't yet seen children born named with
| emoji, though that is likely a matter of time). It is often
| very visibly test data that stands out. But also and maybe more
| important, you can have fun with it.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| We had a Dev environment that showed a doge meme on the auth
| page that had been there for like...7 years or something? "So
| auth. Much secure. Wow." etc.
|
| Every other environment had standard boiler plate corporate
| logo + whatever product name. We kept the meme stuff in Dev
| just so you could be _visually reminded_ , "Oh right, this is
| the crazy broken one."
|
| Queue 7 years later, an emergency where we just _had_ to
| impress a new client with a demo of how the product would work.
| And of course, the only thing that was really in a semi-ready
| state...was Dev. We couldn 't move it over to a different one
| for some stupid reason or another.
|
| Number one comment after the demo? "This looks _very_
| unprofessional. We do not want a dog logo on the login page. Is
| your team taking this seriously? "
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| It actually distracts from reading. It feels as if the person
| producing these papers hasn't even tried reading them themselves,
| it's painful for the eyes. And what is this watermark even
| supposed to protect from?
| Llamamoe wrote:
| Printing and photocopying? Because this could get really
| unreadable really quick.
| rootsudo wrote:
| I get why furries are called that -- they're into human-animal
| caricatures with fur.
|
| What do you call someone who likes dragons? Scalies?
| nicman23 wrote:
| yep that is what they are calling themselves
| senectus1 wrote:
| They're not InDrag? :-D sorry, this is a silly subject
| rootsudo wrote:
| TIL and I didn't want to, sigh, Internet.
| mukesh610 wrote:
| Unintentionally discovering a thing you know you're going
| to hate has got to be top 10 internet experiences.
| some_furry wrote:
| Hate's a strong word for this interaction.
| toast0 wrote:
| Don't ask a question you don't want answered :P
| cess11 wrote:
| People who are into dragons are furries, it's not a literal
| term. Their furry subgroup is usually called scalies, which
| besides dragons and snakes include people who are into things
| like salamanders and other amphibians.
|
| I'm under the impression that such taxonomies are less
| important to these in-groups than whether you're just into the
| aesthetic or get off on it sexually as well.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| Disney movies and 80s cartoons with talking animals really
| created a whole new subculture.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| It certainly didn't start with 80s cartoons -
| anthropomorphized depictions of animals feature among the
| oldest written works. Aesop's Fables are 2500 years old,
| and the geographic dispersal of similar stories indicates
| that they originate even further back than that.
| cess11 wrote:
| Austin Osman Spare did it earlier than that, as did some of
| the old greeks and others.
| colpabar wrote:
| Fun fact: there are also "therians", which are people who truly
| believe they are part/all animal.
| vegadw wrote:
| I'm a furry (Been for ~10 years, actually going to a big con
| in a week) but not a Therian. I too sometimes find some of
| the Therians a bit, uh, eccentric. But I think it's worth
| clarifying that _most_ (I think) don 't _literally_ believe
| themselves to be part animal or werewolves or whatever, I
| think it 's usually a spiritual thing, where they so strongly
| identify with the animal that it's part of how they act and
| see themselves.
|
| I, personally, find that actually more understandable (as
| someone that isn't in the group) than I do, say, most
| religions and their belief in a higher power. That's not to
| in an attempt to offend or belittle either group (or the
| overlap, religious Therians), just a view from my particular
| perspective where it's really no more strange than anything
| else people do. If it makes them happy, lets them connect
| with others, etc. who am I to judge?
|
| There are, of course, outliers that literally believe
| themselves to be shapeshifters or whatever, but, okay? As
| long as its not impacting their day-to-day too much, many of
| them are still probably mentally more healthy than a lot of
| other people.
| lilyball wrote:
| Speaking as a trans therian, being a therian is kind of
| like being trans, except there's no cross-species HRT, and
| even fewer people will be willing to respect your identity.
|
| It is really hard to actually describe what this means,
| though. What's the actual distinction between "they so
| strongly identify with the animal" and "they are the
| animal, trapped in a human body"? Is it just the desire to
| tell us "ok but you know you really are human, right?" I
| know my body is a human body, I know my DNA is human DNA,
| but that doesn't say anything about the mind inside this
| body, the concept of self. What I experience can best be
| described by a thought experiment: imagine that, through
| some magic spell, an animal was put into the body of a
| human and had to learn how to fit in to human society. What
| would that animal be feeling after all that? Probably the
| same way I feel.
|
| Ultimately though, it doesn't really matter how one tries
| to describe this. None of the descriptions will be
| sufficiently accurate. But what matters is that treating me
| as the animal whose identity I claim makes me happy, and it
| doesn't harm anyone.
| pwdisswordfishd wrote:
| Have you read "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" by
| philosopher Thomas Nagel?
| RiverCrochet wrote:
| My cousin is a furry, and she has the following the say about
| it:
|
| 'You still use the term furry, really. "Furry" has become an
| wide umbrella term used for artwork featuring fictional
| anthropomorphized animals and tends to cover any species - so
| this would include fur-less animals such as reptiles,
| amphibians, birds, and even insects.
|
| "Scalie" is used to describe art/characters featuring
| anthropomorphized reptilies and dragons. Fans of them would
| still be furries tho.'
| demarq wrote:
| The whole point of a judicial process is to make judgments on the
| merit of a case not personal prejudice.
|
| What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more
| guilty?
| speerer wrote:
| I want to make two observations here.
|
| First, the order being reported is made against the lawyer, not
| against the lawyer's client - And it is in order not to do this
| in future. So, while your observation is good I think the
| conclusion you draw from it doesn't follow.
|
| Secondly, one aspect of your good point is that arguments are
| filed in a very plain format. The point being that the format
| does not detract from the message. In this case, the format
| heavily detracts from the message. Have you seen the PDF? It's
| absolutely nuts. I hope he doesn't turn up to court wearing a
| dragon mask.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > First, the order being reported is made against the lawyer,
| not against the lawyer's client...
|
| I suspect the client will be billed for the revisions,
| though.
| gambiting wrote:
| And as the court pointed out, it's hard to judge the merit of
| the case when you're distracted by a huge purple dragon when
| reading the legal document.
|
| It's the same reason why you can't send documents written in
| yellow font on a blue background - technically not against the
| rules, but no judge will suffer through reading it.
|
| >>What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more
| guilty?
|
| Obviously you can just choose not to watermark the document,
| tattoos cannot be removed that easily. And yes, there are
| various situations where you'd be asked to cover your tattoo if
| it was inappropriate for the situation too.
| toast0 wrote:
| > It's the same reason why you can't send documents written
| in yellow font on a blue background - technically not against
| the rules, but no judge will suffer through reading it.
|
| Using those particular color choices might not actually be
| suffering. It used to be a desirable color combination for
| word processing. I don't know if judges tend to review
| pleadings on screen or on paper though. On paper, black on
| white would be preferred, of course (unless the court had
| blue legal paper to print on)
| _bin_ wrote:
| Lawyers are held to different standards of professional conduct
| than defendants. This also makes it much harder to read.
| demarq wrote:
| I see what you are saying about there being different
| standards.
|
| I would follow up with, if the shoe was on the other foot, do
| you believe that a lawyer with tattoos and or purple hair
| should be allowed to practice?
|
| We may never agree? But I think that we should be more
| tolerant of individuality than prejudice.
| demarq wrote:
| I change my mind. A tattoo is individuality, a purple
| dragon on a client document is not an appropriate place to
| express that.
| Zetaphor wrote:
| You're comparing a person's appearance to the formatting of
| a legal document. Nobody is talking about the physical
| appearance of the attorney.
|
| There is procedure and standards in document filing for a
| reason, this is more difficult to read than a white
| background.
| _bin_ wrote:
| I disagree with the way the bar associations are currently
| constructed as state-sanctioned monopolies. Since they're
| technically the ones who determine who is "allowed to
| practice", that's a hard question to answer.
|
| I'd be comfortable establishing a stronger dress code for
| courtrooms - wear business casual or some such - but dyed
| hair and tattoos aren't easily fixable mistakes if you get
| called to court, so they have to be permitted for at least
| the defendant. For attorneys, it's probably fine to say
| that those with purple hair and tattoos can practice but
| not appear in a courtroom to represent a client. They can
| prep and file a patent but not represent you in a trial.
| That is, of course, if most people would hire an attorney
| with purple hair and tattoos. I would not do that unless I
| wanted to somehow get the death penalty for a speeding
| ticket.
| int_19h wrote:
| A friend of mine is a lawyer with numerous tattoos, and
| it didn't preclude him from successfully representing his
| clients in court.
|
| He's also a USMC veteran. Stereotypes can be funny like
| that.
| rascul wrote:
| I don't like the idea that one should be excluded from
| doing a type of work because of something arbitrary like
| hair color or skin markings.
| rblatz wrote:
| If you were facing the death penalty would you pick a
| lawyer with purple hair and face tattoos to defend you?
| jolux wrote:
| I would if they were the best lawyer available? Their
| personal appearance is going to be pretty far down my
| list of concerns. See also Taleb's Surgeon Paradox:
| https://medium.com/incerto/surgeons-should-notlook-like-
| surg...
| _bin_ wrote:
| The point is this might work for a surgeon but does not
| for an attorney. There are enough jurors who would be
| strongly biased against anyone arguing before them with
| purple hair and tattoos that it's exceedingly unlikely
| anyone with such an appearance ever could rise to the top
| of his field.
|
| This would also be true in e.g. M&A. Even if Cravath's
| fieriest new partner looked like that I'd hesitate to
| hire him. Patent law might be an exception, but if I
| needed to actually go to court, WilmerHale's top guy
| would still be a liability. Even in a bench trial the
| judge could see it as disrespectful or look down on my
| representation because of it. You see my meaning here?
|
| On the table, the surgeon's appearance has little or
| nothing to do with his ability; in court, a lawyer's
| appearance can be crucial.
| rascul wrote:
| I wouldn't be opposed to it, but I wouldn't select based
| such traits.
| _bin_ wrote:
| Except those are choices they made knowing full well the
| consequences. Here's what people miss: _the fact that it
| 's a social norm is reason to care, not reason to ignore
| it._
|
| If you were a brilliant lawyer strongly committed to your
| craft, you would not get tattoos or dye your hair purple.
| The reason is simple: too many people would see it and
| think less of you. As such, it makes you less able to
| effectively defend your clients. When your job involves
| appealing to society on behalf of someone, you do not
| make a middle finger to that same society an immutable
| part of your appearance unless you are very thoughtless,
| also not a characteristic I want in a attorney.
|
| There's also the fact that law, more than most
| disciplines, is premised on adherence to old, old forms
| of tradition and ritual. In britain they still wear
| powdered wigs, for goodness' sake. The law still uses
| Latin terms though it's decades to centuries since
| educated men learned it in school. Our legal tradition in
| America is old, with Common Law in some ways tracing back
| to William the Conqueror. The other major legal tradition
| on which I've read, Justinian's Codex and its evolution
| into the Napoleonic Code, dates back to the 500s AD.
| Discarding old customs, even if you think them outmoded,
| trampling social niceties because you find them outmoded,
| is a really bad sign for a capable attorney.
| filoleg wrote:
| > I would follow up with, if the shoe was on the other
| foot, do you believe that a lawyer with tattoos and or
| purple hair should be allowed to practice?
|
| Yes, they should be allowed to practice, because a lawyer's
| tattoos and purple hair do not have anything to do with
| court documents and readability of those. Exceptions
| obviously apply, as not all tattoos are created equal, and
| having a visible gang-affiliation tattoo or a tattoo saying
| "cop killer" (which actually happened, but to a defendant)
| might be problematic as a lawyer.
|
| Here is an analogy that might help: my employer might not
| care if someone communicates in offtopic employee chats
| using gifs and emojis, but I can easily see an employee
| getting fired for doing the same thing either to an
| external customer or in cross-org sev 0 incident threads.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| I don't see how the order is making anyone more or less guilty.
|
| Judicial process historically has a certain seriousness flair
| and a code of conduct based on it. Making fun of the judge or
| the court of law is a quick way go get removed from the process
| or fined, or even jailed. As well as performing marketing
| stunts like this.
| bmacho wrote:
| > The whole point of a judicial process is to make judgments on
| the merit of a case not personal prejudice.
|
| And specifying the style of something that they are able to
| change easily helps that.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| All courts have local rules or even standing orders governing
| filings and pleadings - from case styling formatting,
| font/size, spacing, max pages, ect... Federal district courts
| are not places to flaunt rules of the court or court orders.
|
| Beyond that lawyers are governed by state bars and rules of
| professional conduct -- as an example the Florida bar has taken
| action against an attorney that used to advertise himself as a
| "pitbull."
|
| Regarding tattoos courts have rules of decorum, which generally
| cover appropriate dress/attire in the courtroom. As far as
| tattoos, I've been to thousands of hearings and can give a
| single anecdote. It was a drug possession case and the
| defendant was allowed to transfer their case from circuit
| felony to drug court - basically allowing completion of drug
| classes while on kind of pretrial probation in exchange for
| either a nolle pros (dismissal) or withhold of adjudication.
| The drug court judge gave the defendant a hard time at this
| initial hearing over having a drug molecule tattooed on their
| neck - questioning if drug court was a good fit for someone the
| seemingly was pretty committed to drugs (based on the neck
| tat). The drug court judge can see a hundred or more defendants
| a day, they've seen it all and aren't passing judgement, its
| just that their experience allows them to read people extremely
| well and they had legitimate concerns because getting in
| trouble in drug court can result in automatic conviction of the
| original charge + having to deal with any new charge.
|
| A rule of thumb professionalism and decorum go a long way in
| court - this attorney could be decent, but as a potential
| client any lawyer using a gimmicky dragon in a suit in their
| paperwork should probably raise some red flags for you.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| In fact, in many societies, tattoos are considered a sign of
| low status, affiliation with lower class (which tends to get
| harsher sentences) and/or criminal activity, and may -
| consciously or subconsciously - lead to worse outcomes in
| trials.[1]
|
| Just tattoo 'cop killer' on your forehead and see if they give
| you parole.
|
| [1] https://bpb-
| us-w2.wpmucdn.com/voices.uchicago.edu/dist/f/305...
| StefanBatory wrote:
| > What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more
| guilty?
|
| Unfortunately, it's true - that's how it will be seen. :(
| bluGill wrote:
| > What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more
| guilty?
|
| That question is for the jury to decide for better and worse.
| There are lots of good points to a jury trial which is why free
| societies usually (always?) have them in some form. However one
| downside is you will once in a while get someone on the jury
| who judges you not on the facts of the case but on things that
| shouldn't matter.
|
| Overall it is still better than the alternatives in my opinion,
| but it does mean you need to figure out what your local
| cultures are and avoid offending them (note cultures is plural
| - figure out them all).
| userbinator wrote:
| The hosting company iFastNet uses a green and yellow dragon,
| which is what came to mind when I read the title, despite it
| being nearly 2 decades since I had anything to do with them, so I
| think this is definitely a marketing stunt of some sort.
| zahrc wrote:
| Any image in this position would be distracting.
|
| However, I have never understood notions like this: "it is
| juvenile and impertinent. The Court is not a cartoon"
|
| Is like my great grandpa scolding us at the dinner table for
| laughing and talking.
| speerer wrote:
| If he laughed and talked in court over the judge, he would also
| be scolded.
| cess11 wrote:
| The court is not a homely dinner between citizens, it's the
| pinnacle of state power and a place where people are judged by
| it. Even if the court would always be just and fair it would
| still be a place of tragedy and suffering for many of the
| participants.
| globular-toast wrote:
| A judge has the power to (effectively or actually) end
| someone's life. I am very glad this responsibility is taken
| seriously. As an adult I'm sick of memes and childish
| "stickers" etc everywhere as it is. It certainly doesn't belong
| in a court.
| Sharlin wrote:
| It's just as terrible as a lawyer submitting a document written
| in a totally inappropriate register, like street slang littered
| with vulgar phrases. There's a time and a place for cartoon
| dragons. A court of law is neither. If you don't understand
| why, maybe it's time for you to learn a thing or two about
| human communication.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| > Is like my great grandpa scolding us at the dinner table for
| laughing and talking
|
| It's more like a non-familial, formal dinner setting. Think
| about a job interview where the CEO and interviewer take you
| and another interviewee to dinner in a fancy restaurant. You
| turn up in jeans and sneakers with your buddy and you laugh and
| crack jokes together, the other interviewee turns up in smart
| clothes and talks soberly. In a few cases (and perhaps only
| seen in Holywood movies about the American Dream) the CEO may
| love the irreverence and impertinence and see it as a strength
| and sign of strong individuality, in almost all cases the
| bosses will not appreciate it and you will not get a job. Great
| grandpa loves you, the boss at your place of work doesn't.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Surely you are aware that a lot of the people on this site
| interview in their jeans
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| If the CEO invites you to dinner at a high end restaurant
| hopefully you change into something a bit nicer.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I'm sorry to disappoint
| JCattheATM wrote:
| No reason for disappointment, but you likely won't be
| invited back.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Um, this is highly region dependent. If it were a hot
| day, I would be comfortable interviewing with a CEO in
| nice shorts and a clean t-shirt, and fully expect that
| they'd dress similarly.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| The example wasn't just "an interview" it was "a high end
| restaurant" but TBF the outcome is indeed highly
| dependent on both region and the personal preference of
| the CEO.
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| While the metaphor they chose may conflict with your
| personal experiences, you should still be able to do a
| good-faith reading of it and realize the underlying
| point.
|
| But nah, probably better to nitpick over the details.
|
| Would it make more sense if it was a funeral instead? A
| wedding?
| gopher_space wrote:
| The metaphor is perfect. Access and outcome depend on
| your ability to acquire and maintain a suit/lawyer,
| including knowing where and when to deploy.
| orly01 wrote:
| I agree that the metaphor is good. The point is
| understood. However, the specific clothes that are
| considered OK in one context ore another are always
| changing and based in criteria that most of the time
| makes no sense.
| ecb_penguin wrote:
| He's in jeans too
| some_furry wrote:
| Y'all are wearing pants??
| ben_w wrote:
| New boss: "Why are you wearing a dragon fursuit?"
|
| Candidate: "Dress for the job you want"
|
| Boss: "Hired! Welcome to Fort Knox"
| alabastervlog wrote:
| Blazer and jeans, of course.
| watwut wrote:
| I would say that job interview in the fancy restaurant is the
| first "unprofessional" step in this chain. The place to
| conduct serious interviews is called the office.
| kstrauser wrote:
| For higher tier jobs, the setting can be wherever looks
| good. I've met and been hired by CTOs at a local coffee
| shop and an Indian buffet. Nothing about a meeting room in
| an office is more conducive to an interview than a shaded
| patio with a nice chai.
| bluGill wrote:
| At my company when we bring you onsite for an interview
| takes you to lunch. The person who takes you to lunch is
| not allowed to talk to the people making the hiring
| decisions. You can thus talk about whatever you want. It is
| a relaxing situation where you can safely press about what
| work is like. If you talk about something that in an
| interview is illegal (likely family) it doesn't matter
| because that person doesn't have a say on if you are hired.
|
| (I encourage anyone who does interviewing to have a similar
| policy - if someone flys in to talk to you that means you
| are buying them meals anyway. Ensuring there is time to
| talk about things that might or might not matter is
| important)
|
| For engineers we wouldn't go to a fancy restaurant. However
| I'd expect executives probably would.
| gonzus wrote:
| In all honesty, would you hire this dude as YOUR lawyer?
| prepend wrote:
| He's not experienced in this court to know what the judge
| likes and dislikes.
|
| I've found it helpful to use lawyers who know the courts and
| people of the courts where my case is going to take place.
| bityard wrote:
| Courts deal with serious life-changing issues and everyone
| involved in a court case is expected behave seriously. In fact,
| that is literally the primary role of the judge. And why judges
| are famously strict on procedure, demeanor, and the overall
| decorum of the courtroom. This is the only thing that prevents
| your average court case from turning into an episode of Jerry
| Springer.
| advisedwang wrote:
| The legal system relies on an sense of awe. Gavels, neo-
| classical buildings, wigs, elevated benches, latin and yes
| formality in documents are all just ways to build and maintain
| that awe.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| If this was a small claims court over a $100 garden fence post
| being broken, maybe. An annoying distraction, for sure, and
| unprofessional for someone who's supposed to take your case
| seriously, but little harm done.
|
| This is about a woman whose entire life hangs in the balance. A
| higher standard of care and professionalism is expected.
|
| Plus, depending on where you live, judges may decide to hand
| out punishments for whatever power-tripping reasons they see
| fit. There have been plenty of videos online of judges handing
| out sentences to (black) people for not responding in whatever
| the American version of the Queen's English is. It's an
| absolutely fucked up system, but when you're operating in such
| a system, an appropriate amount of fear and respect for the
| judge is necessary.
|
| You can play games with the court in your own time, but don't
| risk your clients' lives because you feel compelled to add your
| stupid mascot to official documents.
| low_tech_love wrote:
| The judge is right, but unfortunately there is no easy way to
| handle it. Right now, effectively, what he did was give JAKELAW
| the free advertisement that he wanted to get when he submitted
| the document in the first place. Hell even I have memorised his
| phone number. That was not a watermark, that is intentionally
| put there to annoy and distress the reader so it becomes news.
| He knows his audience and played all his cards right. Gaslit
| the judge, put the judge in a situation where he has to be the
| "bad" guy (even though he's right), and has even earned some
| leverage to criticize the system as being frivolous.
|
| And to be honest we can waste our time indefinitely trying to
| argue the meta here that "maybe Jake is not that bad", and let
| him catch us on his gaslighting trap, but the truth is that
| yes, he is the asshole playing with people's lives, not the
| judge.
| dheera wrote:
| Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGOofzZOyl8
| brumar wrote:
| > that plaintiff shall not file any other documents with the
| cartoon dragon or other inappropriate content
|
| Formal answers to goofiness (voluntary or not) will always amuse
| me.
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" The whole story would be far more humorous were it not from
| a case in which Perrone represented a woman who claims that she
| nearly died after being incarcerated and not given proper medical
| care. Perrone must now refile his complaint in that case--without
| the cartoon dragon."_
|
| That should be more offensive than cartoons. In a just world.
|
| It's not as if the victim had the luxury of many choices of law
| firms, or any capacity to oversee their work. Their access to
| legal services is presumably similar to their access to medical
| care. There's nothing amusing about this outcome. It's seriously
| depressing that "the coked-up cartoon-dragoon attorney" is the
| best representation that person, in their helpless situation, was
| able to navigate to.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| The world has gone from substance to optics. You see it in
| every industry or field.
| lores wrote:
| Heh, optics have been important since the dawn of man, and
| probably even before. Ziggurats are all about optics, and so
| are mating displays. A cynic might say "more important", but
| that's hard to ascertain.
| cornhole wrote:
| people say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but
| first impressions are everything
| Tronno wrote:
| "Don't let a shallow first impression affect your deeper
| judgement, but expect others to let it affect theirs."
| seanw444 wrote:
| Has a nice ring to it
| potato3732842 wrote:
| And somehow along the way every institution seems to have
| forgotten the meaning of the phrase "even the appearance of
| impropriety".
| vkou wrote:
| The legal system, for _millienia_ , has always been a
| hodgepodge of very peculiar and esoteric rules about both
| substance _and_ optics.
|
| That's why lawyers exist, by the way. Outside of small claims
| court, laymen aren't equipped to navigate it without stepping
| on every possible rake imaginable.
| eadmund wrote:
| > That should be more offensive than cartoons. In a just world.
|
| If the complaint is true, then yes it _is_ offensive and the
| results will be more serious than being required to refile the
| complaint without the watermark. The process of determining if
| the complaint is true or not _is_ the justice system.
| jerf wrote:
| Yes. Now probably a couple dozen people are going to
| collectively spend thousands of hours going over the
| complaint. The watermark issue is indeed just a sideshow by
| comparison.
|
| The posts on this HN story demonstrate exactly the point the
| judge is trying to make. This sort of optics issue looms so
| large in human brains that it is indeed generating
| accusations that the court case is not being taken seriously
| because the court must obviously be spending all of its
| attention on this visually appealing story, even though in
| the grand scheme of things it is a tiny fraction of just the
| effort that will be spent on this case overall. Justice must
| not just be just, it must be _seen_ to be just, and this sort
| of behavior is an impossibly attractive nuisance for people.
| Even those defending the picture are still being sucked into
| a sideshow.
| timewizard wrote:
| The court does not deal in "truth." It deals in civil cases
| with "more likely than not" or in criminal cases "beyond a
| reasonable doubt."
|
| It's also why the court prefers that people settle with each
| other outside of court processes. The court is a brutal
| cudgel. It has exceptional power to change outcomes but this
| use is almost never the ideal outcome for anyone involved.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| To a normal person, sure. But the legal system ruins lives and
| deals in ruined lives every day. They don't blink twice at that
| stuff. A cartoon dragon on the other hand...
| lupusreal wrote:
| The formality of the process helps them keep their conscious
| clear. Attacking the formality of the process therefore
| threatens them.
| lolinder wrote:
| The watermark is actively distracting from the enormously
| important work of reading the complaint in detail. This
| isn't a question of formality for formality's sake, it's a
| question of ensuring that the processes run smoothly so
| that justice can be done.
| exe34 wrote:
| If he studied enough for law school and was able to work
| in a court for years before becoming a judge, I would
| assume his ADHD is under control and he is not that
| easily distracted.
| jacobgkau wrote:
| Consciously, sure, but with some studies saying judges
| tend to rule differently on similar cases based on
| whether it's before or after lunchtime, do you really
| want to introduce more subliminal variables like
| decorations into the legal process?
| lupusreal wrote:
| The influence of cartoon dragons probably don't come
| close the influence of judges and lawyers talking to each
| other about what schools they went to, what country clubs
| they belong to, etc.
|
| The breech of formality isn't being turned into a big
| deal because it might bias case outcomes; in that regard
| it's a rounding error washed out by innumerable more
| substantial sources of bias. It's being made into a big
| deal because formality is the wall between outcomes of
| cases and feelings of personal culpability for the people
| who are involved in that process. All of the formality
| and decorum make it easier for judges and lawyers to
| emotionally distance themselves from, very often, ruining
| peoples' lives.
| jacobgkau wrote:
| Too many "rounding errors" adding up seems like a
| reasonable justification for not allowing even seemingly
| small sources of additional inconsistency. Slippery slope
| and all that.
|
| Also, just because the other potential sources of bias
| you brought up exist doesn't mean new ones should be let
| into the process. I wouldn't be against solutions to
| remove the ones you mentioned. But I don't think you'd be
| entirely convinced that just allowing cartoon dragons
| would decrease bias by making people more empathetic.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| This is really important to understand. Formality isn't an
| arbitrary concept invented by old fogies, it's a
| psychological hack we apply to convince people to _take
| things seriously_. People really like joking around
| [citation needed], so that 's hard to achieve. A lot of
| people develop weird complexes about it, because there are
| big gaps between otherwise close subcultures in what should
| or shouldn't be taken seriously, but I hope nearly everyone
| can agree that court proceedings are a serious matter.
| jknoepfler wrote:
| Formality is about preserving objectivity. You don't submit
| papers to a peer-reviewed journal watermarked with a purple
| dinosaur in a suit for the same reason you don't submit a
| complaint to a court watermarked with a purple dinosaur in
| a suit. Scientific publication (despite its many flaws) is
| about the content of the publication. Everything else -
| tone, style, grammatical nuance - is prescribed by a style
| guide because it is otherwise irrelevant.
|
| There are certainly bad judges that hide behind "the
| authority vested in them by the court," but reductively
| asserting that formality is about maintaining authority
| misses the point (and the operating philosophy behind
| creating a fair and impartial court) by a country mile.
| perihelions wrote:
| I remember reading a couple years back, when some judges in
| Louisiana were exposed systematically discarding legal
| petitions from incarcerated plaintiffs into trash cans,
| without reading them. Totally nulled out any access to
| courts, any possibility of justice, for thousands of people.
|
| https://www.propublica.org/article/louisiana-judges-
| ignored-... ( _" Louisiana Judges Systematically Ignored
| Prisoners' Petitions Without Review"_ (2023))
|
| It's the type of story that _sensitizes_ you to awareness of
| the pattern.
|
| That the victim in the OP story got access to an attorney of
| any color--even dragon-purple--actually puts them above the
| median.
| hervature wrote:
| Louisiana judges have their own rap sheet [1]. It is
| curious that they are the only state that does not have
| common law.
|
| [1] - https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/09
| /judges...
| mark212 wrote:
| the victim did have a choice of lawyers, far beyond a "luxury."
| Don't know if you live in the US or not, but it's hard to avoid
| personal injury attorney advertising in virtually every forum.
| More specifically, there are 426 PI lawyers listed in the
| Superlawyers directory for the Detroit area, and they claim to
| only list the top 5% of practicing attorneys. The plaintiff
| here could easily dump this guy and get someone else, for free,
| especially this early in the lawsuit when the complaint has
| just been filed.
| dogmayor wrote:
| This isn't a PI case and she couldn't "easily" get someone
| else for free. Maybe you're thinking she could get an
| attorney to take the case on a contingency basis, but that's
| not "free."
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| The "outcome" is simply that the judge simply directed the
| attorney to stop using the dragon watermark. Whats the problem?
|
| And, by the way, I'd recommend a bit less credulity about this
| kind of lawsuit. While there is no doubt that a lot of terrible
| things happen in America's prisons, it is also extremely common
| for inmates and former inmates to file exaggerated or even
| frivolous claims about the conditions of their confinement.
| It's understandable. Prisoners have a lot of time on their
| hands and being incarcerated sucks even if your rights are not
| actually being violated. Not saying which this is -- I have no
| way of knowing. I'm just pointing out that it's a mistake to
| take the allegations in a legal complaint at face value.
| lupusreal wrote:
| If a prisoner in America says they are being deprived of
| adaquate medical care, it's safe (for people generally, not
| the legal system) to assume it's true until proven otherwise.
|
| Maybe they're healthy and are complaining about nothing, but
| if they aren't healthy then it is almost certainly the case
| that their medical care is substandard if it exists at all.
| freejazz wrote:
| >The "outcome" is simply that the judge simply directed the
| attorney to stop using the dragon watermark. Whats the
| problem?
|
| I think the poster was trying to make the point that in a
| "just" society, the story would be about how this individual
| is in this position and only has the choice of this attorney,
| and not instead about the purple dragon.
| piker wrote:
| Absolutely. Federal courts are filled with nonsense habeas
| petitions by pro se plaintiffs claiming this exact kind of
| stuff. The fact that this person managed to get
| representation adds some credibility, but then we're also
| here discussing how ridiculous that particular representation
| has behaved.
| bccdee wrote:
| Why would they spend money on a frivolous case they have no
| chance of winning? Lawyers, dragon or no, are expensive, and
| people in prison don't exactly make money. Conversely, abuse
| of prisoners is endemic in America. I find this all extremely
| plausible.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| > That should be more offensive than cartoons. In a just world.
|
| Has anyone at any point expressed otherwise? You're tilting at
| windmills.
| egypturnash wrote:
| The coked-up _AI_ cartoon dragon attorney.
|
| _His website, which also features the purple dragon and a
| bunch of busted links in the footer, says that the firm
| "integrates AI to lower the cost of legal services."_
|
| Hopefully this lawyer is making sure this AI isn't making up
| the cases it's citing, which is a continuing problem:
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ai+make+up+legal+cases
| neilv wrote:
| I used to put a diagonal light gray huge "DRAFT" across pages of
| certain documents for which it was important that a working draft
| not be interpreted as final.
|
| What would've been a great use for the lawyer's dragon documents
| would be to clearly mark incomplete/unapproved drafts, for
| internal review only.
|
| Because, obviously, there was no way that you would accidentally
| submit a filing to the court with a huge purple cartoon dragon on
| every page.
|
| Depending on the lawyer's personality, a big purple dragon might
| also double as lighthearted stress relief, when billing 12+ hours
| a day, of high-stakes work.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Text watermarks can be a PITA when they cover the page and the
| PDF reader prioritizes them for text selection rather than the
| top layer text.
| generationP wrote:
| What about a header/footer saying "DRAFT" (ideally with the
| date and other things that would perhaps not fit on a
| watermark)?
| low_tech_love wrote:
| His business is called "Dragon Lawyers", his phone number is
| JAKELAW, his main reason for using is because "people like
| dragons" and his firm's goal is to "integrate AI to lower the
| cost of legal services". I'm pretty sure this is not the guy
| pulling his hair off for 12+ hours a day to make sure he is
| doing it right.
| crvdgc wrote:
| Could be both, like Better Call Saul.
| jillyboel wrote:
| At least it wasn't a bad dragon.
| morkalork wrote:
| Well the judge thought it was a bad dragon!
| arealaccount wrote:
| Does purchased for $20 online imply the dragon is an NFT?
|
| I bet the lawyer could flip it now if yes.
| awkwardpotato wrote:
| No? The concept of purchasing images online has existed long
| before NFTs
| cookingmyserver wrote:
| Question - is watermarking legal filings even common? How about
| the law firm logos in the footer?
| duskwuff wrote:
| No; this filing is very unusual. Typical practice is for legal
| filings to be submitted in a standardized and very plain
| format.
| kccqzy wrote:
| And that standardized and plain format is simply
| typographically ugly.
|
| The legal profession has done better. Just look at the
| opinions from the Supreme Court. Single spaced, nice
| typeface, good margin. Hallmarks of elegant typesetting and
| optimized for readability. Why aren't legal filings
| standardized based on this format?
| impossiblefork wrote:
| I think it's a mistake to have rules about filings. Maybe it's
| distracting, but if the filing has been done, there should be no
| reason for the court not to read it and make a decision based on
| the text.
|
| Procedure or order can't be more important than deciding cases.
| voidfunc wrote:
| Nah this is not the place to let folks get cutesy. If anything
| the standards should be strict and uniform.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Yes, the dragon is terrible and it's very inappropriate, but
| someone can't behave sensibly may still be someone whose case
| the courts must hear.
| alwa wrote:
| They're more than willing to hear the case. It's the
| lawyer, not the complainant, who the court is chastising.
|
| If anything, it scans like the court is concerned, like you
| are, that this vulnerable person's case isn't being
| presented with the seriousness it deserves.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Yes, but if a filing is sensible they should not care. It
| is reasonable to forbid further such filings, or require
| it to be re-filed, but artificially delaying something
| for the sake of seriousness or decorum is not to take it
| seriously.
|
| If it is a serious matter you deal with what you have.
| striking wrote:
| If you allow one person to get away with this, others may see
| it as an invitation to do worse. Filings are often a matter of
| immutable public record and it makes sense that there should be
| rules as to what goes into them.
|
| What is the act of deciding cases if not a carefully
| constructed procedure meant to keep order? What is the harm of
| telling a lawyer to try again, this time following the rules?
| impossiblefork wrote:
| You hear the case, however it's presented, and then you
| decide.
|
| In Swedish courts the court evaluates evidence as it likes.
| If the judges and sort-of-half-judge-half-jury-Namdeman agree
| that something can be concluded, then they're allowed to
| conclude that.
|
| Obviously procedure is useful, but hearing the complaint is
| more important.
| striking wrote:
| It's not about procedure for procedure's sake. It's about
| establishing a precedent that unnecessary content should be
| left out, so that complaints are always conveyed and heard
| sincerely.
| smelendez wrote:
| But it's simple enough to regenerate it without the watermark.
| Also, if it's actively annoying the judge, it's in the lawyer
| and client's best interest to fix it once and give the judge
| time to clear his head instead of repeating the issue.
| tjohns wrote:
| All the court is asking the lawyer to do is to re-file without
| the distracting formatting. It's not like they're throwing the
| entire case out. It'll still get read.
|
| It's also worth noting that the local rules for just about
| every court prescribe document formatting - so it's not like
| any of this should come as a _surprise_ to the attorney.
|
| Putting this another way: If a professor tells you to submit an
| essay in 12 pt Times New Roman, and you turn it in using 16 pt
| Comic Sans - it's entirely within the professor's right to say
| the formatting is so distracting that it makes their job
| difficult and ask you to print out a revised version before
| they'll grade it.
| toast0 wrote:
| Uniform formatting makes it easier to evaluate a case on the
| text and not the formatting, though.
| generationP wrote:
| One day, someone will discover a use for across-the-page
| watermarks that is not better handled by marginalia and makes up
| for the loss in readability, copyability and compatibility with
| graphics.
|
| Until then, we'll be seeing this...
| TechSquidTV wrote:
| I find it disturbing that a judge has blocked the legal system
| because they don't like a lawyer's logo.
| ianferrel wrote:
| They didn't, though. No one has lost access to the legal
| system. They just said they had to resubmit without the
| watermark on every page.
| kebokyo wrote:
| Gamers may be the most oppressed group of people... but I think
| furries are a close second.
| hluska wrote:
| My dad said something a few years ago - we're all more interested
| in being 'funny' and 'edgy' than acting like adults and getting
| on with each other. The world has gotten very embarrassing.
| F3nd0 wrote:
| Did he ever specify what he meant by 'acting like adults'? I
| can imagine a number of changes in attitude one might associate
| with growing up, and I find a good part of them regrettable at
| best.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| From the PDF linked in TFA:
|
| > Respectfully submitted, DRAGON LAWYERS PC
|
| I don't think the judge thought it was submitted all that
| respectfully.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| If watermarks are thing, and the judge just doesn't like this one
| because _he_ finds it disrespectful, that sounds like a first
| amendment issue.
| rexpop wrote:
| Contempt findings are subject to the 1st amendment, but
| criminal speech acts are not protected by the 1st amendment.
|
| Arguably, the dragon exhibits a trespass against the dignity of
| the court itself.
| firefoxd wrote:
| > I don't know what the big deal is. Lady Justice also has
| scales.
|
| This comment had me spitting my coffee. How do they even come up
| with this.
| goku12 wrote:
| Wow! I thought the judge was overreacting. But that's one
| extremely annoying watermark. I would demand the same, no matter
| what I do for a living.
| daveslash wrote:
| It might be appropriate if you're a children's
| cartoonist/artist and you're sending out proofs? But yeah, I
| get your point and agree.
| sbarre wrote:
| There's a point in everyone's career where they think their
| work is under constant threat of being stolen, copied,
| repurposed or otherwise used in a manner that will "steal your
| livelihood" or some thing..
|
| Eventually you realize that a) no one cares, your work isn't
| _that_ unique and valuable and b) if someone wants to use your
| stuff, they will find a way..
|
| The idea of a giant watermark behind text that can just be
| scanned and OCR'ed anyways is this kind of silly.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I don't think that's true for the generation of people who
| grew up with the internet. "Information ought to be free" was
| ingrained into their systems. You either put something on the
| internet and expect that people will want it for free, or you
| don't put it on the internet and it's private.
| sbarre wrote:
| Of course, there are edge cases to any scenario.
| fuzzer371 wrote:
| Oh no! How dare someone have some fun
| leptons wrote:
| Courtrooms are not a place designed for "fun". If you're in
| serious legal trouble you better hope your lawyer isn't there
| to have "fun" and make it difficult for the judge to read about
| your case.
| mjgoeke wrote:
| That's not a "watermark", keep it to 5% opacity. This is around
| 13% and very distracting.
| indrora wrote:
| There's a color, gray95, that is the recommended black and
| white color for watermarks in a few books I've read on the
| topic. Honestly the best way to do it right is to ask the court
| (politely) what their stated requirements for watermarking are
| and if you get shrugs, you go for the bare minimum.
| mark212 wrote:
| there is no court where I have ever practiced that would
| accept a watermark of any kind at whatever percentage or
| color. And he didn't need to ask, it's right there in the
| rules (state and local). Every court has extremely detailed
| requirements for font, size, line spacing, line numbering,
| color of cover for printed "chambers copies," size of
| margins, how the name of the court should be set out and
| where, and so on. Literally no excuse for this, he's lucky he
| didn't get sanctioned
| Tade0 wrote:
| What a fascinating cultural difference. In my corner of the
| world there's a Facebook page, the name of which translates
| to "Half-assed court documents" and it showcases badly made
| documents issued by courts.
| apparent wrote:
| Courts have all sorts of detailed requirements for briefs. They
| specify font, size, spacing, etc. It is crazy that a lawyer
| thought that this would pass muster.
| OJFord wrote:
| Is there a term for this (bad) style of writing or linguistic
| device where you mention the thing ('purple dragon') in the
| title/first paragraph and then really force a synonym in the
| second?
|
| > Federal Magistrate Judge Ray Kent of the Western District of
| Michigan was unamused by a recent complaint (PDF) that
| prominently featured the _aubergine wyrm_.
|
| (Emphasis mine.)
| Wingy wrote:
| You could call it Elegant Variation:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegant_variation
| OJFord wrote:
| Exactly that, thank you!
| lilyball wrote:
| In the case where it's rather forced, you could call it
| Inelegant Variation instead.
| prepend wrote:
| Some people want to be artists but are journalists instead.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| These documents should all be processed through a computer to
| sanitize anything that could be considered unique or specific
| enough to identify anyone involved with the creation. some kind
| of linter for court documents.
| tedmcory77 wrote:
| What if that is part of my religion?
| crazygringo wrote:
| The problem doesn't even seem to be the dragon.
|
| The problem is you don't "watermark" court filings in the first
| place.
|
| That's generally not a thing. Court filings have strict
| requirements around formatting. This isn't any different from
| trying to file in Comic Sans or a 48-pt font.
|
| Unfortunately this stunt is functioning as free publicity for
| this firm, because it's getting written about...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-05-02 23:00 UTC)