I wrote on April 2 about an April Fools' Day prank by law blogger Eric Turkewitz (and others) who managed to fool the New York Times, at least briefly. Turns out that was only the first act in a drama that played out over the next several days, after a gentleman who said he specializes in legal ethics announced that, in his opinion, any April Fools' Day prank by a lawyer is a violation of Rule 8.4 (no fraud, deceit, misrepresentation, etc.). Said gentleman denounced Turkewitz and the other bloggers who had been involved in the prank, and later went so far as to announce his own ethical rules by which such pranks, if any, should be measured in the future.
As summarized in a post at Popehat, one of the blogs involved in the prank, things went rapidly downhill for the Ethical Gentleman after that. You should visit Popehat to read the full "Tragedy of Jack Marshall, a play in nine acts," and so I'll just summarize here: Marshall was thoroughly refuted by Turkewitz in a follow-up post, but then tried to up the ante; not only did he stand by his criticism, he went further by composing his own set of ethical standards by which future lawyer pranks were to be judged. That only attracted more scorn, and eventually Marshall felt forced to semi-apologize.
Do you remember that scene in "Jaws" where the two yokels decide to fish for the shark from a pier, and they attach a chain to the pier and put some meat on a big hook and throw it into the ocean, and then something grabs the hook and pulls the chain so hard that the pier collapses, and that one guy gets pulled into the water and has to swim back with something in the water right behind him and he claws his way up what's left of the pier and barely gets away with his life?
This reminded me a lot of that scene.
Link: Popehat
