> I missed a flame war between some list members who are members of the
legal profession.<

Mike...

You'll love this... it's like watching a football game on tape and being
able to fast forward through all the garbage you don't want to watch!  Here
is a recap of what you missed... submitted by unca joel:

someone named Bill asked or complained on the list that he had never
received his "birth certificate" (hereafter referred to as Exhibit A)
from a certain lawyer no. 1 in Massachusetts. that's what started the
ruckus.
shortly thereafter, lawyer no. 2, the right honorable reprobate from
Georgia slashed out with his worthless advice of suing lawyer no. 1
for alledged crimes and misdemeanors involving mail fraud, vanagon
pornography, and the selling on national secrets concerning
Neiman-Marcus cookie recipes.
almost immediately, lawyer no. 3, the esteemed and often
underestimated shyster from California, bespoke his tupence-worth of
legal advisory concerning the whole mess, but in particular the
vanagon pornography, in a valiant but futile attempt to point out the
uselessness of advice from lawyer no. 2 in regard to lawyer no. 1 and
the aforementioned Exhibit A.
whereupon, lawyer no. 2, smarting intensely from such affrontery,
issued statements proclaiming himself to be above the Law and/or
Common Sense and An Expert on All Matters, Universal and Otherwise,
and demanded a retraction and apology from lawyer no. 3 forthwith.
Lawyer no. 3, therefore, felt called upon to further inflame the issue
and proclaim his sine qua non ultimatum of "Eat me!" before the court
of public vanagon opinion.
Non-Lawyer no. 1 then attempted to mollify the issue by humor, poking
fun at lawyers et all and lawyers in general.
Lawyer no. 3 attempted rebutal, but in his own way, to continue
mollification.
Non-Lawyer no. 2 took offence at said mollification by lawyer no. 3,
stating that such mollification was beneath the dignity of such
offices and, in a word, haughty.

as it stands right now, the score is
Lawyer No. 1 ---------------- 5 (for staying out of this mess)
Lawyer No. 2 ---------------- 0
Lawyer No. 3 ---------------- 0
Non-Lawyer No. 1 ---------- 0
Non-Lawyer N0. 2 ---------- 0

but we expect the participants to attempt to run up the score during
the 2nd period, while the referees are on break. also expected are
additional Non-Lawyers taking the field and confusing the issue, not
to mention making it very difficult to tell the players from the fans
without a score card. :)

cold drinks! cold drink! getchure red hots, right here!! peanuts!
(i got the sales concession! you want peanuts, you gotta pay me!).
:)
unca joel