Wednesday, May 07, 2008

According to Wired.com, Jammie Thomas's lawyer told Colorado officials Gabriel was "standup guy" & "good lawyer"

According to a report in Wired.com, Jammie Thomas's lawyer, Brian Toder -- when asked by Colorado officials for his opinion of Richard Gabriel as part of their investigation of Mr. Gabriel for his judicial appointment -- told them "he's a standup guy and a good lawyer. And I think he would be a good judge".

[Ed. note. I am beyond speechless. -R.B.]

Commentary & discussion:

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Keywords: digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property

10 comments:

Diabolos said...

Speechless? Really? What makes a lawyer good is rarely connected to whom he represents, but rather the quality of his work and his legal mind. In this case it's pretty clear that he was good enough to convince a jury of 12 people that this was copyright infringement. No small feat given that so many of the jurors wouldn't know a transistor from a vacuum tube. Sounds like a good lawyer to me.

Unknown said...

Maybe there's a subtext here you're not seeing. Maybe he's thinking, hey, if I can help get this guy on the bench, I won't have to deal with him anymore as a lawyer. Almost everybody wins.

Anonymous said...

Jamie Thomas should be suing her lawyer for malpractice over this.

-DM

derivative said...

diabolos --

I can't speak for Ray, but the reason I would be "speechless" is that Mr. Gabriel made (IMHO) many material misrepresentations to the court in the Thomas case, and got away with it.

Now,(again IMHO) if I were Mr. Toder, I would either be mad at Mr. Gabriel for this, or at myself for not stopping him, or both, but I would not equate a victory that was achieved by misrepresentation as "good work."

The fact that Mr. Toder seems to think that Mr. Gabriel's work was good might indicate that Mr. Toder didn't fully appreciate the nuances of the case, and that Ms. Thomas didn't get the best representation possible.

It certainly indicates that Mr. Toder has not thought about Mr. Gabriel's actions in the wider context. As Ray has pointed out: this is a man who makes a living by suing children.

While this apparently will not be true any longer, one has to question whether a man who makes a very good living suing children will make a very good judge, and also whether he will be happy with a judge's salary or not.

Anonymous said...

"Speechless? Really? What makes a lawyer good is rarely connected to whom he represents, but rather the quality of his work and his legal mind. ...Sounds like a good lawyer to me."

Under RG's direction the RIAA has repeatedly misjoined defendants in spite of an outstanding injunction, knowingly used an unlicensed investigator in violation of state laws, pursued sham litigation, filed tens of thousands of ex parte law suits not to seek relief but for the sole purpose of improperly using the power of the court to subpoena private information... and the list of violations goes on.

In my opinion, Richard Gabriel is wholly ethically unqualified from holding any position in the legal profession and especially ethically unqualified to hold a judgeship

While it is true that ethical lawyers can appreciate and praise each other in spite of their adversarial positions, the key word is **ethical**. Based on Mr. Toder's inexplicable praise of Gabriel, were Ms. Thomas case a criminal one I'd say she would have grounds for appeal based on inadequate representation. Unfortunately I such is not possible in her civil case. There seems to be a serious lack of objective judgement on Mr. Toder's part. I think we can see why she lost now.

This post represents my opinion only.

Jadeic said...

I just picked up this story over at p2pnet.net...

I will be watching Mt Toder's next career moves with great interest.

Dave

Anonymous said...

His comments are actually a good reflection of his representation in the Thomas case...clueless

mhoyes62 said...

I look on it as a way of getting Mr Gabriel out of the way. As a lawyer, I would think it would be fairly reasonable to exaggerate the qualifications of a person, if that means that he will no longer be in the picture. Since he was being moved to a State Judicial Seat, and all of the Copyright cases are Federal charges, this removes a big cog in the RIAA machine. I think that is a pretty good move.

meh

Nohwhere Man said...

One thing unasked, as anyone confirmed this opinion with Mr Toder himself? As we all know, ofttimes the press will selectively quote their sources, and I'd like to give Mr Toder the benefit of that.

raybeckerman said...

David Kravets is a superb, and a very serious, reporter.

I am sure he quoted Mr. Toder accurately.