This is just getting petty at this point. What kind of normal person or business operates this way - especially during an ongoing lawsuit.
I can't see how anybody who knows a bit about the situation would ever want to continue to be affiliated with Wordpress knowing this guy could go over the top at any moment.
I have no dog in this race, but the behavior does seem ill-advised even if you look at it through a pure legal lens. WP Engine's lawyers must be having a field day with this stuff.
Is he just totally ignoring his own lawyers? He has to be, because no lawyer who charges more than $20 an hour would tell him any of this is advisable.
He's appeared in several of related threads here on HN. He is always asked about his lawyers, and he repeatedly claims that they're cool with his behavior.
I’m somewhat doubting that actually is his lawyer, though no one appears to be denying that it is.
It just feels so very odd. Why would Matt’s lawyer care what people say here? He doesn’t have to convince of us anything. The PR folks would like to convince us of stuff and I wouldn’t be surprised if they showed up, but why legal?
And what kind of lawyer says that about a client in an ongoing case on a public forum using an account in their own name?! It’s a level of unprofessionalism that I struggle to believe a reputable lawyer would engage in. If Matt is unreasonable to the point of needing to make a public comment, Neil should have just forced him to find new council and quit.
I’ll likely never have need for this specific type of council, but if I do there’s a brand new list of people I won’t hire with only a single name on it.
Just read the article that the guy wrote about the trademark and you'll have no choice but to conclude that he got his law degree from an internet college.
The article is also far more PR-y than I would have expected; the only law-related item is basically just a very long explanation of consideration and an assertion that what they’ve done counts as consideration. I have no idea if it does or not, but putting a lawyers name at the top doesn’t convince me it’s correct any more than if PR wrote it.
The whole thing is strange, and I can’t figure out why anyone would tie their ship to Matt in this storm. He’s a liability not just to himself, but to everyone supporting him as his antics start to reflect on his supporters. Even if people did support his position, Matt is preventing them from doing so publicly without also looking insane.
That makes me doubt it’s his lawyer. Lawyers shouldn’t publicly discuss their clients in a manner that paints them in a negative light. Fire the client first.
> He is always asked about his lawyers, and he repeatedly claims that they're cool with his behavior.
Even there he's inconsistent. He spent a day or so talking about how his lawyer said "If you're in the right, talk all you like!", then a few days after that made an announcement about how he'd retained a lawyer just that day.
I can't see how anybody who knows a bit about the situation would ever want to continue to be affiliated with Wordpress knowing this guy could go over the top at any moment.