Rakofsky's Ad to Replace Richard Borzouye

 Posted on July 15, 2011 in Uncategorized

"This is a Defamation case that was filed only a couple of months ago; it is brand new. If the case survives the motions to dismiss, I assume it will be 2 or 3 years before it is over. There are many, many defendants and once they learn who the lawyer is who I will hire as the Attorney of Record, they will almost certainly engage in character assassination of that person and attempt to ruin that lawyer's reputation on the Internet. I do not know for a fact that this will happen, but I believe that it is a possibility."

That's from the Craigslist ad that might well be Joseph Rakofsky looking for new counsel now that his "associate" Richard Borzouye has jumped ship on Rakofsky v. Internet.

Here's the original ad, before it was edited to replace the offered rate ($200 a month plus $150 per Court Appearance) with "Compensation to be negotiated":

Attorney of Record in NY (Trial Lawyer...MUST READ THIS TRANSCRIPT)

Competent counsel desperately needed to represent grandiosely self-destructive law-school graduate for practically no recompense in ill-advised and ultimately doomed but highly personal defamation case against some 80 defendants, most of whom are trial lawyers.

Since the defendants have shown themselves willing to publicly call out incompetent and unethical lawyering (that is the basis of the suit), the lawyer's ability, judgment, and professional ethics must be able to withstand close public scrutiny.

Okay, I admit it: there is no possibility of any recovery, I will never admit that I am wrong-or even that the judge said what he said in the linked transcript-and the defendants will be seeking sanctions against me. Nobody with judgment that would withstand close public scrutiny is going to take this for anything close to the kind of money I'm willing to spend. But I've got to ask.

While I am technically a lawyer, I have absolutely no idea what good lawyering looks like. So in lieu of any real criteria I'm asking for someone EXTREMELY aggressive in the Court room.

It is helpful if you have experience in Defamation. I realize that nobody with any experience in Defamation would take this dog of a case-in which obstacles include not only a lack of personal jurisdiction over determined defendants who buy ink (virtual and real) by the barrel and have retained the best First Amendment defense counsel there is, but also that pesky First Amendment itself-without a huge advance fee payment, but a boy can dream.

I know that there are lots of lawyers who go to court without being intimately familiar with the procedural rules (tell me about it! ha ha!), but lawyers who are intimately familiar with the CPLR will be the strongest candidates.

While I will be responsible for most of the drafting, you will need to proof read our documents. Actually, it will probably be better if you re write our documents completely, but you will then have to convince me that you actually know better than me, since I am technically a lawyer.

In my failed attempt to extort money from defendants, I called $5,000 ‘nominal,' but I'd like to spend less than that on my counsel in this case. Ideally, I would pay you the equivalent of a good dinner each month, and a nice lunch for each court appearance. People who want to actually be paid for the hundreds of hours of extensive motions practice and discovery that would theoretically be required if this case survived motions to dismiss, to say nothing of the many hours of out-of-court client handholding that will be required, need not apply.

I have bitten off way more than I can chew. If you are interested in biting off more than you can chew, reply to job-zkvsq-2470362148@craigslist.org.