You know what can be an excellent cure for your feelings of woe? The utter stupidity of others. And when I say utter, I really mean utter.

I give thee Joseph Rakofsky. Joseph is a lawyer and recently has his first ever solo trial case. Which was declared a mistrial and he got reprimanded by the judge for his incompetence. (Including filing before the judge an e-mail asking an investigator to "trick" a witness to say she didn't see his client at the murder scene.) Ouch, right? But Joseph did not feel that to be so painful - in fact, he bragged about getting a mistrial on his Facebook, as posted about here, with screenshots and also has several of the judge's comments. Joseph also apparently at best "misrepresented" his previous experience as a lawyer, citing cases he'd worked on as an intern. The Internets were not amused and hung him out to dry.

What does Joseph do? Why, he sues everyone he could find that said something negative about him for defamation, including many blogging lawyers, the Washington Post, the American Bar Association and John Does. The suit quickly gets known as Rakofsky vs the Internet. You can read the full complaint here. Among other things, the suit claims Joseph will "require psychological treatment for the rest of his life". Yes. Because the Internets were mean to him by repeating the words a judge had already stated for the record.

One of those sued gives the following reply: I am tempted to write, in response to the suit, “Go shit in a hat and pull it down over your ears.” But that doesn’t sound very lawyerly. So I’ll say it in Latin. (...) Vade et caca in pilleum et ipse traheatur super aures tuos.

This sums the first parts up pretty well and has several links.

One of the jurors from the case that was declared a mistrial speaks.

Oh, and there's a movie. (Aaaand badges for those who've been sued.)

Recent updates with motions and affidavits.

A post that explains rather well why Rakofsky is being massively stupid.

In short, I laughed so much at all this I couched up a lot of yucky stuff and now I feel better. Yay! So thank you, Joseph Rakofsky, for entertaining me today with your laughable attempt at halting rightful criticism of what is clearly - and stated by a judge! - your incompetence. And your utter failure to understand how the Internet works, since your attempt to take it on just has made more people aware of it now. Like me, and now I make others aware too. Also, you seem to have made at least one of those you sued a bit vengeful towards you. You done stupid, Joseph. You done real stupid.

Oh, and if you should try to sue me too, Joseph - you filed in New York, and New York doesn't have cross-state pursuit of defamation suits and definitely not cross-Atlantic. (As another lawyer points out..) If you tried, you'd just further prove your incompetence, and we wouldn't want that, now would we? I mean, I'd be entertained, but you might have had enough at the massive pointing and laughing at you by now.

However, I do feel bad for the original client, who did not get the representation he should. The US, like my own Norway and much of the modern legal system, is built on everyone's right to a defence and this guy didn't get his. He will at a new trial, of course, but now he'll have a much longer wait. So will the others involved in this case.