When Confronted with Incivility, How Do You Handle It?
This week, we wrote about a federal judge in Philadelphia who ordered an attorney who cursed and called his opponent names during a deposition to both attend a CLE course on “civility and professionalism” and sit down to dinner with his adversary.
The feuding lawyers told the Recorder they thought the sit-down was a good idea; one even hoped it could lead to settlement talks.
So we want to ask you: How do you cope when you’re confronted with uncivil behavior in your legal endeavors? Have you—or perhaps a judge—ever come up with a creative solution that helped end an unproductive feud?
Answer in the comments below.
Read the answers to last week’s question: What’s on Your Professional ‘Bucket List’?
Featured answer:
Posted by Frances: Litigate and then argue “Bong Hits II” before the SCOTUS. My test case: a student wears a Bongs Hits for Jesus t-shirt, and when he is expelled for doing so, he exclaims that he is doing it to protest limitations on students’ free speech rights (rather than because he thought it was funny, which is what the first guy said). If strict scrutiny were applied, would the speech be protected?
I have, of course, threatened my kids with death if they even think of wearing my Bong Hits shirt to school.
