Paul Phillips

I wonder if Monster Cable even bothered to read all that.

Reading the last few paragraphs would have been enough for me to pitch the lawsuit into the trash.

(Reply) (Thread)

I'm no lawyer, but I think having initiated the conflict, they have legal obligations to respond. They can't now mumble "oops" and walk with their hands in their pocketses, whistling and trying to look uninvolved. (Or maybe they can, the whole IANAL and all.)

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

There's no obligation to respond to a letter. Neither party has initiated a lawsuit, so Monster Cable can mumble "oops" and forget the whole thing.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

You made baby jesus cry.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Have you considered becoming a lawyer? You have an interest in lots of law-related stuff. Becoming a lawyer may better allow you to fight lawyers. I know that there are online programs that would allow you to take the California bar. If you are just looking at grad school for knowledge, rather than a job-hunting credential, that may be good enough.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

If I could go with the expectation of later working on developing a whole new system - and seeing it implemented - this might be appealing. That is a bit unlikely. As it is, practicing law seems more like the world's worst maintenance-programmer job, having to work around centuries of crufty code to accomplish the simplest tasks.

I would never be effective fighting the lawyer problem within the present system. I don't believe in it and could never get enthusiastic about it. Were I to have any impact in this area I'm sure it'd be outside the system, hopefully in the form of either upending it or simply making it irrelevant.

Are there really 100% online law degrees? If so, it's too early to rule it out...

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

There are online law degree programs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_law_school#Distance_legal_education_in_the_United_States (I always gotta cite Wikipedia)
http://www.concordlawschool.edu

There are not, however, any ABA-accredited online law degree programs. I would not recommend online law school if you wanted to get a job as a lawyer, especially if you want to get a job outside of California. I think California is the only state that would allow an online graduate to take the bar exam (and I think they have very low rates of bar passage).

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

That was really quite amazing, and a surprisingly good read.

For one, it sure makes me want to support Blue Jeans Cable over Monster Cable. Not that I have any A/V equipment which would merit anything other than the generic brand of Radio Shack or Wal-Mart cable, but still, the point remains.

For another, the author's obvious dislike of corporate bullies seems genuine and well-intended. I just can't help but admire this.

(Reply) (Thread)

I read that yesterday and bookmarked BJC's web site - next time I need HDMI cables I'm buying from them.

BJC will surely get a nice bump in business thanks to Monster Cable.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Monster doesn't have to give him any of the stuff he asked for, it's all just posturing at this point. However, if they were to file a lawsuit against him, he would no doubt demand the info in the discovery process and it's highly likely the judge would go along with all or nearly all of it.

I bet Monster's lawyers would love to take the Blue Jeans guy up on his promise to fight to the end. Just think of the billable hours :-) But they couldn't ethically advise Monster to go ahead with a suit unless there was some reasonable chance of winning.

(Reply) (Thread)

It's letters like this that make me rethink my decision not to go into Law. Nah... software is still waaay better in the long run :).

(Reply) (Thread)

Maybe next life law, it looks to me like he really relished writing that!

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)