Lawyers fined for fight

His voice rising as he delivered a stern reprimand, an angry state judge in Covington castigated two lawyers for letting their dislike for each other erupt into a courthouse fight and warned them to take their next scrape outside.

After hearing about two hours of testimony, state Judge Raymond Childress found brothers-in-law Michael Fawer and Joseph Bartels in contempt of court for their brawl in the hall outside his courtroom May 7.

"It sounds like something a second-grade teacher would have to break up on the playground," Childress said. Citing the parking lot across the street, he added, "If you all want to go roll on the gravel, that's where you need to do it, but not in my courthouse!"

Childress fined each man $100, gave each a suspended sentence of 24 hours in jail and ordered them placed on probation for 90 days. He also required them to attend an anger-management class and perform four eight-hour days of community service.

Fawer, 71, of Covington, and Bartels, 56, of New Orleans, were attending a child custody proceeding as advisers when they sparred. Fawer approached Bartels outside the courtroom and handed him some papers, which prompted the fight, according to both men.

Fawer said Bartels called him a "Jew m -- -- -- -- -- -" and raised his arm as if to hit him. He responded by grabbing Bartels by his tie and holding his throat as he pushed him against the wall. Bartels fell to the ground.

Bartels denied using the slur or trying to strike Fawer. He said Fawer said "f -- - you" and attacked him after he threatened to file a bar complaint. He intentionally didn't fight back, he said, and he went to the hospital only after a doctor advised him to do so.

Both Fawer and Bartels said they would appeal the judge's ruling.

Nothing like taking a bad three day story, and dragging it out for months. This will be in the news when they do file their appeals. And when the case is argued before the Court of Appeals. And when the Court of Appeals hands down its ruling. And when they appeal that ruling to the Louisiana Supreme Court. I doubt the LA Supremes will grant oral argument, but the case will be in the news when they rule. And when, after the appeals are exhausted, the case is sent back to the trial court. And everybody in the legal profession for three parishes around will be laughing each step of the way.

The story says one of them was represented in Court by his wife. It is often bad for your friend to be your lawyer. These guys needed a lawyer who would tell them: "You got in a fight with another lawyer in the hall of the Court House. There is no way you can come out of this not looking bad, and the longer it goes on, the worse you look. You can't win this one, you can just limit how badly you lose. Go into Court, apologize to the Judge, then shut your mouth and accept the sentence."

HMMMM...just so happens I was working on that very thing---

The lanterns gave faint light inside the ramshackle old barn. Cigar smoke obscured the view as it spiraled toward the rafters, but there was no mistaking the excitement which gripped the gallery of reporters, bailiffs,clerks, and other frenzied court house riff-raff anticipating the on-set of the long awaited spectacle.

Little Harry Logan, the beak nosed barrister from Houma, grey-black hair cropped into a crew cut so that the palm of his hand dabbed with a little gel was the only brush he ever needed, fixed his glare through horn rimmed spectacles which magnified the size of his eye balls and gave him the appearance of a large barn owl sizing up a family of rodents in the opposite corner of this hay strewn, make shift arena. With his ever present bow-tie and ominous pointy toed wing-tips polished to a high glean, he left no doubt he would live up to his reputation as a wiry, tough in-fighter who would exploit every weakness in his opponent and press every advantage to full effect with little regard for the "rules of the game" (as some of the more naive members of the profession occasionally chided him about). His time was worth $300 an hour to the lenders and landlords of the parish precisely because of these traits, and he would not abandon them -- not tonight -- not in this battle against the pompous J. Paul Sylvester,Esq., whose big city, big firm oily arrogance earned him his moniker as The Baton Rouge Bully. Most of south Louisiana, it seemed, had made its way across cow trails and pasture in the dead of night to this obscure castle of rotten planks, and Little Harry intended to send half of them home as happy as a crawfish in a mudpie, and the other half as forlorn as a midget with no ladder at the height of Katrina's wrath.

For his part, the Baton Rouge Bully seemed as detached and unconcerned as he would be while waiting for another jury to return to the court room and announce another multi-million dollar verdict against the latest Forbes 500 corporation who sold a baby crib with no automatic parachute for the toddler who vaults over the side, or a waffle iron which can leave its unmistakable brand on the human hand the same as on a glob of wet batter. The Bully had been heard to boast at such moments, "You know, $5 million here and $10 million there, and it soon adds up to some serious money!"

On this night, despite his outward jovial countenance, he was more than ready for the challenge at hand. His portly appearance and his expensive three-piece tailored resplendence concealed the hard-toned conditioning which can only come from years of not just chasing ambulances, but catching them, grabbing them by the neck and squeezing every last dollar and cent from the greedy bastards on behalf of the many widows and orphans who, after all, got a piece of the take.

After one last prancing circle, waiving to the crowd, who both cheered and jeered his every move, J. Paul Slyvester, Esq., spun toward Little Harry, pointed directly at him and said, "Caveat Emptor, Mo-------er! I'm gonna res ipsa loquitar your scrawny ass!!!!"

Little Harry's eyes bulged completely through the lenses of his horn rimmed specs and the bow-tie literally spun like an airplane propeller from the action of his heaving Adam's apple. Harry broke free from his handlers and was on The Bully as if he was serving a writ of sequestration on the Widow Brown and all her Young-uns. The crowd went stark raving, f---ing crazy! The fight was on. This is what they had come for......

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