Ex-Associate Badmouths Former Firm in Legal Blog
It isn’t what an attorney would generally recommend to a client. But attorney Edward Harrington Heyburn says he was willing to risk litigation when he created a legal blog that badmouths partners at the New Jersey law firm at which he formerly worked, Levinson Axelrod.
His Levinson Axelrod Sucks blog “isn’t exactly risk averse,” notes the Business Insider in a post that relies on information from the New Jersey Law Journal.
Since the word “sucks” was recently added to the name of Heyburn’s site (located at levinsonaxelrod.net), it now clearly isn’t the official Levinson Axelrod website, the post points out.
The New Jersey Law Journal says that Levinson Axelrod has retained Thomas Cafferty of Scarinci Hollenbeck in Lyndhurst, who plans to file suit shortly over Heyburn’s website.
Although Cafferty declined to discuss potential causes of action, Richard Ravin, an intellectual property lawyer who doesn’t practice at the firm, tells the legal publication that defamation and trademark infringement would be among the possibilities.
“Unfortunately, lawyers are demigods. We sit by and encourage others to press the boundaries of free speech but are reluctant to do so ourselves,” says Heyburn in comments that are the subject of a subsequent Business Insider post.
“I chose my words carefully,” he states, adding that he is willing to take a lie-detector test.
Heyburn, who was reportedly fired by Levinson Axelrod firm in 2004 (he says it was because he intended to establish his own practice) offers a number of unflattering opinions of the partners there in his website.
