The Tennessee Titans have filed a lawsuit against University of Southern California and coach Lane Kiffin for "maliciously" luring away assistant running backs coach Kennedy Pola. The lawsuit claims the hire disrupted planning and "potential loss of confidence by players."

The first complex legal question here is clear: do you really need an assistant running back coach? Wait, that's not a legal question. Okay, how was it "malicious"? Was the purpose of the hire to destroy the Titans by hiring their assistant running back coach? What if they had gone after their head running back coach? Can you imagine the inhumanity?

Look, we all get it. Lane Kiffin is doing a lot of things to damage his reputation. But what kind of message do you send when you file a lawsuit - against a university - for hiring a coach when the real thing you are mad about is that Kiffin did not "ask" for permission to hire the coach?

I complained last week about how celebrity lawsuits distort the public's perception of what personal injury lawyers do. All these lawyers want to do, the public complains, is sue people. Actually, the goal is to reach a settlement before filing a lawsuit. How much effort did the Tennessee Titans make to settle this lawsuit. They filed a lawsuit about 20 minutes after they felt aggrieved.

Off the top of my head, I have no idea who the owner of the Titans is. But would you be surprised if he had the pro big business view that trial lawyers are destroying America? I don't know that this is his view, but let's pretend that it is for a minute because it would surprise no one. (I remember him giving the fans the finger last year. So anything is possible.)

My point, by now, is obvious: everyone hates what lawyers do until they feel like they have been wronged. But I think it is crazy to be pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant. Every individual case should be judged on the merits and the totality of the circumstances.

Here, unless there are facts we don't understand - which I concede is entirely possible although unlikely - this case by the Titans against USC is just ridiculous. Not every wrong should be remedied by a lawsuit.

Also, the Titans should do their fans a favor. Any player who has "lost confidence" as a result of the loss of the assistant running back coach should be cut immediately. I don't care if his name is Chris Johnson. Cut him.

Originally posted at Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog. Please visit http://www.marylandinjurylawyerblog.com/.

Serious personal injury clients in accident and malpractice cases often understandable get put behind the 8 ball in their personal finances. This means every now and again I find myself dealing with a collection lawyer.

The New York Times takes an honest look at the practice of debt collection. Apparently, and you see this from a few hospitals in Maryland, debt collecting attorneys have decided the best way to collect on a debt is to put the case in suit, a practice that is wreaking havoc on the courts because the volume of computer generated complaints is so high.

The other problem in dealing with debt collecting lawyers, as the article points out, is that many practice law like they are running a factory. You ever try playing phone tag with a debt collection lawyer? It is awful. The lawyer I was calling had no way to get a live receptionist and, incredibly, his message said if we don't call you back, call us again. Another tactic to get the general public feeling cozy about lawyers, I guess. Moreover, professional courtesy seems to take a backseat. These lawyers tend to put calls from personal injury lawyers behind random cold calls in the call back food chain.

Believe me, I know I'm overgeneralizing. And I also understand the importance of having legal mechanisms available to support those collecting debts. The "Man", as John Bratt's refers to big business in his blog post earlier this week, has just as much right to the judicial system as the little guy does. But I think we need to make sure that the consumer is getting adequate protection under the law, too. As the article points out, many of these debt claims are brought without any meaningful proof of a debt but the consumer and the consumer does not have the resources or the sophistication to challenge the creditors claim.

I don't provide any answers today, I'm just point out the problem. Tomorrow's post will try to solve many of the world's problems, I'm sure.

Originally posted at Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog. Please visit http://www.marylandinjurylawyerblog.com/.

I wrote earlier today about my concerns about celebrity lawsuits and how they distort the public perception of merits of a typical personal injury case and of lawyers generally.

By coincidence, Jay Hancock underscores this problem in the Baltimore Sun today, poking more than a little fun at a Maryland law firm that sent out a "look who I sued" press release that ended up sounding like a press release for the musician the law firm was suing (Ne-Yo).

There is another moral to this story: if you are going to put yourself out there, think about how you are doing it. Did anyone at this firm read this press release before it went out? Now, if you Google the law firm which, by all accounts is a fine law firm, you get this article third. That's not good PR.

(I'm not naming the firm because I don't want this blog post to be on the list.)

• John Bratt's commentary

Originally posted at Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog. Please visit http://www.marylandinjurylawyerblog.com/.

Since the Supreme Court found in 1977 in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona that lawyers have a right to advertise on the grounds of the public has a right to information from lawyers, the general public has been accustomed to awful commercials from lawyers, mostly personal injury accident lawyers replete with sirens and crashing cars.

Still, relatively few lawyers had the resources to put on television commercials. Almost all were personal injury lawyers because the numbers just didn't work for domestic or criminal lawyers because there is no possibility of a large payday in those cases. The malpractice and accident lawyers that were advertising on television were making a substantial investment in branding their law firm.

So awfulness of personal injury lawyer commercials was regulated more by fundamental economics than the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Advertising lawyers did not risk their investment and their brand by going too far over the top.

Then came YouTube. Now every lawyer with a camera has an opportunity to put their television commercial into the stream of commerce. Unlike the marketing titans, they have no reputation to lose. So it is the wild west.

Overlawyered provides an embedded link today to one of the worst. It is not a personal injury lawyer but a domestic lawyer ad. It is like a Saturday Night Live sketch you and I would put together on the fly if we were trying to mock lawyer advertisements.

Every time one of these videos gets made, a tort reform cadet gets his wings.

Originally posted at Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog. Please visit http://www.marylandinjurylawyerblog.com/.

The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a ridiculous lawsuit against the New England Patriots and Bill Belichick by a season ticket holder/lawyer who brought a lawsuit on behalf of "all Jets fans" who had bought tickets to Jets-Patriots games in New Jersey during Belichick's tenure.

The basis for the suit? The Patriots/Belichick's conduct during the infamous Spygate game between the Patriots and the New York Jets in September 2007 where the Patriots coaches were caught using a video camera to steal the Jets signals.

The court found that the Plaintiffs possessed "nothing more than a contractual right to a seat from which to watch an NFL game between the Jets and the Patriots...."

Originally posted at Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog. Please visit http://www.marylandinjurylawyerblog.com/.

President Obama is whittling down his list of Supreme Court candidates and will have a choice this month. But the face of the federal courts is changing under President Obama. I'm hijacking the Baltimore Sun's article on Monday but changing the focus to the subject of this blog: personal injury cases. Oh, and yeah, I completely disagree with the entire premise of the article.

The focus is on the replacement for Justice John Paul Stevens, giving President Obama the opportunity to select his second Supreme Court judge this month. But the impact of a new Supreme Court judge on personal injury cases will most likely be relatively insignificant, at least in the short term. Riegel v. Medtronic was a 8-1 blowout. Wyeth v. Levine was decided by a comfortable enough 6-3 margin. A new judge is not going to change the court's rulings in Bell Atlantic v. Twombly and Iqbal v. Ashcroft. Regardless of whether Elena Kagan or Glenn Beck is chosen, I don't think there is going to be a significant difference in how the Supreme Court deals with product liability cases.

For personal injury lawyers, the greater concern than who is on the Supreme Court is who the trial judge is. Clearly, in accident, malpractice and product liability cases, the trial judge you have really does matter, particularly on Daubert issues and other evidentiary rulings. Judges have a lot of discretion on what comes into evidence at trial. Let's face it: President Obama's judges are more likely to allow plaintiffs to admit evidence than judges appointed by President Bush. Obviously, this overgeneralizes but the point is true.

The Sun suggests that Obama is changing the face of the federal judiciary. But, in terms of new sitting judges, President Obama has not gotten very far. He has only appointed 24 judges: one Supreme Court justice, nine appellate judges, and 14 trial judges. Not exactly the major makeover that is the premise of the Baltimore Sun article.

Originally posted at Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog. Please visit http://www.marylandinjurylawyerblog.com/.

A Houston personal injury lawyer has threatened the city of Houston, a concession company and Continental Airlines, claiming it is their fault he left his Polo coat behind at an airport food court.

Normally, when a lawyer is under attack for doing something stupid, foolish, insane or [fill in your own adjective here], he is identified as a personal injury lawyer when he is really not. But, alas, I Googled the guy and he certainly a personal injury lawyer.

Well, maybe this is like the McDonald's case where the facts are taken completely out of context. But, alas, his demand letter is on line and it is exactly what it appears to be: he's mad because no one grabbed the coat that he left.

In that case, I have another defense. If a congressman tickles his staffer, no one assumes that everyone in Congress is a tickler. Why is everyone so quick to judge one personal injury lawyer on what another personal injury lawyer does? Why is the whole profession implicated?

The answer to my question is simple: that is the way it is. And while no one hates Congress because of their propensity to tickle staffers, people do hate personal injury attorneys because of the perception they are trying to bully their way into money to which they are not entitled (which is rarely, but sometimes, true). So sometimes you have to take your lumps and move on.

Originally posted at Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog. Please visit http://www.marylandinjurylawyerblog.com/.

Guy breaks into your house. Your are terrified that harm will come to you, your spouse or your children. Yet something holds you back from taking decisive action to protect your family.. the threat of a civil lawsuit by the burglar.

To stop this insanity, House Bill 207 has been introduced by House Delegate William J. Frank from Baltimore County, to raise the negligence bar for people who use force against a home or office burglar to make them immune from civil liability unless they acted “with malice or gross negligence.”

Naturally, Maryland courts are clogged with frivolous lawsuits by personal injury lawyers representing criminals who were injured breaking into homes of the innocent. Just ask John H. Josselyn who is with the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore:

Far too many attorneys are willing to initiate a civil action on behalf of criminals who allege that the victim, who was acting legally in self-defense, did something that violated the rights of the attacker. Defending a civil action, even when it is a frivolous lawsuit, involves great expense.

Let's take a breath and break this quote down and get our arms around whether there is even a portion of it that is not demonstrably false on its face.

Originally posted at Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog. Please visit http://www.marylandinjurylawyerblog.com/.