Donald Trump's Clueless Lawyer Threatens Press, Says It's Ok To Rape Your Spouse

from the a-graduate-of-thomas-cooley-law-school dept

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the absolute ridiculousness of Donald Trump's "lawsuit" against Univision, which made some bizarre claims about the First Amendment and defamation that clearly did not apply. While there may be a legitimate contractual dispute hidden somewhere in all that mess, there was so much fluff that it made you wonder who is actually advising the entertainer (pretending to be a politician) on legal issues. Apparently, it's some guy named Michael Cohen, who isn't just out of his depth on stuff, but he appears to be actively making things worse. In an astounding article over at The Daily Beast, which was initially over claims of "rape" by Donald Trump's ex-wife Ivana during their divorce proceedings, Cohen not only claimed that you can't rape a spouse, but also threatened to ruin The Daily Beast if they published an article. Lawyering by bullshit threats, apparently.

Michael Cohen, special counsel at The Trump Organization, defended his boss, saying, “You’re talking about the frontrunner for the GOP, presidential candidate, as well as a private individual who never raped anybody. And, of course, understand that by the very definition, you can’t rape your spouse.”

“It is true,” Cohen added. “You cannot rape your spouse. And there’s very clear case law.”

This is, of course, wrong -- both legally and morally. In NY State, the law got rid of the "marital exemption" to rape laws in 1984 and federal law made it clear that spousal rape is a real crime not long after that. Even if that wasn't the case, is that really a defense? "Oh it's not rape because they're married?" Who thinks that's an okay excuse: "Well, technically, it's not rape." Yikes.

Cohen has now sort of, but not really, "apologized" for what he claims was an "inarticulate comment."

"As an attorney, husband and father there are many injustices that offend me but nothing more than charges of rape or racism. They hit me at my core. Rarely am I surprised by the press, but the gall of this particular reporter to make such a reprehensible and false allegation against Mr. Trump truly stunned me. In my moment of shock and anger, I made an inarticulate comment - which I do not believe -- and which I apologize for entirely," Cohen said in a statement to CNN.

Except that it wasn't inarticulate. It was wrong and, many would argue, morally reprehensible.

And notice that he's still blaming the reporter for asking the question. And that brings us to the second crazy bit here: the threats against the reporters. The reporters -- Tim Mak and Brandy Zadrozny -- didn't back down. In fact, they not only published the story but included the rather unhinged threats from Cohen:

“I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen said. “So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?”

“You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up… for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet… you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it,” he added.

Cohen appears to come from a very different generation of legal advice -- one in which bogus threats designed to shut people up would actually work, rather than today, when they just provide a great story. Once again, though, this should serve as a reminder for why we need a federal anti-SLAPP law. Cohen has made it abundantly clear that he has no qualms in using bogus lawsuits to try to stifle public discussion of important matters concerning someone who is clearly a public persona and who is even (technically) running for President.

The fact that Cohen's "apology" for the spouse raping comment still pins the blame on the reporters suggests someone who still doesn't understand what he's talking about. A recent "profile" of Cohen includes him describing his own style as being a "pit bull.":

A 2011 ABC News profile reported that within The Trump Organization he’s called the boss’s “pit bull.”

“If you do something wrong, I’m going to come at you, grab you by the neck and I’m not going to let you go until I’m finished,” Cohen, now 48, told the TV network.

That story also notes that while he may file lawsuits, his threats aren't entirely accurate:

To wit: When New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a fraud suit against Trump’s for-profit college in 2013, Cohen threatened Trump’s vengeance: “The damage to the attorney general is going to be very significant,” Cohen told The New Yorker. “So significant that he will possibly have to resign.” (Schneiderman has not resigned. The case is ongoing.)

It might make you wonder where Cohen actually got a law degree. And... it turns out that it's from the infamous Thomas M. Cooley law school. We've written about Cooley a bunch of times. It's a bottom tier law school, considered so bad that US News used to list it as "unranked" because it wouldn't provide the necessary info. It now lists the school as "Rank Not Published" which US News notes is "for the schools that are in the bottom 25 percent of the rankings."

In response to this, Cooley came up with its own ranking system, saying it disagreed with US News' methodology. Magically, Cooley came in second in its own ranking system, second only behind Harvard Law. So what kind of methodology did Cooley's own ranking system include? Well, they took out anything having to do with "quality" since they deemed those to be too subjective, and then used a bunch of stuff about how big the library is, including "total library square footage" and "library seating capacity." Apparently, the Thomas Cooley law school has a huge library.

The school has also become infamous for suing critics, so Cohen seems to have taken those lessons to heart. A few years ago it sort of "merged" with Western Michigan University, and used that as an opportunity to change its name to avoid some of the bagggage of the Thomas M. Cooley brand. It now promotes itself as the "Western Michigan University -- Cooley Law School" and who does it promote as a distinguished graduate on its own site? You guessed it. One Michael Cohen of the Trump organization: Thomas Cooley law school continues its traditions, apparently.

Filed Under: donald trump, first amendment, free speech, ivana trump, michael cohen, press, rape, threats
Companies: thomas m cooley law school

Appeals Court Protects Anonymity Of Critics Of Cooley Law School, But Could Have Done More

from the it's-a-step,-but-a-small-one dept

We've written a few times about the infamous Thomas M. Cooley Law School, more famous for its terrible reputation and its own "ranking" system to try to hide that terrible reputation than for producing any decent lawyers. A few years ago, we wrote about the law school suing a former student, who was criticizing the school via an anonymous blog. Bizarrely, a district court allowed the school to unmask the blogger. Thankfully, however, an appeals court has now reversed the lower court ruling and said that the blogger has a right to anonymity.

A unanimous Court of Appeals decided that the trial judge, Clinton Canady, was wrong to deny a protective order barring Thomas M. Cooley Law School from disclosing the name of a former student whom it had sued, alleging that harsh criticisms of Cooley on his blog, the Thomas Cooley Law School Scam, were defamatory.  The majority opinion faults the trial judge for deciding that Michigan law does not require such a protective order, and for assuming that a public figure like Cooley is exempt from having to allege and prove actual malice simply because the Doe had called its conduct criminal.  Under the ruling, Doe will be able to seek to have the complaint dismissed either on its face or for lack of evidence to support the claim that his blog is defamatory. 

That said, as Paul Levy notes, in the above blog post, this is not a complete victory, as the court failed to provide important guidance to future cases in Michigan concerning these kinds of issues, and specifically fell down on the important point of requiring notice in such cases. Many other courts have said that if you are seeking to unmask an anonymous commenter, there must also be notice to that anonymous person such that they can seek to block being revealed. The appeals court in Michigan decided not to establish that as a rule.

For future cases, however, it is disappointing that the majority opinion, in its effort to avoid applying the Dendrite and Cahill standards directly, gave little guidance to trial courts about the standards under which anonymous speakers' requests for protective orders should be decided by trial judges. And most troublesome is the majority's deliberate refusal to address the notice requirement on which every other state appellate court has insisted, because otherwise an anonymous defendant may not know that a subpoena has been issued seeking his identifying information. Thus, while the Doe was well-protected in this case, that is only because Cooley Law School issued a press release announcing its defamation claims, enabling the Doe to file a motion to block the subpoena.

A powerful opinion by Judge Jane Beckering concurs in the decision to overturn the denial of anonymity protection and remand the case, but strongly disagrees with the reasoning, arguing that Michigan should embrace the approach taken by almost very other state that has addressed the issue and adopt clear standards to guide trial judges. Judge Beckering explains that Michigan's existing rules require notice before subpoenas can be issued, and hence that appropriate First Amendment standards can be incorporated without any need to change the current rules.

Filed Under: anonymity, blogging, criticism
Companies: thomas m cooley law school

Lawyers For Thomas Cooley Law School Skirt Legal & Ethical Questions In Uncovering Anonymous Blogger They're Suing

from the maybe-they-don't-teach-ethics-at-thomas-cooley-law-school dept

Remember the Thomas M. Cooley law school? The school, generally considered a 4th tier bottom of the barrel law school, made some news last month by suing some anonymous critics, who appeared to be unhappy former students blogging about the school. The school has also been sued for apparent misleading employment stats. Of course, somewhat related to all of this is the ridiculously laughable attempt by Thomas Cooley to hide its poor reputation by creating its own ranking system that puts itself as the number 2 law school in the country. Of course, its ranking methodology leaves a lot to be desired, using things like "total law school square footage," and "total volumes in library," and giving them equal rank to things like "bar passage rate" and "employment upon graduation."

Anyway, the lawyer representing Cooley, Michael Coakley, who attended the (according to Cooley itself) far inferior law school of the University of Michigan, apparently decided to take some questionable steps in identifying one of the bloggers in question. Initially, he had filed a subpoena on the ISP via the Michigan state court where the case is pending, demanding identifying info. The blogger's lawyer, John Hermann, filed a motion to quash the subpoena. While the court was still considering that, Coakley went and had another subpoena for info served via California. While the ISP (more on that in another post) had promised Hermann that it would not divulge the info while the motion to quash was being considered, and then told him it wouldn't do anything before August 22nd, it apparently handed over the info on August 17th.

Coakley then sent Hermann a letter saying that since the ISP had already identified the blogger from the second subpoena, Hermann's motion to quash the original subpoena was moot, and threatened to ask for sanctions against Hermann if he didn't drop it. He also threatened to reveal the blogger's name in a public court filing, if Hermann and the blogger did not agree to certain conditions and provide certain info.

Of course, all of this is of dubious ethics and legality. As Paul Alan Levy explains via the link above:

In fact, because Coakley knew that he had obtained this information in the face of a pending motion to quash the subpoena asserting that the Doe had a First Amendment privilege to speak anonymously, he not only had no right to obtain had no right to use the information against Doe, but he had an obligation to return the information pending a resolution of the discovery dispute.  That is because Michigan, like most jurisdictions, has a discovery rule protecting against the misuse of information that has been obtained despite a claim of privilege.  In Michigan, Rule 2.302(B)(7) provides that

•     If information that is subject to a claim of privilege or of protection as trial-preparation material is produced in discovery, the party making the claim may notify any party that received the information of the claim and the basis for it.  After being notified, a party must promptly return, sequester, or destroy the specified information and any copies it has and may not use or disclose the information until the claim is resolved.  A receiving party may promptly present the information to the court under seal for a determination of the claim.  If the receiving party disclosed the information before being notified, it must take reasonable steps to retrieve it.  The producing party must preserve the information until the claim is resolved.

Because Coakley is the head of the litigation department at a prominent Detroit law firm, he must have been aware of this rule.  In fact, his letter could be read as expressing some defensiveness about his obligations, because he began by emphasizing that the disclosure really wasn�t his fault: the disclosure had occurred, he said, �without direction from us (other than the subpoena itself).�  But the California subpoena was served after the motion to quash was filed in Michigan, and the threat to use the privileged information to exact concessions from Doe, and the subsequent filing of an amended complaint and other papers prominently displaying Doe�s name, seem to have been deliberate violations of the rule.  Coakley has not responded to my requests for information and for comment on my concerns.

Given how marginal his client's defamation claims against the Doe are, Coakley may have felt he had no choice but to skirt the ethical edge by violating this rule.  (The linked complaint, which was a draft attached to Coakley's demand letter, reflects a false name; by the time it filed the amended complaint, it had used the disclosure to identify the Doe and put that name in the complaint).  Coakley markets himself to potential clients by proclaiming his reputation as �a scrapper in protecting their  interests.�   As I see it, Coakley�s scrappiness took him a few steps too far in this case.

Thankfully, the court seems to recognize this somewhat questionable activity on the part of Coakley, and has ruled that the disclosed information should be sequestered, and the papers filed in the case naming the blogger should be stricken from the record. Still, even if this lawyer isn't a Cooley grad, these actions certainly don't reflect well on Cooley as a law school.

Filed Under: anonymity, michael coakley, subpoena
Companies: thomas m cooley law school

Cooley Law School Sued Over Its Supposedly 'Misleading Employment Stats'

from the so-that's-why-it-sued dept

We recently wrote about how the Thomas M. Cooley Law School, whose sole actual claim to fame appears to be that it takes on more students than any other law school, was suing some online critics. It had actually filed two lawsuits, one was against some online critics, and the other was against a law firm that had clearly been sniffing around some Cooley practices. Well, now the other shoe has dropped and, as ShellMG points out, that same law firm has sued Cooley in a class action lawsuit, claiming that the school posts false claims about its postgraduate employment rates. This is, clearly, what Cooley was trying to stave off with its original lawsuit, since in its lawsuit against the Kurzon Strauss law firm, it highlighted a message posted to a legal board asking students to come forward with information about Cooley's employment stats. Of course, the fact that Cooley sued first (with, as many people pointed out, lawyers who graduated from other schools) kind of makes you wonder what the school is hiding. That is, rather than wait to see if the law firm actually had anything, Cooley filed what could be described as a SLAPP suit, in that it appears it sought to stop the law firm from actually getting its message out to former students. It certainly makes for an interesting defamation claim. Can you accuse a class action law firm of defamation for reaching out to find people who had a bad experience?

In the end, I still think that Cooley comes out of this looking terribly. Suing critics never looks good. And now its stats are likely to get a lot more scrutiny. I'm curious how comfortable Cooley is with that...

Filed Under: attention, employment, law school, stats
Companies: thomas m cooley law school

How To Make A Mockery Of Your Own Law School: Sue Your Critics

from the oops dept

Someone named "tuna" was the first of a few of you to point us to the ongoing debacle that is the Thomas M. Cooley Law School. Apparently administrators there aren't too happy about the fact that some of its students were not pleased with the school, and gave the school negative reviews online. So, rather than responding to the complaints or figuring out ways to improve, the school filed a lawsuit to determine the identity of four anonymous people online who wrote mean things about the Thomas M. Cooley Law School. One of the anonymous people has filed a motion to quash against the school's efforts:

"In contrast to their own mission statement, Cooley Law School is now seeking to use its power to stymie the constitutional right of free speech of its own students -- albeit speech that negatively portrays the school consistent with other empirical data," Berkley attorney John Hermann said in the motion, filed on behalf of his client, Rockstar05. "Ironically, Cooley is now the emperor who appears angry at being told he is not wearing any clothes."

The school itself publicized this particular lawsuit, as well as a separate lawsuit against some lawyers who claimed to be putting together a class action lawsuit against Cooley over (the lawyers claimed) "manipulating post-graduate employment data and salary info." You can see both complaints embedded below.

I have no idea if the statements made by anyone targeted by Cooley rise to the level of defamation. Certainly many of the statements highlighted could be seen as statements of fact, though many appear to be standard hyperbole from someone who had a negative experience. Still, all of this had me wondering about the Cooley Law School, as I have to admit never having heard of it, so I decided to check it out. The law school's biggest claim to fame appears to be that it has the largest faculty, and if you count all of its various students, the largest student body as well. Bigger is better! But is the school any good?

Well, that's where things get hilarious.

You see, if you look at the various rankings for law schools, Cooley is considered near the bottom of the heap. The US News rankings have put it as a "fourth tier" law school, in the past, and currently has it as "unranked" because it apparently "did not supply enough information to U.S. News to calculate a ranking." But, wouldn't you know it, according to Cooley itself, it's actually the second top ranked school in the country, behind only Harvard.

How's that? Well, you see, Cooley's administration decided to create its own rankings system! A report from last year (at which point Cooley ranked merely #12 on its own ranking criteria, demolished the way Cooley's own rankings system works:

How did they arrive at this order? Cooley can only make this claim by sufficiently broadening the number of factors and then allotting them equal weight. Traditionally, highly important considerations are GPA, LSAT, Bar passage rate, and employment upon graduation. However, in this scheme they are given the same weight as Total Volumes in Library, Total Applications, Total Law School Square Footage, Program Achievement Rating Rank.

That blog post then goes on to display how Cooley minimizes the importance of the numbers that actually matter. Meanwhile, it appears that some others were similarly flabbergasted by Cooley Law presenting itself as the 2nd highest ranked law school, based on its own silly rankings. Cooley's own rankings explanation says that they got rid of pesky things like "reputation," and declare that, without question, "bigger is better than smaller" (even though, amusingly, in the same list, they claim that smaller class sizes are better than bigger!).

The thing is, I wouldn't have gone out and learned any of this if Cooley hadn't decided to jump and sue some of its critics. Even if some of the statements turn out to be defamatory, suing your critics is an open invitation for people to take a closer look at you and what you do, and what comes up for Thomas M. Cooley Law School does not look good at all.

Filed Under: critics, defamation, law schools, rankings
Companies: thomas m cooley law school