Martha Sperry: Incompetent, Cowardly, or Both?
January 12, 2012
When Joseph Rakofsky filed a frivolous lawsuit against me and 84 or so other people for writing that Rakofsky is incompetent and unethical, settlement never occurred to me. There are First Amendment issues at stake. If lawyers won't stand behind their words, how can people untrained in the law ever speak?
As the author of the First Amendment and a lawyer himself wrote, "On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock."
There's also the issue of courage. When someone files a frivolous lawsuit against you, you must stand and fight. Otherwise, you're a miserable coward - a worm slinking on its belly.
When Joseph Rakofsky sued Martha Sperry of Advocate's Studio, she had a choice. She could fight. Or she could run.
She choose to run.
On December 3, 2011, Martha Sperry published an ingratiating post to Rakofsky. Perry kisses Rakofsky's ass and insults everyone who dares defend themselves from the frivolous attacks of a loon.
What Perry did not do, however, is disclose a material fact. She settled her case with Rakofsky, and thus her kiss-ass post was almost certainly mandated by the settlement agreement.
What sort of lawyer would fail to disclose a material fact to her readers?
Rakofsky seemingly demanded $5,000 from each defendant, as evidenced by St. Thomas Law School's decision to settle with Rakofsky for that very amount.
Did Martha Sperry write a check for $5,000 to Joseph Rakofsky? Or did licking his boots suffice?
It's clear that Sperry is a coward. It's almost certainly the case she's incompetent, since no competent lawyer would have settled a frivolous lawsuit brought against her.
We should now ask if Sperry is ethical. If Sperry was required to write her December 3, 2011 blog post as part of a settlement agreement: Why did she hide that fact from her readers?
I posted a comment to her blog, asking her whether she was required to write her blog post as part of a settlement agreement. She has kept the comment in moderation rather than address my question.
What does her silence say?