This may come as a surprise to you, but I generally dislike big law firms. It’s strange because in law school we, as students, were filled with propaganda regarding how great the money was, how long or short the partnership track was, how big so-and-so’s clients are, etc… First and second tier law schools are subtly run by big firms, from introductions the first day, to the career services department. It didn’t help that a significant amount of the top grads take these jobs, fostering a belief that one must work to be worthy of the great legal sweatshops. Sadly, I couldn’t care less about the physical or physiological cost of working at one. Those students generally wash out anyway and frankly, they knew what they were getting into. What really bothers me about the big firm mentality is their belief that one should bow before their superior resources. Not knowledge, resources. Both lawyers and lay people can be a victim to this.

So take, for instance, Boingboing.net who was threatened with untold hellfire and an otherworldly legal fusillade if they did not remove a picture from their website. The picture was part of an advertisement from Ralph Lauren that portrayed a female model who was unhumanly skinny. The author at boingboing suggested that it was photoshopped saying, “Dude, her head’s bigger than her pelvis.”

So what would you expect in this situation? How about you threaten to sue the author that said something accurately negative about your ad? Of course. It couldn’t be that they are right, could it? But this type of thing happens every day. What’s unique about this case is that boingboing was not willing to be bullied. They responded with what seems to be the correct legal defense, and also offered to post any legal filings along with, “copious mockery”.

Three cheers for them. America would be better, and the legal system would be better, if more people were brave enough to stand up to a spurious legal threat.