 |
| photo credit: Arizona Snowbowl |
According to an article published in the Arizona Daily News, Ralph Nader, tribal groups and Arizona law professors have thrown their support behind sanctioned attorney Howard Shanker. Shanker represented tribal groups in a series of lawsuits intended to block snowmaking at the Arizona Snowbowl. The 9th Circuit sided with the Snowbowl, found that Shanker's second lawsuit was a "gross abuse of the judicial process," and ordered him to pay court costs.
Ski, Esq. has monitored this story closely and believes that far from reversing the sanctions imposed by the 9th Circuit, the 9th Circuit erred by not forcing Shanker to pay the Snowbowl's attorneys' fees. It is unsurprising that the tribe would support not making its attorney responsible for court costs, but that law professors would support such a measure shows once again that the legal academy is out of touch with the realities of the day-to-day practice of law.
Arizona State University law professor stated that, ""If you act as a reasonable and responsible attorney and the judges don't like your case, you can get hammered."This is false. In the opinion of the 9th Circuit, Shanker acted neither reasonably or responsibly. He refiled an almost identical case for a second time. Shanker should have been responsible for the attorneys' fees he forced the Snowbowl to incur defending his frivolous lawsuit.
*********************************
No comments:
Post a Comment