Stock photo, blog post by John Hoff
On March 15, blogging from overseas, I wrote briefly about attorney Jill Clark's new blog project, named "Jill Clark Goes Wild" or something like that. My main beef with Clark's blog was it promises much, but delivers little. It was like being told "film at eleven" but then there's no film at eleven.
Specifically, Clark promised to post "documents" about her lawyer disciplinary hearing, which Clark mischaracterizes as an attempt to punish and silence a "judicial reformer."
Yeah, she's a judicial reformer...like Level Three Sex Offender Peter "Spanky Pete" Rickmyer is a "professional landscaper" when he tries to make himself look socially useful by picking up litter. This is a case of the pot calling itself a remodeled kitchen.
I have to be completely honest here and admit...
...that line about "film at eleven" isn't my own creativity. I stole it from a little birdie who talked to me about Jill Clark. This isn't the same "little birdie" who used to feed me information about sex offenders, though. Believe me, the world is full of little birdies who love to twitter in the ears of bloggers.
Anyway, I posted my criticisms about Clark's blog on March 15. On March 17, St. Patrick's Day, Clark got behind the wheel of her blog and published a statement containing what certainly SEEMS to be a response, of sorts, to my pointed criticism that Clark isn't being forthcoming (like she publicly promised) about why she's facing a lawyer disciplinary hearing.
Clark wrote the following:
"Of course, in 2012, the Minnesota Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility publicly charged me with making ‘false’ statements about a judge. This series will be a march from 2002 toward 2012, with hopes that by the time I reach the present day, I can be telling you about what is happening now in my case (I’ll blog about why I can’t talk about the evidence yet, in upcoming blog)."
(JNS blog notes: Clark's incorrect single quote marks and awkward use of parenthesis are reproduced exactly as these appear on her blog)
Thin, Clark. Very unsatisfying.
Inquiring minds want to know...in NoMi. So let's put on our thinking caps, shall we?
First of all, it seems likely the disciplinary issue Clark is facing comes from a legal case and info about the case can be found online. I mean, it's highly unlikely Clark was walking the halls of the Hennepin County Government Center, with no particular case pending, and she just happened to run into a judge and in the course of a conversation she made some kind of statements that now have her in seriously hot water.
No, it's safe to say the disciplinary proceedings have spun from one of Clark's cases.
Of course, there's just so many cracked and crazy Clark cases that it's like digging through a dumpster to find one piece of garbage much smellier than the rest. Well, I guess I'm going to have to look at one file after another in this public forum and point out what's messed up about each case and then try to figure out whether THAT is the case.
Worse yet...it's always possible there's more than one case at issue. If I could just get to the Hennepin County courthouse to look at paper files, it would make my work easier but I'm still out of state for an indefinite period of time. Sigh.
Luckily, there's a little birdie who tells me time would be well spent examining the "Veches" case, more specifically known as Jeffrey Veches v. Officer Sean Majewski, Hennepin County Medical Center, Dr. Jay Lin, Dr. Joseph Clinton, EMS R. Kopka, EMS Koellen, John Does 1-3. This case was filed March 23, 2010. Summary judgement was granted not quite a year later, on 3-17-2011.
(Gee, that's one year to the day Clark wrote her blog post!)
Veches, who was the plaintiff, managed to end up on the losing end with a judgment against him for $1,630.70. Veches--whoever he is--got off lucky compared to judgments against some of Clark's clients, who start out as plaintiffs boldly "dishing it out" but somehow go whimpering home, their dish empty, in fact MORE than empty because now they owe a fat judgment. One need look no further than the plaintiffs in the "True JACC" Jordan Neighborhood lawsuit, though it's not the only example.
So it's not at all surprising to see one of Clark's plaintiffs end up being hit with a judgment instead of being victorious in court. It's not even surprising to see that plaintiff appealing. In fact, the Veches case is scheduled before a three judge panel of the Minnesota Court of Appeals on April 26, 2012.
No, none of this is unusual in what some of us have begun to call the school of "Clarkian" legal thought, which might be characterized as "legal unrealism." See, "legal realism" is a legal philosophy that says your case could go one way or another depending on what the judge had for breakfast. But "legal unrealism" teaches us that a vast, hidden conspiracy is behind what the judge had for breakfast, and only the "brilliance" of Jill Clark can uncover this conspiracy.
But anyway...
There is SOMETHING unusual about the judgement in the Veches case. See, the judgement is not only against Veches. It's also against CLARK.
Tell me, how does a lawyer end up representing a plaintiff...and then judgment comes down against that plaintiff...but the judgment is also against THE LAWYER? It's kind of like, "Your client is guilty and must go to jail. And, by the way, counselor...you're going to jail, too."
Only the case is civil, so nobody is going to jail (what a pity!) it's just a matter of somebody owing MONEY. Unless the judgment can be overturned on appeal. We shall see.
So I'm hearing hints that Clark's lawyer disciplinary troubles MIGHT have come from something that happened in the Veches case. But right now I have no way to confirm that. Clark, who could simply explain all of this to her public, after trying to grab the public's interest with her meatless blog, promises in the future she will explain why she can't explain.
Whatever.
For what it's worth, I've been informed that a "Clark bar" doesn't contain nuts in the strictest sense. I mean, it does but it doesn't. It contains chocolate peanut butter. In other words, nuts reduced to such a fine consistency you can't tell at first glance the nuts are nuts.
But then you bite into it, chew on it a while...
Oh, yes. Nuts.
I am still trying to figure out who, exactly, is Jeffrey Veches and what was the nature of his lawsuit.
Readers who have info and can post links are encouraged to add to the discussion.
