Dueling YouTube Clips: Potential High Court Nominees vs. PI Lawyers
What can you learn about potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees whose legal musings are captured in YouTube video clips?
You can get a feel for the lawyers’ personalities but little in the way of ammunition to challenge their nominations, Slate magazine concludes. Not to be outdone, Esquire magazine features other lawyers’ YouTube videos that are also instructional—about the state of legal advertising.
Slate unearthed the videos of potential high court nominees and decides there are no bombshells—or no “macaca moment,” in its columnist’s words. There’s the criticized clip in which Judge Sonia Sotomayor says appeals courts make policy, and then tries to take back the comment. It may be an issue for Sen. Orrin Hatch, but Slate doesn’t think it is a big deal.
Other video revelations: Yale law dean Harold Koh displays his love and deep knowledge about international law, managing to use his son’s request to borrow the car as a teaching moment on the need for stable rules, the story says. Judge Leah Ward Sears backs marriage, and displays patience in a Q and A when a questioner suggests adding birth control to children’s orange juice. Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm appears smart and empathetic and tells women to let their light shine. Solicitor General Elena Kagan comes off as humble and agreeable—and there is no “uh-oh moment” in her entire YouTube file.
Offering a contrast are personal injury and divorce lawyers with low-budget TV ads on YouTube. Esquire magazine posts five of them in a story entitled “Five Lawyer Ads that Make Any Supreme Court Candidate Look Brilliant.”
In one ad, Jim “the Hammer” Shapiro says he won’t be able to rip out the hearts of those responsible for causing injuries, but he can hunt them down and settle the score. In another, a trial lawyer promises help divorcing “that vermin you call spouse” and advises potential clients to hire him instead of wasting money paying thousands of dollars to “some piece of crap three-piece suit downtown.”
Esquire introduces its article this way: “Since the early ’80s, burnt-out men bordering on middle-aged while somehow maintaining fantastic hair have entertained viewers with cheap stunts, uncreative nicknames, and shameless fear-mongering. I’m not talking about the WWE—those stunts are real—but personal-injury and divorce-court lawyers.”
