You will recall, perhaps, that I am a defendant in The Litigation Commonly Known as Rakofsky v. Internet. I have not posted updates on the case since last October, principally because the case was subject to a stay order. With the stay in place, there weren't much of nuthin' happening in the case. The stay expired on March 9 and, like maple sap in spring, the motion filings have started to flow again. The updates will start flowing again soon as well.
Today, as play resumes in Rakofsky, I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the lawyer leading my defense, and the defense of more than thirty other defendants, most of them blawgers, in the Rakofsky litigation: Marc Randazza.
I had heard of Marc Randazza prior to being named as a Rakofsky defendant, but I had never had any contact with him. His presence and reputation were known to me through his blog, The Legal Satyricon, and through the blogging of others, such as Scott Greenfield or Ken-at-Popehat who know him firsthand.
Marc Randazza is a zealot, but a zealot of the best kind. His zealotry finds its focus in the First Amendment, and particularly the portions of that Amendment protecting freedom of speech and expression. Speech, without regard to its couth, its coarseness, its wisdom, its dunderheadedness, its cultural value, its tendency to discomfit or offend, is embraced by the First Amendment, and Marc Randazza has devoted his career to its preservation. Like Horatius at the bridge, Marc Randazza stands beside the Sluice of Speech to defend it and to see that its flow stays as wide and as free and as indiscriminate as possible.
What do we burn, apart from witches? More witches! What must we defend, apart from speech? More Speech!
Marc Randazza sees the Rakofsky suit, and far too many like it, as an attempt to pervert the power of law to the cause of stifling speech. He leapt, almost unbidden, to the defense of the Rakofsky blawgers in need of representation. With able assistance from Jay DeVoy of Randazza Legal Group and of our ace local counsel in New York, Eric Turkewitz, Marc Randazza is doing what is needful for me and for all of his other clients.
Marc Randazza has my back, and my back joins the rest of me in being grateful for it.
He is the man.
Thanks, man.
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