US news got off to a sombre start in 2014 with the conviction of a former Allen & Overy partner of child abuse. It took a wig-wearing lawyer suing the makers of The Wolf Of Wall Street for depicting him as a drug-addict called 'rugrat' to cheer things up.

In New Orleans, an attorney faced jail for accusing a cabbie of secretly filming up her skirt. He lost his job, until his video of the incident revealed that she had been flashing her tumpsy and demanding sex. There was court failure for another lawyer who was forbidden from marrying his laptop, even though his love for his "machine-spouse" rendered a human-human union undesirable. And pushing the limits of "trust me, I'm your attorney" to the max, a lawyer asked a jury to give his client the death penalty, then appeared at his disciplinary hearing dressed as Thomas Jefferson.

    It was always a shock to see him in costume, especially when he started recommending you for a lethal injection

At the junior end of the profession, there was literal fowl play when a law student pulled off a guinea fowl's head in front of horrified passersby. A struggling law grad made a similarly odd decision when he circulated a photo of himself in his underpants holding a crayoned sign, and a whole bunch of law students became enraged by the growing scourge of "racist" gay twerkers.

US judges were not immune to moments of madness. One lured an annoying public defender into a corridor behind the court and throttled him, while another electrocuted a defendant with 50,000 volts, because America. And age did not soften the warring 70-year-old attorneys who tried to get the other banned from their country club by writing very childish letters ("I am so sorry Manusco is diabetic and I suggest he quit stuffing his fat toady little face").

In 2014 the 'send all' button exposed the strangely-wired brains of some US partners. One got into the holiday spirit by emailing staff the day before Thanksgiving, just to let them know that they would be sacked after their break if they hadn't recorded their time. Another remarkable example was the spittle-flecked homophobic rant emailed to the entire firm by Becker & Poliakoff partner Walter Kubitz, in which he referred to the "gay plague of AIDS".

    "My name is Walter Kubitz, which is an anagram of Likez Raw Butt. I likez raw-butt-and-I-cannot-lie. You other-brothers-can't deny that when a bro-walks-in with an itty-bitty...and send"
One of the most popular US stories was the tale of McDermott, Will & Emery's fumbled bra. When the firm was sued for allegedly bungling the measurents of a client's miracle brassiere patent, no-one could have predicted the wave of punnery RollOnFriday readers would unleash in the comments section. Readers were more divided by the plight of the Harvard law grad who was pilloried for demanding "triple damages" when he was overcharged $4 for a takeaway.


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