The Better Chancery Practice Blog

From outside, the Yocona River Inn in rural Lafayette County looked like nothing more than the ramshackle country service station and grocery that it had once been.  Inside, though, there was no mistaking that this modest exterior housed one of Mississippi’s truly great and memorable dining experiences.

Yocona River Inn

Chef Paige Osborne worked her magic in an impressive array of dishes.  The grilled salmon was always superb, as was the catfish.  But the pièce de résistance was unquestionably the beef tenderloin filet with Yocona sauce.  If you never had it, imagine the tenderest, perfectly-cooked full-flavored beef that literally melts in your mouth, topped with a sweet, buttery, pungent sauce that perfectly complements the rich beef taste.  Forgive me for not elaborating more on the menu, but the steaks were so almighty good that I seldom ventured deeper.

As if the food were not enough, the convivial atmosphere in the dining rooms was always just the right complement to the superlative cuisine.  The aromas from the kitchen wafted over all, piquing your appetite almost unbearably.  Diners brought their own bottles, and any that had not already been consumed outdoors awaiting a table was downed with the exquisite food.  It was a homey, relaxed, fun atmosphere where you often ran into folks you knew.

Alas, in 2009, the Yocona River Inn burned to the ground, and although there was an attempt to revive it, including a Yocona in Exile restaurant in Abbeville, north of Oxford, undercapitalized in a shaky economy, the valiant effort failed.  In December, 2010, Ms. Osborne recognized the inevitable and closed her doors for good.  The Yocona River Inn was no more.

Or so it seemed.

This weekend Lisa and I popped into LB’s Meat Market in Oxford to check out the steaks, and discovered the fabled Yocona Sauce for sale.  It is outrageously expensive (if you do the math it comes out to about 90 cents per serving), but I sprung for it anyway.  After all, it’s as close as one can get to the Yocona experience since the restaurant went extinct on us.

The ingredients are modest: Burgundy, molasses, balsamic vinegar, Lea & Perrin worcestershire sauce, black pepper and kosher salt.

You heat the sauce concentrate, whisk in some butter (I know what you’re thinking, but if you’re going to eat a big ole steak, why are you worrying about your arteries in the first place?), and let stand at room temperature.

Voila!

Then you spoon some over your steak and enjoy the phenomenal flavor.

If you shut your eyes for a moment as you savor the delicious flavor, you just might be able to imagine an enjoyable evening with friends at the Yocona River Inn.

Oh, about LB’s … a real meat market that sells some local meat.  A rarity in these mega-market days.  And they sell Hoover Sauce, too.

Over there on the right of the page is a list of links headed “LAWYER BLOGS.”  These links will take you to blogs published by Mississippi lawyers on topics of interest to Mississippi practitioners.  My intent is to provide links that you can check frequently for useful, entertaining information.  Blogs that are not updated regularly are deleted until they resume regular posting.

Several of these blogs I read every day.  Some I check occasionally to catch up.  Some are aimed at laypeople, and are clearly marketing efforts.  They might give you an idea or two about your own marketing.

All of these blogs are lawyers using the internet to inform, entertain, increase client base, or promote ideas about the law.  I encourage you to check them out yourself and use them as a resource.

• Elder Law Blog.  Ronald C. Morton of Clinton posts on matters of interest in the filed of elder law.  For you lawyers who handle conservatorships, guardianships, trusts and wills, there is some material here that may just help you in a given case.
• Hattiesburg Divorce Lawyer.  Tim Evans of Hattiesburg has a blog that targets clients and lay people who are seeking info about divorce and related issues.  It’s a clever marketing tool, and you will find the information useful from an attorney’s standpoint.
• Mississippi Accident Lawyer Blog.  Paul Snow of Jackson uses his blog primarily for marketing, but he also offers informative posts about personal injury litigation.
• Mississippi Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog.  This is the blog of Curt Crowley of Jackson, who takes criminal defense issues and posts about them in terms that laypersons can understand.
• Mississippi Lawyer Blog.  The Coxwell law firm of Jackson posts about legal matters for a general audience.
• MS Litigation Review & Commentary.  A blog I read every day.  Philip Thomas of Jackson focuses like a laser beam on Mississippi litigation, verdicts, appellate decisions, and issues affecting Mississippi practitioners.  Highly recommended.
• Mullin’ Over.  Winky Glover of Meridian’s blog on tax issues.  Alas, not updated frequently enough.
• NMissCommentor.  Another highly recommended blog that I read every day.  Tom Freeland of Oxford posts on a wide variety of topics including Mississipi, regional and national legal issues, the blues, food and restaurants, books, politics, current events, etc., etc.   He was a superior source of information on the Scruggs scandal, and continues to cover its developments.
• randywallace.  A new blog by Randy Wallace of Clinton.  He posts on a variety of topics, and it will be interesting to see how his blog develops.
• Thus Blogged Anderson.  Ah, yes.  The blog of the enigmatic, eccentric and quasi-anonymous “Anderson,” who styles himself as “Another proud member of the irony-based community.”  His posts on almost every subject imaginable are notable for their sometimes caustic wit, insight and sharp intelligence.  Another blog I read nearly every day.

Do yourself a favor and pick a handful of these links to add to your favorites or bookmarks list on your browser.

The death and devastation that fell on our state and neighboring Alabama last Wednesday is sobering and sad.  Four killed in our own Clarke County.  Another three in Kemper to the north.  A woman who works with Lisa lost four members of her family in the storms, including her husband and mother.  And Smithville.  The images take your breath away.  A friend from Tupelo carried a truckload of supplies down there early Thursday morning before Homeland Security cordoned it off, and he said that the photographs are inadequate to capture the scope and severity of the damage.  He saw bodies scattered in the wreckage and the survivors wandering in shock.

The reports of people responding with help bring a lump to your throat.  Families in the surrounding communities are taking the homeless families in until they can make other arrangements.  A man in Columbus who caters barbecues hitched up his cookers, rounded up some friends and lots of food, and set up in Smithville to cook free for anyone there who needed it.  Yesterday on the Square in Oxford in the midst of Double Decker people were taking up money for the people in the devastated areas.  There were thousands of people there, so I hope they reaped a bountiful harvest.

While so much of Mississippi was being walloped last week by the deadly tornadoes, the judges were in Jackson for the spring conference.  Most of us spent a lot of time on cell phones checking on things back home.  Chancellor Jim Davidson of Columbus learned that his home in Oxford had five trees on it and roof and water damage.  All of our families made it through okay, though.

As always, I picked up a lot of helpful information at the judges’ meeting, and I will be passing much of it on to you here.

On Friday, Lisa and I met up at Oxford for the Double Decker Festival, which is without a doubt one of the best street festivals in the state.  At DD Sarurday morning we ran into folks from Meridian and old friends the Gambrells of Oxford and the Tutors of Pontotoc.  Robert Gambrell, a bankruptcy lawyer, told me the roof was ripped off his office in the storm that hit Oxford, and many files and some equipment were damaged.

The weather for DD was a gorgeous counterpoint to the turmoil of the days before.  It was clear, sunny and cool, and a gentle breeze kept things comfortable.  After wandering the more than 100 vendor booths admiring paintings, pottery, handicrafts, jewelry and whatnots, and enjoying the music and aroma of delicious food wafting across the area, we ambled over to Tom Freeland’s office to meet and visit with him.  He treated me to a delicious rum punch made with fresh-squeezed limes and a generous dose of rum.  Now that’s hospitality.  I think next year I may bring a couple of lawn chairs and trespass on the front lawn of Tom’s office just off the Square on West Jackson so we can make a longer day of it.  Lisa’s back does not enjoy the few hours of walking and standing that DD entails.

From there we had lunch at Two Stick (owned by friends of my daughter) and headed back to our Oxford retreat tired but happy.

Next week we’re going to give some money to that nurse who lost four family members.  I encourage all of you to give whatever you can to the Red Cross or your church, or whomever you know will put it to good use to help the Mississippians who are hurting right now.  No gift is too small for that purpose.  And let’s remember them in our prayers.

In a post aptly entitled Intestinal Fortitude, the blog Mocking Words enlightens us about two recent cases in which various surprising items were discovered in cavity searches of a woman in Scranton, PA and a man in Sarasota, FL.

As the term “cavity” implies, the searches involved rather intimate internal regions of the body accessible only by means that you probably prefer not to think about in detail.

The Scranton woman had concealed 51 packages of heroin, some 30-odd drug baggies, 8-1/2 prescription pills and fifty-two dollars and twenty two cents in her “cavity.”

*Ouch*

In the case of the Sarasota man, the routine cavity search on his booking into jail turned up: 17 oxycodone pills; one cigarette; six matches; a flint (!); an empty hypodermic syringe with an eraser stuck on the needle; one lip balm container; one condom; a drug store recipt; and a coupon.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t care to think about how that stuff got into that — uh — cavity.  I also don’t care to think about whether some unsuspecting bona fide purchaser for value without notice was going to smoke that cigarette or use that lip balm <shudder>.  And how much would you have to be paid to have the job of the store clerk to take that coupon?

Human ingenuity is an amazing thing, isn’t it?  If those two geniuses had devoted as much time and effort toward world peace as they did to hiding stuff in their nether regions, the world might be a better place.  Or maybe not.

Instead of shining his lamp, I guess he’d take out a want ad in the Meridian Star like this dude did last Sunday …

In a way, I’m kind of pulling for him to have success in finding a non-wimp, honest lawyer.

Thanks to Pam Bittick, Esq., for this.

[SIDE NOTE:  If my information is correct, the gentleman who ran this ad was actually a candidate for governor in 2007.]

Tom Freeland’s NMissCommentor blog yesterday had a post entitled Judge Primeaux and the Hydra, which referenced my THE BEST DEFENSE IS A BOILERPLATE post immediately below. It prompted a flurry of comments about pleading affirmative defenses.  The comments are worth reading, but the graphic alone is worth following the link.

Looking at the comments on NMC, the humor fault line appears to run a jagged course with the circuit and federal practitioners on the “not funny” or “I don’t get it” side, and the lawyers with chancery experience on the other, humorous, side.  Those with chancery experience recognize that most of those defenses could never have any applicability in a divorce case, no matter what, and raising them is as ludicrous as a defendant raising recrimination or condonation as a defense to an automobile accident complaint, or unclean hands in a slip and fall case.  [A side question … if you did raise those classic chancery defenses in a circuit court case, reckon the lawyer on the other side would file for Rule 11 sanctions? My money says he/she would.]

I recognize that we in chancery inhabit a strange and alien world for those who seldom venture here.  We deal with matters where the shades of gray have their own shades of gray, and in the absence of juries that are always in danger of being infected by legal poisons, we usually take a somewhat more relaxed approach.  That ambiguity unsettles some, I know.  [I was at a rules committee meeting last week discussing some chancery matters with another member and I heard a lawyer next to me say to another, “I’m glad I don’t practice in chancery court.”]  In circuit court the rules are the rules. Period. In chancery, the rules are the rules until they run up against the best interest of a child or ward.  And without juries the rules of evidence can sometimes be like the speed limit in Italy — merely a suggestion.

As for the absurd divorce defenses, we chancery denizens here on the eastern edge of Mississippi civilization have had a good laugh about them over the past few months, and the perpetrators have good-naturedly endured the ribbing about them.  No pleadings were ever in danger of being dismissed. I never really put anyone to a hearing for those ridiculous pleadings.

Tame the hydra and she will be your friend.