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Hiring Another Lawyer

I then hired an attorney to represent me in what I believed to be a lawsuit without merit from which I had no choice but to defend. I believe that this lawsuit was filed to harass me and force me to shut down my site. Still reeling from the shock of this litigation I called the Electronic Freedom Frontier for advice and a referral.  EFF is an agency that is dedicated to and has championed the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights and freedom of speech.  Electronic Freedom Frontier referred me to Chicago attorney, Charles Lee Mudd Jr.  At the time I hired Mr. Mudd he felt the same as EFF and I did about this lawsuit filed against me by Jay Paul Deratany.  Mr. Mudd put in his appearance and then a short time later filed counterclaims against Mr. Deratany on my behalf.  Through the lawsuit that Mr. Deratany filed against me we believe and alleged in my counterclaims that Mr. Deratany breached his fiduciary duties owed to me and caused a public disclosure of private facts, as well as some other claims.  Mr. Deratany filed endless motions to get my counterclaims dismissed including a motion for sanctions against Mr. Mudd himself.  Sanctions are a financial or other penalties imposed by a judge for wrong doing. Mr. Deratany stated in his motion for sanctions that the allegations in my counterclaims "are outright lies." How absurd.  Deratany files what is tantamount to a SLAPP suit against me for writing this website and then wants my lawyer sanctioned for filing counterclaims. There were approximately 13 different filings during the year that Mr. Mudd represented me. Defending my case was becoming a full-time job for Mr. Mudd due to the endless motions being filed by Mr. Deratany.   In addition to that Mr. Mudd was very unhappy that Mr. Deratany filed a motion for sanctions against him. After about a year of this and not even getting into discovery, Mr. Mudd told me that I would have to find a new attorney.  I don't hold any ill will toward Charles Mudd Jr., for having to withdraw as my attorney due to the extreme hours that he had to devote to my case to keep up with the excessive amount of motions being filed.  Mr. Mudd was in solo practice at the time.  Mr. Mudd did a great job in defending me.  I am very grateful to Mr. Mudd for all the time and effort that he put into my case.  In the opinion of Mr. Mudd and myself Mr. Deratany was too emotional about the case and was behaving in ways that were not very flattering to his profession as was evidenced by not only the many motions that he was filing, but also some very odd emails that he sent to Charles Mudd Jr.  On April 13, 2005 Mr. Mudd received an email from Mr. Deratany saying,  "I will be filing a motion to disqualify you as  counsel." I don't recall if Deratany actually did that, but this was the beginning of the never ending motions. It was the beginning of Mr. Deratany making it hard for me to keep my attorneys due to his difficult behavior.

It is clear from two emails that Mr. Deratany sent to me that he knew that he overreacted when he filed a lawsuit against me for publishing this website deratany email and deratany email 2. Mr. Deratany filed a lawsuit against me almost immediately after my site was published and then apparently realized how negatively this would impact potential clients researching him.  I know that I certainly would be very leery of  hiring a lawyer that sued a former client and wrote a website about the client. Mr. Deratany expressed in this email to Charles Mudd Jr., on 9/15/05 his displeasure with my refusing to remove from my website the fact that he sued me for publishing this website deratany mudd email.  Mr. Deratany sued me for writing and publishing this website.  I then wrote on this website that he sued me.  Deratany is then upset by that and wants me to remove that fact from my website.  It is clear that Mr. Deratany is not in support of freedom of speech for all.

I then contacted the Electronic Freedom Frontier again looking for another attorney willing to represent me in defending my website. EFF gave me another referral and the attorney accepted my case.  The EFF has an incredible staff. My new attorney was Wayne Giampietro from the law-firm of Stitt, Klein, Daday, Aretos & Giampietro, LLC.  God bless Wayne.  He was aware of  the voluminous filings that had occurred up to that point, he new that Charles Lee Mudd  had to withdraw because the time this case required was more than Mr. Mudd could accommodate.  Wayne Giampietro knew that Mr. Mudd was fighting a motion for sanctions filed against him.  With all that information Mr. Giampietro was still very willing to represent me.  Mr. Giampietro and I moved forward to prepare this case for trial.  Wayne Giampietro knows his stuff.  This is the guy that you want to represent you if you are fighting for your freedom of speech rights. Oddly, at the time Mr. Giampietro became my new attorney Mr. Deratany stopped his quest for sanctions and hired an attorney to represent his claims against me.  Attorney Kevin Martin of Swanson, Martin and Bell put in his appearance on behalf of Mr. Deratany.  During the time that Kevin Martin was involved in this case the endless motions stopped.