Rossi vs. Darden developments [CASE CLOSED]

Rule 4-1.16(b), Florida Rules of Professional Conduct:

Rule 4-1.16 Declining or Terminating Representation

...

(b) When Withdrawal Is Allowed.

Except as stated in subdivision (c), a lawyer may withdraw from representing a client if withdrawal can be accomplished without material adverse effect on the interests of the client, or if:

    (1) the client persists in a course of action involving the lawyer's services that the lawyer reasonably believes is criminal or fraudulent;

    (2) the client has used the lawyer's services to perpetrate a crime or fraud;

    (3) a client insists upon pursuing an objective that the lawyer considers repugnant or imprudent;

    (4) the client fails substantially to fulfill an obligation to the lawyer regarding the lawyer's services and has been given reasonable warning that the lawyer will withdraw unless the obligation is fulfilled;

    (5) the representation will result in an unreasonable financial burden on the lawyer or has been rendered unreasonably difficult by the client; or

    (6) other good cause for withdrawal exists.

I don't think there's enough information to be forced into a negative interpretation yet. One possibility: Perlman Bajandas are just cleaning up loose ends after Annesser left, and "withdrawal can be accomplished without material adverse effect on the interests of the client".

I doubt that it's common for a litigator to make two lateral moves within a short period of time. Somewhere I got the impression that lateral moves were uncommon more generally.

Sure sounds like the legal rats are leaving a sinking ship. Or perhaps giving up when their client won't listen to their advice. But who knows

Key witnesses out of the country, lawyers leaving, Rossi in a wig disguise,...... makes you wonder.

Quote from Eric Walker

I doubt that it's common for a litigator to make two lateral moves within a short period of time. Somewhere I got the impression that lateral moves were uncommon more generally.

This may simply be a shuffle due to Ms. Silver's health.

Patricia Silver, founder of the Silver Law Group, battled cancer and passed last October.

Robert Bernstein was also with the Silver Law Group (along with Annesser), and he was just added as counsel for Rossi (Document 290 on the docket).

At this point, I agree with Eric that this could just be 'housekeeping' now that jury trial is imminent.

I've made my bias known (that I believe Rossi 'goes to extreme measures to intentionally decieve'), but I'm not ready to read much into the other lawyers' formally parting ways, without further information. It's clear from discovery that Annesser and Chaiken are the attorneys who have been involved in this case, so this, coupled with Silver's death, may explain Annesser's moves and the other lawyers' formal removal from the case.

Or not. We just don't know from this limited info.

Quote from Shane D.

Yes, and more uncommon is for "litigators" employer (Perlman Law in this case) to petition a judge, to the effect that there was misconduct committed within his firm. And also, that said litigator has resigned, and started his own law firm?

My understanding is that Rule 4-1.16 Declining or Terminating Representation is not necessarilly invoked due to misconduct. As Eric pointed out, it can simply be that the other attorneys were not involved in the case, so their invoking this may simply rest on the opening clause, which permits withdrawal if: "withdrawal can be accomplished without material adverse effect on the interests of the client" (without any of the misconduct reasons following, because there is an 'OR' preceding that list.)

Quote from sigmoidal

My understanding is that Rule 4-1.16 Declining or Terminating Representation is not necessarilly invoked due to misconduct. As Eric pointed out, it can simply be that the other attorneys were not involved in the case, so their invoking this may simply rest on the opening clause, which permits withdrawal if: "withdrawal can be accomplished without material adverse effect on the interests of the client" (without any of the misconduct reasons following, because there is an 'OR' preceding that list.)

I agree. My guess is that the bulk of the work is now done and that these litigators who did most of the paperwork are now withdrawn of the case. Just housekeeping as Eric said.

Quote from Shane D.

so us non-insider types agreeing with him, or not, should not be seen in this case as trying to out/dox Ahlfors.

Quote from Alan Smith

Ahifors has had at least 1 warning and 1 post deleted by me.

I wasn't talking about Ahlfors or Dewey Weaver. I quoted Malcom Lear and Shane D. in my previous post.

Lately every time somebody dares to suggest that a poster here is working on behalf of IH or APCO, they are given a warning not to accuse people of being shills or having ulterior motives (even when they don't accuse anyone specifically). We are meant to pretend as if everyone here is simply driven to post out of personal interest or motive. Fair enough. But now when people started accusing or implying that people are posting as shills for Rossi: crickets. Such accusations are no problemo when aimed at Rossi. I was simply pointing out the unfair double standard.

Eric Walker says it's hard not to be biased. And I agree. But it isn't hard to simply introduce a rule, say, that anyone accusing another poster of being a shill will be given a warning. And for the next infraction a 2-week ban. And a permanent ban for the third infraction. That way moderating decisions and the forum debate isn't tilted in favor of the mods' biases. (Or at least is less tilted.)

Eric says the double standard makes sense to him, because he doesn't find it plausible that APCO would be astroturfing this forum on IH's behalf. My intuition is that Eric holds this position because he connects the APCO astroturf scenario to the "IH is trying to stall/kill LENR" conspiracy. But in fact, the APCO astroturf scenario makes sense even if you believe IH has the purest intentions and all the nice things that IH defenders say here about them is true. We know that businesses in general routinely hire people to promote their brands and engage in PR on-line. This practice of astroturfing is widespread, widely accepted, admitted and simply cannot be denied as a fact of life and routine modern day business practices.

As such, one would expect as a matter of course that, if Darden et al. are good businessmen who follow widely implemented and accepted business practices, that they too would hire people to try to protect their reputation in the face of this lawsuit (especially if they view the lawsuit as unjustified but likely to sully their reputations). Their pockets are certainly deep enough, and we know from their past that Cherokee has no problem hiring lobbyists to help their cause, as part of routine business practice. This is really no different.

We know from discovery that IH hired APCO to do their PR (this was in an e-mail from Darden or Vaughn to Woodford and others). It therefore follows that, if Darden et al. are making a reasonable effort to protect their reputations in the face of what they view as a frivolous but nevertheless embarrassing lawsuit, APCO is the most likely firm to be running the astroturfing PR operation. It's not conspiracy theory. It's S.O.P. in the business world.

My own bias says this scenario is actually more likely than the one where Rossi--who is notorious for not trusting people--asking (or paying) people to have a go at the forum on his behalf. But it doesn't really matter which scenario is more plausible. My point is that the mods' bias should not (and need not) affect how this issue is moderated, at least when it comes to people throwing about accusations of "shilliness."

Quote from Shane D.

This Annesser is intricately involved in this story, and by that I mean not just as Rossi's defense attorney. He was involved before that.

IIRC, the bookkeeper/accountant for Leonardo (or was it JMC? or both?) was Ms. or Mrs. Annesser. I assume she is related to his lawyer. I guess he has surrounded himself with some true believers. One wonders if they have good reasons for their faith in him.

Quote from Eric Walker

I don't think there's enough information to be forced into a negative interpretation yet. One possibility: Perlman Bajandas are just cleaning up loose ends after Annesser left, and "withdrawal can be accomplished without material adverse effect on the interests of the client".

Well somebody at LENR-forum apparently doesn't agree with you. Here is the (spam) e-mail I received:

Quote

Hello {username},

today new court documents were released, where especially document 292 "Motion to withdraw" seems to indicate significant negative developments in Rossi's camp.

In document 292 most of Rossi's lawyers ask the court for permission to "withdraw from this case and from further representation of Plaintiffs, Andrea Rossi".

Spamming a premature, tendentious, and likely inaccurate interpretation of this Motion just confirms that LENR-forum is biased against Rossi in favor of IH. There have been plenty of motions that could be viewed as a setback for IH, yet I was never spammed about that.

And yes, it is spam, since LENR-forum does not provide users with a way to opt-out of receiving such unsolicited notifications.

But in fact, the APCO astroturf scenario makes sense even if you believe IH has the purest intentions and all the nice things that IH defenders say here about them is true. We know that businesses in general routinely hire people to promote their brands and engage in PR on-line. This practice of astroturfing is widespread, widely accepted, admitted and simply cannot be denied as a fact of life and routine modern day business practices.

I am with Eric on this one. Not on the matter of bias, but on that of astroturfing here being absurd.

Companies do often care about PR. When they have brands and the public perception of these affects them financially.

In this case IH has no public brand, and cannot possibly be affected by anything the wider public does.

IH does care about its reputation with potential professional VC investors, and also with the LENR scientists it has funded and continues to fund. I can't see this Forum being relevant to either set of people, can you?

Dewey has come on here all guns blazing defending his friends (and perhaps himself) from what he views as appalling and unfounded slurs. That is clearly a personal matter. IH could (before discovery) have had some interest in needling Rossi + camp as much as possible in the hopes that under pressure Rossi's blog comments will be revealing and helpful to their case. Rossi is clearly responsive to what happens on this blog and often replies to things raised here. I can't see that being so important now, and in any case it is not astroturfing and quite different from the APCO paid engagement with online media Josh refers to.

That sort of paid engagement is about influencing mass opinion, and not done by long and tedious science posts here. The closest we get to it are the people who contribute no content except flag-waving for their team. That is mostly on the Rossi side, though I can think of a few examples on the IH side.

My own bias says this scenario is actually more likely than the one where Rossi--who is notorious for not trusting people--asking (or paying) people to have a go at the forum on his behalf. But it doesn't really matter which scenario is more plausible. My point is that the mods' bias should not (and need not) affect how this issue is moderated, at least when it comes to people throwing about accusations of "shilliness."

If we compare the likelihood of Darden or Rossi influencing people to come on here and support their reputation, then that is indeed your own bias. Rossi shows his strong, even passionate, interest in blog opinion. His marketing from the start has been internet-based. He personally is famous for devoting so much time to his blog. Darden has never done this, and would not be expected to do so. I'm not saying Darden is uninterested in his reputation. Just that comments here or on ECW would not change it. He might care about what specialist journalists covering VCs (if there are any such) say about IH, for example. It makes an interesting story, and maybe one day will be covered in some detail.

Quote from Alan Smith

joshg We do the best we can to allow debate and the presentation of different viewpoints without too much censorship. Not an easy job, and you may have noticed that Mods get it in the neck whatever they do - or don't do. But don't forget that on the right at the top of every page is an alarm button - a warning triangle with a 'bang' in it. If there is some aspect of moderation you feel the team has overlooked then that is how you (or any forum member) can tell us about it.

Meanwhile I must get back to carving my 40' high white marble statue of Andrea dressed as Hercules, smashing a gtid transformer with a dogbone club. Only made possible by generous donations from the Alumina Ceramic Manufacturers Federation.

As you can tell from our comments and here Alan and I have strongly divergent views on a number of matters. And I don't personally agree with some of his moderation decisions. But I 100% support him in his role as moderator here, you don't expect moderators always to make the same judgments you would yourself. It is a thankless job, which he executes to the best of his ability and in the interest of the common good. Over IH vs Rossi LF moderation here is remarkably even-handed, with moderators who take differing opinions.

Quote from joshg

IIRC, the bookkeeper/accountant for Leonardo (or was it JMC? or both?) was Ms. or Mrs. Annesser. I assume she is related to his lawyer. I guess he has surrounded himself with some true believers. One wonders if they have good reasons for their faith in him.

Perhaps you'd like to expand on these good reasons? I'm finding it tough to find them here, whereas bad reasons for all manner of people having misplaced faith in people with a too good to be true message is a well-known phenomena.

Quote from joshg

We know from discovery that IH hired APCO to do their PR (this was in an e-mail from Darden or Vaughn to Woodford and others). It therefore follows that, if Darden et al. are making a reasonable effort to protect their reputations in the face of what they view as a frivolous but nevertheless embarrassing lawsuit, APCO is the most likely firm to be running the astroturfing PR operation. It's not conspiracy theory. It's S.O.P. in the business world.

It would be good to link this: context and timing in these references always matters.

But generally I'd agree, IH might well see Rossi as a highly embarassing involvement that they'd need care to extricate themselves from. I'm not sure of the timing, but I'd guess that when they finally realised their initial cautious but excited support for Rossi must change to something negative they might seek PR advice on how best to communicate that message. We know what they did, with that carefully but strongly worded PR release. If we had the timing of the connection with a PR firm we could check whether it was after the famous COP=9 dummy reactor incident, and before the PR advising extreme robustness on testing which was their carefully coded way of saying: we now don't think Rossi's stuff works.

Alan Smith

OK

Bye