Justice Magoo has announced – yet again on the front page of the NY Law Journal – that he can no longer bear the sight of his children starving on his beggarly annual dole of $144,000. Now the Appellate Division will have to muddle through without him because he’s leaving to be a partner at Flywheel Shyster & Flywheel. “I’ll miss public service, but I have to do the right thing for my family,” the learned deemster pronounced (NYLJ 5/24/11).
The firm has “fabulous clients,” he enthused (not like some firms whose clients are a menace to society).
How does he know they’re fabulous? From deciding their cases, he says. A fabulous way to look for a job.
(Scene: Oral argument at the Appellate Division. Presiding Justice PIZZA, flanked by Justices NOODLE, GOYA, HOTSY-TOTSY and MAGOO)
Pizza: Next! Megadeath Corporate Acquisitions vs. Baby Seal Protection Charitable Trust.
Lawyer: May it please the court, Waldorf T. Shyster of Flywheel Shyster for Megadeath. This case raises a vital issue of statutory interpretation. My client’s yacht was not responsible for the accident. A seal clearly assumes the risk when he or she –
Magoo: Where’s Mr. Flywheel?
Lawyer: Er – I believe he’s relocated to Brazil, your Honor.
Magoo: Brazil?
Lawyer: Well, one of those countries where they don’t have extradition. Now, if I may read from this paragraph subsection of the Admiralty law –
Magoo: So you have an opening at your firm?
Lawyer: Why yes, indeed, you can start as soon as we get this little matter settled about the damage to my client’s yacht –
(cut to the post-argument conference)
Pizza: Megadeath doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Yachts may have the right of way on the high seas but this was the seal pond at the Central Park Zoo.
Noodle: Darn tootin’. Let’s sign that summary judgment and get it over with.
Magoo: But they’re fabulous clients!
(Everybody stares at him)
Magoo: (wailing) I can’t bear the thought of my poor wife hunched over a washtub from dawn to dusk, my starving wee bairns begging in the street – all because I indulge in public service!
Goya: Maybe we could give them jobs as court attorneys. Can they handle a rubber stamp?
Hotsy-Totsy: There, there, Magoo, why don’t you run along and write one of your nice long concurrences?
Magoo: (sulking) I bet nobody even reads them.
All: Perish the thought! Your immortal concurrences will be classics of legal analysis long after the Supreme Court has faded into oblivion.
Magoo: (brightening). You really think so? Oh, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! I’ll get started right away.
(exit).
Noodle: Will Flywheel Shyster take him off our hands?
Pizza: (sighing) We can only keep our fingers crossed.
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