Lawyer Misses Court Because of Spam Filter - Give Aunty Your Stories!   - 2,274 Views, 1 Comment

Remember when it used to be that “the dog ate my homework”? That didn’t work very well, did it?

Well, now it’s “the spam filter ate my court appearance notice”, and guess what! As it turns out, that works pretty well!

Attorney Jeffrey J. Stesiak, of South Bend, Indiana, was due to appear at the court for a status conference on December 8th. A status conference is where the attorneys for both sides appear before the judge or another court officer, and tell them the status of the case - is it likely to settle, are they ready to go to trial, etc..

Only, Jeffrey never showed up at the court on December 8th. That’s because Jeffrey had gone on vacation instead.

Now, before you haul out the old lawyer jokes and hurl them at Jeffrey, the reason for Jeffrey’s seeming indifference to his obligation to his client and the court is that Jeffrey had no idea that he was due in court on December 8th, because…you got it…the spam filter ate his court appearance notice.

According to reports, Stesiak explained that “with the help of the court’s system administrator, he discovered that his law firm’s spam-blocker software set the Internet security level too high, which blocked the e-mail notification from the court. After the security level was reset, the notification came through.”

Stesiak, who up until then was facing the possibility of being punished by the court for his failure to appear at the status conference, was let off the hook. But don’t try this at home, kids, because he really did have to prove to the court that the spam filter ate his homework.