Publisher's Notebook

Many people know that Patrick County Circuit Judge Martin Clark has a day job as a judge and a second job as an author.

He has published three novels – The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living, Pure Heathen Mischief and The Legal Limit. The first has been optioned as a screenplay; CBS/Paramount has the third in development as a miniseries.

Clark (at right) was the guest speaker at the Richmond Bar Association monthly luncheon today, and he talked a lot about writing.

The Legal Limit was launched in Richmond, at Fountain Books, owned by a friend of Clark’s who suggested they host a signing at a nearby bar. The signing party was going pretty well, and for each reader, Clark said he said what he always says: “Thank you for buying my book and I hope you enjoy reading it.”

At the end of the night, one drunk woman made her way to the table for a signature. Clark offered his typical greeting. She said, “Oh, I’m not going to read it. I bought because I felt sorry for you.”

“So Richmond has always been good to me!” Clark said.

A few nuggets on writing:

He said he’s a believer in a “big plot.” If you’ve read any of Clark’s novels, that’s apparent. He added that there should be a beginning, a middle and an end to a story. “There should be a pay-off” to reader for getting to the conclusion, he said.

There are many writers. But there are degrees of difference. Some writers take you to the carnival and “describe the Tilt-a-Whirl.” The good writers “put you on the Tilt-a-Whirl.”

And he has found there are many people who want to be writers, even some who have a manuscript that’s been kicking around, even some who have collected a few rejection letters.

Clark said he decided he wanted to be a writer in college at Davidson. He wrote his book and when he was in law school at UVa, he thought he had found a guru, someone who might help him navigate the way to publication. He took his manuscript and a bottle of Scotch and put them in the mailbox of a celebrated local writer, then waited for a response. Several weeks later, Rita Mae Brown returned the manuscript with a note. For help getting published, that’s what agents are for, she said.

And after reading his manuscript, she suggested that he choose what he wanted to do. “You’re either going to end up a half-assed writer or a half-assed lawyer,” she said. “Literature is a full-time passion.”

For those people with a manuscript and the dream of seeing their work from the first word on paper to the printed volume, Clark counseled perseverance.

It took him 20 years to get published, he said. “Have a thick skin. It’s a long road,” he said. “Be persistent.”

Notes from the General Assembly…

And here’s one that makes you think, surely this would already be covered by some other law in the Virginia Code.

Yesterday the Senate passed House Bill 1353, which provides that anyone who “possesses or consumes an alcoholic beverage while operating a school bus” containing children is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. The chief patron of the measure is Del. Ben. Cline, R-Amherst.

Okay, even assuming that this offense is not covered elsewhere in the Code, is this a real problem that parents across the commonwealth should know about? Or did one bus driver somewhere show up with a sixpack in a bag that she tucked under the seat and that night some kid asked his mom what “Budweiser” means? 

In any event, it’s fair to say that drunk, or drinking, bus drivers are not a favored class on Capitol Hill.

HB 1353 passed the House by a vote of 98-0. It squeaked through the Senate, 40-0.

Gov. McDonnell, you’re up next.

Gov. Bob McDonnell yesterday announced the winners of the annual Outstanding Faculty Awards, given by the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia.

One of the 12 recipients for 2010 is William & Mary law professor Paul Marcus (right).

Marcus has been at the College since 1992, after serving as dean at the University of Arizona and practicing in L.A. He been putting his mark on the school and the community ever since.

For the OFA, he gained the full support of Dean Davison Douglas and numerous colleagues and former students. Marcus was the first recipient of the Kelly Chair in Teaching Excellence at W&M, and in 2006, he earned the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, the College’s highest honor for service.

Among other community activities, he founded the Law and Literature program at the Central Virginia Regional Jail, and he handles numerous pro bono appointments on the side. The Williamsburg chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters tapped him as “Volunteer of the Year” in 2004.

Hats off.

Thanks to the lingering February snow dump, here’s a tradition that is apparently old hat in cities up north such as Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia, but somewhat new to our region: Marking your dug-out parking spot after a snowstorm.

In places that get a lot of snow, residents will patiently dig out their cars along a city street, then claim the spot with a lawn chair. Yes, a lawn chair. Animals are known to use somewhat different methods to mark their territory, but a lawn chair is somewhat more civilized.

One can imagine the arguments and even fights that ensue. Maybe it’s a test of neighborly good intentions. As the mayor of Philadelphia told a local radio station after the latest wallop, lawn chair and parking space etiquette are “generally agreed to things between and among neighbors.”

We’ll keep you posted as to when cases of lawn chair rage end up in the courts. Could be a whole new practice specialty if the snow hangs around much longer.

Donna Childress, our friend and one-time associate editor, now runs her own writing and Web business in DC, Childress Communications. She reports in a post on the blog “We Love DC” that her neighborhood is “short on patio furniture and long on creativity.”

Instead of a lawn chair, one person placed a cute smiling stuffed monkey as his/her personal parking space sentinel, practically daring someone to mess with Curious George.

Then at the other end of the spectrum, another of Donna’s neighbors placed an urn in a hard-won space. Yes, an urn. The message: “Take this spot, and your ashes go here.”

Here’s hoping for a quick thaw…

Richmond lawyer Wyatt Durrette knows his way around the Capitol. He served three terms in the House of Delegates during the 1970s.

During the 1980s, he ran for statewide office twice, for attorney general in 1981 and for governor in 1985.

So when Durrette (at right) offers his take on the current General Assembly, as he did yesterday in a guest piece on Bob Holsworth’s Virginia Tomorrow blog, you listen.

Check out his piece, entitled “General Assembly Shenanigans,” and you’ll find Durrette railing at the current solons for spending time on “nonsense when the Commonwealth struggles with gargantuan challenges.”

Take on the repeal of the one-handgun-a-month law, for example.

Or the proposal to forbid the implantation of microchips (considered the “mark” of the “Antichrist” by some, he notes).

Then he skewers Speaker Bill Howell’s efforts to protect a single company from asbestos-related liability.

Durrette remains hopeful for the future, if not the present: “Surely, the Commonwealth will survive these ventures into the legislative dark side. But in the meantime, it is not a pretty sight,” he concludes.

…on the cell phone anyway, if the Virginia Senate gets its way.

If you’ve ever been out on the road and seen a car come at you driven by (1) a distracted teenager or (2) a distracted mom in a minvan or (3) a distracted salesman-looking guy, all of whom are yacking animatedly with a cell phone in one hand and the other on the wheel (maybe), here’s an item for you.

I personally have run across all three of these individuals at one time or another; fortunately, none of the three ran across, or into, me. Good thing one of us was watching the road.

The Associated Press is reporting that yesterday the Senate passed a bill to ban talking on a cell phone while driving unless using a hands-free device.

Senate Bill 517, patroned by Sen. Tommy Norment, R-Williamsburg, passed on a 25-15 vote Monday.

It would set phased-in penalties for drivers who take their hands off the wheel to hold a cell phone. Beginning July 1, the fine for yacking on a phone that’s not hands-free would be 20 bucks for the first violation, jacked to $50 for each infraction after that. The following year, the fine levels would be $100 and $200.

The ban would not apply to the operators of emergency vehicles, drivers who are stopped or parked, GPS or other digital dispatch systems like OnStar or anyone using a phone to report an emergency.

Chances for final passage? Maybe not so good. Since at least 2004, some senator or delegate has proposed this type of hands-free bill, and usually, they got tanked or sent to the Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety (i.e., legislative Siberia). Still, last year the Assembly passed a no-texting-while-driving law, so keep your fingers crossed. And both hands on the wheel.

Dexter Manley, the one-time star defensive end for the Washington Redskins, won two Super Bowl rings with the team in the 1980s.

The ring Manley got for the ‘Skins’ beat-down of the Miami Dolphins in 1983 ended up in a Houston pawn shop in 1998; he used the $5,000 he got for it to buy drugs. Who bought the ring? His lawyer, who retrieved it and kept it safe as Manley battled a cocaine addiction that got him kicked out of the league in 1991.

Manley has been straight since 2006. He’ll get the ring back this weekend. His lawyer, John O’Quinn, died last year, but he left explicit instructions on how to handle the ring and when to return it to Manley.

Check out this piece in today’s Washington Post. It’s a great story about how a lawyer believed in and stuck by his client, even through dark days.

After the Kenny Rogers reference the other day, plus this next item, it must be oldie moldie week around here…

If you listened to popular music back in the early to mid-1980s, you couldn’t avoid the band Men at Work. They burst on the U.S. scene in 1982 with their smash album, “Business as Usual.”

They were a bunch of goofy, fun-loving Aussies, or at least the music videos in heavy rotation on MTV would have you believe. This was, of course, when MTV still played music videos. “Who Can it Be Now?” went to number one, followed by “Down Under,” which also topped the charts. The band won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1983 and scored more hits with their second album, “Cargo.” They broke up in the mid-1980s.

Let’s go back to “Down Under.” This is the song that introduced the U.S. to vegemite and a bunch of other colorful Australian idioms. The video was a fun romp in the wilds of the country. And in the middle of it, band member Greg Ham sits in a tree and plays a flute riff that sounds kind of like the old Aussie nursery rhyme and folksong, “Kookabura.” (“Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree…”)

Flash forward to 2007. On an Aussie game show, panelists were asked to name “what song can be heard in the middle of” Men at Work’s nationalistic anthem?

According to CNN, the publishing company that owned the rights to “Kookaburra” woke up, sensed plagiarism and filed suit against Ham and Colin Hay, who cowrote the song, demanding part of the profits from the hit single. Earlier this week, an Australian judge found in favor of the publishers. But he said the “flute riff” was not part of the “hook” in the tune, he found, a ruling that likely will limit their damages. Apparently these are legal terms in Australia.

While the publishing company may be entitled to some royalties, they aren’t going to seek money made outside of Australia, and they’re limited to money made in the last six years under Australian law. So unless someone puts “Down Under” on a really hot ’80s compilation, their victory won’t count for much.

By the way, a kookaburra is a kind of bird (see photo).

Say you’re a domestic relations lawyer in Fairfax and you have a client who needs a divorce. She lives in Herndon and her husband has moved out, finding a place across the Potomac in Rockville, Md.

You need certain information and you figure you’ll have her call him and tape it. After all, that’s okay here in the commonwealth, right? We have a one-party-consent wiretap statute. (i.e., if one party consents, it’s legal).

Hold the phone (literally). Our Boston-based sister paper, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, is reporting a case that should give you pause. Check out the story, which we’ve posted on our site.

In the case, a guy from Virginia Beach calls some employees in Massachusetts and allegedly tapes the conversations, unknown to them. The tapes come to light during discovery. The employees file suit, claiming a violation of the Massachusetts wiretap law, which requires two-party consent.

Not to worry, says the guy’s lawyer. Two well-respected federal cases from the Bay State address the issue and go our way. But the guy may be up the dirty creek without the proverbial paddle after the Superior Court judge gets done. He ignores the federal cases and says that under the Restatement of Conflicts, the employees’ claim for violating the statute goes forward.

Back to our hypo. Most states have laws like ours, allowing the taping with one-party consent. Twelve states require all parties to consent and Maryland is one of them.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a journalists’ group, conveniently has surveyed all 50 states and provides a run-down.

The opinion is from a trial-level judge, so it is persuasive, not precedential. But still, as they used to say on “Hill Street Blues,” let’s be careful out there.

It was all a misunderstanding over “Who Dat?” Really it was.

That’s what I’d say too if I’d stepped in it and aggravated as many people as the justifiably excited fan base of the Super Bowl-bound New Orleans Saints.

And I wish this blog could take credit for getting the National Football League to “fold ’em,” as I suggested yesterday, but I don’t think that was quite the case, though fold they did.

New Orleans TV station WDSU has the story.

To recap: The NFL was busting bad on New Orleans T-shirt vendors who dared to put the Saints’ rallying cry, “Who Dat?” on shirts not licensed to the league. The league apparently claimed the phrase was their trademark, and the vendors were infringing.

But that was the misunderstanding. What they meant to say is that shirt vendors shouldn’t and couldn’t sell T-shirts with “Who Dat?” and the Saints’ fleur-de-lis logo, which undoubtedly is a trademark they own.

Trademarks like that one are worth a lot of money. Why do you think the NFL and the Washington Redskins fought so hard against the Native American tribes who tried to void their marks?

So now people in the Big Easy can rest easy and spend their time laissezing les bon temps roulez and getting ready for the Indianapolis Colts.

Hey, anytime someone puts a horseshoe above a door for good luck, is that a violation of the Colts’ trademark? Just asking.