The Wrong Stuff: Tip #8

• Author: Marvin Catzman
• Pages: 293-296

The

Wrong

Stuff.

Tip # 8

Justice

Marvin

Catzman

Modesty1

prevents

me

from saying that accolades have been pouring

in

since

the

publication

of my

article

in the

Summer

2000

issue

of

this

Journal.

In the

months that

followed,

I

received hundreds

of

dozens

of

seven very complimentary letters

from

completely unbiased

readers.2

What

I

also got, however, were

a lot of

angry complaints from lawyers

across

the

province

who

used

three,

four,

or, in one

case,

all

seven Tips

on

Losing

but who

still

won

their appeals.

I

have been compelled

to go

back

to the

drawing board.

In

doing

so,

I

have realized that

my

earlier list

of

seven tips

was

incomplete.

The

problem

is

that, unlike

the

original seven, which struck

me all at

once,

Mr.

Justice

Marvin Catzman, Court

of

Appeal

for

Ontario.

Well,

not

"modesty"

exactly.

"Honesty" would

be

more accurate.

See the

sentence

that follows

in the

text.

To

be

completely

truthful,

there

was

something fishy about

the

letters, too.

I

sub-

mitted

them

to a

handwriting expert, whose opinion

was

that, although they pur-

ported

to be

written

by

different people,

the

signatures

on all

seven

were

in the

same

handwriting.

Worse

yet,

the

handwriting

was

identical

to

that

of one of my

kids

who

always

used

to

write notes

in my

name

to her

high school

teachers

ask-

ing to be

excused

from

class

because

she had a

dentist appointment. When

she

wrote those notes,

she

didn't

really

have

a

dentist appointment. Come

to

think

of

it,

when

she

wrote those notes,

she

didn't

even

have

a

dentist.

But I

digress.

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