This is a term made popular from the Saturday Night Live character Matt Foley (a motivational speaker) who was played by the late Chris Farley. It means ostentatious. It is typically used when there seems to be a quick change made from casual to ostentatious, such as "we could have been enjoying a dip cone at Dairy Queen right now if you had not become so la-di-frickin-da." Well, that is my East Texas version, nonetheless.
So, imagine my chagrin when I read Big Law lawyer Thomas Smith lecturing (talking down to) mainly solos and small firms in New York (and really around the country) who won the injunction prohibiting the New York Bar from inhibiting their free speech rights.
Children we must all be that it take a Big Law lawyer to tell us how we need to behave, how we need to act, how we need to attract and help common everyday people and businesses in need of legal services.
Were is the outrage as to bar-tenders like Smith, president of the Monroe County Bar Association in New York, standing in judgment as to what is "sleazy" and referring to colleagues as "huckster-like lawyers". Only God knows how someone in his position can relate to ordinary people and what they want or look for in an attorney. To encourage "peer pressure" to subvert the will of the legal market place or the decision of the New York federal court that struck down their restrictive and subversive rules is just wrong.
It is trash talk much like a boxer being beaten handily by his opponent, only being able to marshal up a retort like, "Yeah, well you Dad wears panties".
Contrary to what Mr. Smith states, you cannot flaunt your constitutional rights at the expense of dignity or anything else. Rights are the opposite of wrongs, and wrongs must always be made right. You do not "flaunt" rights, you "exercise them". It is the violator of rights and personal liberties that must be held accountable, such as Mr. Smith and the other bar-tenders that attempted in the worse way to trample on the constitutional rights of the ordinary lawyer. To equate the exercise of one's rights to sleaze is inexcusable. To suggest that calling the Lawyer Referral Service will connect you to a "respected" and "professional" lawyer is so condescending. Speaking to and treating lawyers who market outside of your unconstitutional restrictions as children to whom you must lecture is offensive. These lawyers received the same education Mr. Smith did. These lawyers passed the same bar exam Mr. Smith did. They probably practice harder than Mr. Smith does. I certainly know they deserve Mr. Smith's respect and not his scorn.
All I know is that you New York lawyers could have probably had a good 'ol decent time together at the local Bar if Mr. Smith and the other bar-tenders had not become so la-di-frickin-da!
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