Yesterday, I tracked down one Colorado attorney, who has some interesting recollections of our jurist sensation, Edward Nottingham. Joe Losavio –now retired in Lenno on beautiful Lake Como in Italy– is currently visiting the States and consented to be cited for this story.

Losavios recalls that, on a Friday, April 26, 1991, the last day of a trial in Settle v. Centel Electric, a stately tall blonde entered the courtroom gallery. Nottingham immediately took notice, stopped the proceedings, scribbled something on a Post-itTM note, handed the note to the bailiff with instructions to give it to Centel’s attorney, Bill Mattoon. The note inquired as to who was the blonde. When Mattoon informed him that it was Losavio’s wife, the disappointed judge resumed the proceedings, Losavio said.

In that same case, Losavio recalled that Nottingham refused to cause the clerk record the jury’s $l72,465 verdict, which should have been a purely ministerial act. Losavio repeatedly followed-up with the clerk in an effort to get the judgment entered. Losavio’s client, Don Settle, eventually filed a judicial misconduct complaint. Nottingham issued a written response in which, Losavio recalls, he accosted Losavio for his persistence.

I also spoke with Losavio’s client, Don Settle. Settle, who also witnessed the passing of the note, says that he lost approximately fifty-thousand dollars as a result of Nottingham’s refusal to enter the jury’s judgment. Settle says Nottingham justified his usurpation of the jury’s verdict because he didn’t like the precedent that might be established for at-will employee discharge cases and, as a result, the jury’s verdict was never honored.

“The driver told 9NEWS he took prostitutes to meet Judge Nottingham at two locations in the Denver area about 10 times during the summer of 2007.

One of those locations is a condo in Denver listed as the residence of Edward Nottingham III, the judge’s adult son. The son’s name is listed on the condo directory at 1489 Steele Street, apartment #307, Denver.

The driver says the prostitutes would mention Judge Nottingham by name before and after their appointments with him and frequently referred to the judge by his nickname: “Naughty.”

The driver described one conversation with a prostitute about Nottingham. “She was like, well, ‘It’s Naughty.’ I said, ‘Who’s that?’ She said, ‘A federal judge.’ She said, ‘He’s on some big trials and stuff like that.’”

The driver also told 9NEWS he met the judge in person, then later looked him up on the Internet and saw his picture.

The driver says he saw Judge Nottingham outside the condo complex on Steele Street interacting with the prostitutes several times.

“They always seemed pretty affectionate, you would almost think they were a couple by the way that they acted together,” the driver told 9NEWS. “They would hug each other and almost kiss on the cheek and then they would go inside.”

The driver says the women returned from their meeting with the judge with $300 or $400 in cash per visit. ”

I think Judge Nottingham was blackmailed or bribed last summer. He had me put in jail for 22 days without charging with with a criminal offense. The warrant was blank where the law was supposed to be. The asst U.S. attorney said the government was not a part of this. I was taken in front of a court clerk who pretended to be a magistrate. The Pacer files for the D of Western Wisconsin do not show anything about the hearing on 5/11/07 with clerk Owens. Clerk Owens said it was not her place to judge what was a valid warrant. On 6/1/07, Judge Nottingham let me go. He said “whoops”.

Here’s an excerpt. Perhaps you can let us all know if this is what you meant to say? :

“It is too late to bemoan the traditional partnership, based on the trust of partners in each other, and shared responsibility toward clients…All that is left of the old-style partnership is the sanctimony that tended to go with it…As for limited liability partnership, are they much better than an exercise in deception?…Best, now, in all our interests, for law firms to go the whole hog – become publicly-traded corporations…all pretence at being anything other than a business wih limited liability consigned to the conceptual dustbin…”

The fees are getting pretty steep – even the Chief Justice of the SCC says so. Are you saying she is a socialist?

But it’s not fees per say that many clients find so irksome. It’s the shoddy lawyering coupled with the shady over-billing. Good lawyering is worth good money but crappy lawyering isn’t worth a dime. In fact, crappy lawyering can sink to negligent lawyering. And negligent lawyers need to be sued – not overpaid! Over-billing can sometimes move from being agg ressive “wealth accumulation” to being fraudulent. Fraudulent overbillers need to be held accountable – like they do in the good old capitalist U.S. Not like up here with our weak-kneed regulators like the LSUC.

There’s no rocket science in any of this. Nothing complicated. A treatise on the ills of socialism vesus the joy of capitalism changes squat.

Slayton is right. You are wrong. Get over yourself.
bf

Law is a profession based on malleable fact. The more malleable the better.

So sorry to hear about your negative experience. We aren’t all that bad, really. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Justice is about money, law is about money.

if you want change you better have more then change.

Lastly, my life was runined by the very lawyer hired to protect me.
he took my evidence and now claims he no longer has my evidence.

modern technology indeed!

Nobody’s calling for a revolution. As far as I know nobody’s burned down the CBA’s offices, or bombed Osgoode Hall. There is no “overthrowing” of anything (not as far as I know, I’d be disappointed if I missed it as I like a good lynching).

At the end of the day all this is about is a book. A book about some bad apples who undoubtedly sullied the name of Canada’s Legal Profession. Does it paint the whole profession with the same brush? I don’t know, I haven’t read it. But obviously it’s caused enough of a stir to raise suspicions as to the prevalency of shady practice.

If it lends to the public becoming more informed consumers when choosing legal representation then I say well done. As you say, it’s capitalisim. Only the best of the best will endure.