By MILT POLICZER  I've spotted yet another odd law firm trend: name-jamming.
I used to see lawsuits filed by a firm called Troy & Gould. Now I'm seeing lawsuits filed by a firm called TroyGould.
TroyGould!
Whoosh!
It makes you want to say it really fast. Try it a few times.
TroyGould!
TroyGould!
TroyGould!
And then there's Sulmeyer Kupetz Baumann & Rothman. Or at least that's what it used to be called. Now it's SulmeyerKupetz!
Whoosh!
Now there could be ecological reasons for this. Shortened and jammed names take up less space. There could be enormous savings in paper and ink.
I suspect the real reason for this is the root of much of the seemingly-inexplicable behavior in our society: marketing.
I couldn't help but noticing that TroyGould (whoosh!) has a professionally-designed (and I'm guessing fairly new) website. You can practically feel the marketing wheels turning.
"Listen guys, we've got a slick new look for your firm. All it needs is a slick new name. Something that zooms out of the mouth of your clients. Whoosh!"
I don't know how well that works, but, if nothing else, it makes it so much easier for your clients to remember who you are. Some of you in firms with really long names (many of whom belong to dead guys) should be considering this.
And I'd take the concept one step farther - don't settle for jamming two names together. Take the coolest syllables from your firm's name and merge them into one slick, rain-making moniker.
For example, take this monstrosity of a name: Christensen, Glaser, Fink, Jacobs, Weil & Shapiro. Who's going to remember that?
But take the best parts and you've got Chinko!
Whoosh!
Or how about Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom?
Change it to Skarf!
I'm picturing a logo with large lawyers eating the carcasses of opposing parties.
A few other examples:
Old name: Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.
New name: Wicut!
Old name: Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.
New name: KinG!
Old name: Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker.
New name: PaSkywalker!
Old name: Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.
New name: WinMan!
Old name: Cooley Godward Kronish
New name: Coolish!
Old name: Wilson, Elser Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker.
New name: ManDick!
Old name: Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.
New name: GotHam! (Or just Gotham for the New York office.)
Old name: Knapp, Petersen & Clarke.
New name: Knark!
Old name: Bryan Cave.
New name: Brave!
I could go on and on.
Whoosh!
ATTORNEY FEES - The Court of Federal Claims found that the government's position during a trial in the lower court, that an aviation company must return three planes under the Espionage Act, was not substantially justified. Under the Equal Access to Justice Act, the company is entitled to costs and fees incurred after 2003, plus more than $60,000 in attorney's fees. 
ATTORNEY FEES - The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed a decision to disbar attorney James B. Ethridge after 30 years of practice after he tried to defraud an elderly woman who asked him to help her safeguard her property. Instead of undertaking a fiduciary duty for the woman, he deposited the money from her liquidated estate into his own bank account, withdrew some of it for himself, and later gave only part of the woman's money back to her guardian ad litem.
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 LOS ANGELES (CN) - The County of Los Angeles is contaminating the ocean and coastal waterways with bacteria, viruses, human feces and heavy metals from an inadequate sewage treatment plant and faulty storm runoff systems, in vioation of the Clean Water Act, says the National Resources Defense Council in Federal Court. runoff images
 LOS ANGELES (CN) - Songwriter Christopher Swann sued Anna Kournikova and Lions Gate Entertainment in Federal Court on Monday, claiming they used two of his songs without permission on the DVD, "A Date With Anna."
WASHINGTON (CN) - The Departments of Energy and the Treasury failed to evaluate the environmental effect from their grants of $1 billion in tax credits to promote construction and operation of nine experimental coal-based energy projects, in violation of the nation's environmental laws, the group Appalachian Voices claims in Federal Court.
 VANCOUVER, WASH. (CN) - Officials are trying to decide whether they can prosecute a man for drunken driving on a lawnmower. Stephen Ray Castor, 53, was arrested last week after swerving through rush-hour traffic on a riding lawnmower.
 MANHATTAN (CN) - The Tonic East bar and restaurant at 411 3rd Ave. instituted an illegal, racially discriminatory dress code excluding "hip-hop" and "urban wear" to deny admission to black customers, the State of New York claims in Federal Court.
MOUNT HOLLY, N.J. (CN) - Bet you haven't seen one like this before. Adventure Aquarium has been sued for personal injuries by a customer who claims he suffers "long continued mental disturbance, repeated hysterical attacks and other psychological sequelae after being bitten by an Arrowana fish in a fish-petting display," in Burlington County Court.
 WASHINGTON (CN) - Three California developers - Otay Mesa Property, Rancho Vista Del Mar and Otay International - sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Federal Court, claiming it improperly designated 275 acres of coastal land as critical habitat for the endangered San Diego fairy shrimp.
BATON ROUGE (CN) - In a suit that alleges back-room dealing in southern Louisiana, an RV dealer's assocation says in East Baton Rouge Parish Court that the Louisiana Recreational and Used Motor Vehicle Commission violated open meetings law in awarding two no-bid contracts worth $102 million for FEMA travel trailers to Bourget's, a motorcycle dealer.
JERSEY CITY (CN) - Aspen University says in Hudson County Court that it paid $63,000 to a recruiter, Halyard Education Partners and Elearner.com, under a contract in which the college agreed to pay the defendants for each "qualified lead" - i.e., each student who might want to attend Aspen. But the leads were bogus.
CORPUS CHRISTI (CN) - An Indian graduate student at the University of Texas A&M Kingsville claims school officials are wrongfully trying to expel him based on false plagiarism charges levied against him by two Indian professors, who are out to get him due to regional and religious differences.
ALBANY, GA. (CN) - A man using STL International's "inversion table" or "Teeter Hang Up" as directed, for back pain, broke his neck and became quadriplegic when it flipped as it held him in ankle clamps. He died as a result, his widow claims claims in Federal Court.
CLEVELAND (CN) - Bella Derm Medi Spa of Westlake, Ohio, puts customers at risk of infectious disease, including hepatitis C and AIDS, by using a skin-penetrating roller device that it falsely claims it does not use on multiple clients, a worried customer claims in Cuyahoga County Court.
 MINNEAPOLIS (CN) - The State of Minnesota claims CMI of Kentucky is jeopardizing hundreds of drunk-driving prosecutions by refusing to provide source code for the alcohol breath-testing Intoxilyzer 5000 machines.
BENTON, Ill. (CN) - Tom Lakin's plea agreement has been put on hold indefinitely. Lakin, a prominent St. Louis attorney, was indicted by a federal grand jury on sex and drug charges.
CHICAGO (CN) - The SEC says Enterprise Trust Company President John Lohmeier used fraud to convince hundreds of customers of Advisory Financial Services to transfer $49 million to Enterprise, where Lohmeier traded on margin, made short sales and used the money as collateral for their own benefit.
SALT LAKE CITY (CN) - Questar Gas Management Co. polluted the air at five compressor stations on tribal lands in northeastern Utah, the federal government says.
ST. LOUIS (CN) - The co-founder of Savvis Communications will stay in jail until his trial on extortion charges, a federal judge ruled, finding that he poses a danger to the community. The 45-year-old Andrew Gladney allegedly tried to extort $100,000 from his brother-in-law in Virginia with violent threats over the telephone and by email.
JERSEY CITY (CN) - Hudson County sued its former County Executive Robert Janiszewski, and a slew of his alleged associates, claiming Janiszewski accepted bribes in exchange for county contracts and other favors while he ran the county, from 1988 to 2001. Janiszewski is in prison in New York.
DALLAS (CN) - An immigrant who lost his job has sued Wendy's International, Café Express which Wendy's owned its attorneys, Boyar & Miller, saying they promised the worker that they would help him get labor certification and deducted money from his paycheck to pay for that promise despite being unable to fulfill it.
LAS VEGAS (CN) - The Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada faces two more class-action complaints accusing it of reusing syringes on 40,000 patients since March 2004, exposing them to HIV, hepatitis and other diseases. Three additional complaints, all in Clark County Court, were filed by patients who claim they got hepatitis C from contaminated needles at the center.
 MILWAUKEE (CN) - Twenty-seven plaintiffs have filed a class-action complaint against Quizno's Franchise Co., the latest in a string of complaints accusing Quizno's of fraud in convincing people to buy franchises by making promises it does not keep and overcharging for food and supplies.
HOUSTON (CN) - Merill Lynch and JP Morgan have been sued in a class action over their role in underwriting a stock offering for Superior Offshore International, a company that reaped $49 million in unjust profits by dumping 11 million shares at prices inflated by their failure to reveal the company's declining financial prospects, shareholders claim in Federal Court.
CHICAGO (CN) - Seven guards at Dwight Correctional Center raped an inmate on 29 occasions, intercepted her certified letters to her attorney, and prison administrators, including its internal affairs division, failed to act on her complaints other than to put her in segregation for complaining, says the woman, who is represented by Kathleen Zellner in Federal Court.
NASHVILLE (CN) - Two white male police sergeants claim in Federal Court that the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County's "slide banding method" of promotions illegally discriminates against them and in favor of black officers and women.
ARLINGTON, VA. (CN) - Three police officers working Reagan National Airport for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority assaulted and battered a woman who complied with all their orders because they found a small bottle of contact lens cleaner in her carry-on luggage, Robin Kassner claims in Arlington County Court.
BALTIMORE (CN) - Douglas Nelson claims he paid Douglas Younger and Younger's business, Dry Holdings, $4,500 to refurbish his 1979 Mercedes 450SL, and Younger hasn't delivered the goods - six years after he promised to begin work on it. Nelson demands his car back, and $235,000, in Baltimore County Court.
SACRAMENTO (CN) - Dr. Gene Rogers claims Sacramento County wrongfully fired him as medical director of its Medically Indigent Program because he sued the county under the False Claims Act, alleging it coerced him into violating federal immigration law and made him "a party to criminal conduct entailing conversion of public revenues in payment for services of (sic - recte: to) illegal aliens."
MOUNT HOLLY, N.J. (CN) - Devmont Contracting illegally fired him to retaliate for his disability, and for filing for workers' compensation and taking disability after he suffered partial amputation of four fingers at work, Jedidiah Marshall claims in Burlington County Court.
WASHINGTON (CN) - The SEC has permanently suspended attorney Moneesh Bakshi from practicing before it after finding that he filed false documents with the Commission and participating in fraud as corporate counsel for Ramoil Management Ltd.
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LOS ANGELES (CN) - A superior court judge ordered the owner of XtraJet to pay Michael Jackson's former lawyer, Mark Geragos, and an associate nearly $12 million for conspiring to secretly videotape Jackson and his lawyers on their charter flight to Santa Barbara for the singer's surrender on molestation charges in 2003.
WASHINGTON (CN) - The U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked in a dispute stemming from several lawsuits by people who claimed they were harmed by Rezulin, a diabetes drug manufactured by Warner-Lambert Co. With the chief justice not participating, the 4-4 split vote left intact the 2nd Circuit's ruling allowing the case to proceed.
HARTFORD, Conn. (CN) - The Connecticut Supreme Court rejected a widow's claim that her husband's fatal heart attack was caused by the stress of working as a superior court judge.
RICHMOND, Va. (CN) - The Virginia Supreme Court voted 4-3 that a state law making it a crime for spammers to clog inboxes with unsolicited e-mail does not violate spammers' free-speech rights. The court upheld the felony conviction of Jeremy Jaynes, the first spammer convicted under the Virginia Anti-Spam Act.
WASHINGTON (CN) - The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of Adelphia Communications founder John Rigas and his son, Timothy, who drove the fifth-largest cable television company into bankruptcy by withdrawing millions of dollars from the business to fund personal expenses, including 100 pairs of bedroom slippers and a $3 million film produced by John's daughter, Ellen.
ST. LOUIS (CN) - The 8th Circuit concluded that race was a motivating factor in a white administrator's decision not bring back a black substitute teacher after he told allegedly told her that "white people teach black kids ... better than someone from their own race." The Columbia Public School District in Missouri failed to offer a legitimate reason for refusing to hire Mary King.
WASHINGTON (CN) - The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 to let a FedEx worker pursue an age-discrimination claim against the company, despite mistakes made by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
WASHINGTON (CN) - Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf populations are stable, so the Interior Department will remove them from the endangered species list March 28. Removal from the list returns management of wolf populations to the states in which they live, which, in this case is Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and parts of Washington, Oregon and Utah.
ELECTIONS, CIVIL PROCEDURE - (Per curiam.) Relators sought to prevent Ohio's secretary of state from requiring boards of elections to provide optical scan ballots to voters who request them. The court held that relators are not entitled to the requested extraordinary relief in prohibition, because such writs apply only to the exercise of judicial or quasi-judicial power, and the secretary has exercised neither in issuing the ballot directive. Writ denied.
EXPERTS - A plaintiff claimed Prudential Insurance withdrew its job offer based on the false information contained in a criminal background check performed by CARCO. He then sued CARCO for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The D.C. Circuit reversed summary judgment for the company, because plaintiffs are not always required to present expert testimony to establish negligence under the Act.
NEGLIGENCE - A 2-year-old drowned in the backyard pool of the homeowners when his parent left him unattended for about five minutes. On first impression, the appeals court found that the homeowners breached no duty of supervision, and the parent could not establish that the absence of a self-latching closing mechanism on the gate at one of the entrances to the pool area was a cause of the accident.
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A West Virginia railroad worker is causing a bit of a flap in his industry by suing his employer for failing to protect him from an unusual workplace hazard -- a nesting goose. more
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David Leener claims he had the idea for the Fox TV series "Sarah Connor Chronicles: Terminator," and these defendants swiped it without paying him: C2 Pictures, Cinergi Entertainment, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and Fox Broadcasting Co., in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Interior Secretary refuses to protect endangered "clay-loving wild buckwheat ... one of Colorado's rarest plants," the Center for Native Ecosystems claims in Denver Federal Court.
The Vietnamese-American Community Of Northern America California claims the City Of San Jose violated the Brown Act by naming a retail district the Saigon Business District without proper public notice, in Santa Clara Superior Court.
State Sen. Carole Midgen sued the California Fair Political Practices Commission in Sacramento Federal Court, claiming it wrongly prohibited her from spending $647,000 donated in a previous campaign on this year's Democratic primary election.
New Motion dba Atrinsic faces a class-action complaint of billing for unauthorized phone charges, in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Knowledge Learning Corp. fired the director of its Addison, Texas, "Kindercare" center for reporting suspected child abuse to the state, and violating her boss's illegal order not to report it, Vanessa Johnson claims in Dallas County Court.
Catco Homes killed Rosendo Gonzalez by making him carry building materials four stories high on an improvised "ladder" made of boards nailed to the side of a building, which failed and he fell, his parents claim in Harris County Court, Houston.
Woodbridge Home Exteriors defrauded customers, including at least one senior citizen, with false and deceptive sales practices, the State of California claims in Kern County Court.
Digital-Vending Services International claim these defendants violate its patents on "distance learning video services": The University of Phoenix, Apollo Group, Capella Education Co., Laureate Education, and Walden University, in Marshall, Texas Federal Court.
Tricom and affiliates filed for bankruptcy in Manhattan, listing more than $523 million in unsecured debts.
Florida JAIL 4 Judges claims The Florida Bar, The Florida Supreme Court and their officers are unconstitutionally trying to prevent it from amending the Florida Constitution to punish corrupt judges, in Miami Federal Court.
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