Pooyie!

Pooyie! 05.13.2009

C’EST BON
The LSU Eunice Lady Bengal softball team hopped a bus Tuesday for a 17-hour trek to Bloomington, Ill., and the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II championship tournament. The squad has compiled an impressive 37-16 record and is ranked sixth in the nation in NJCAA Div. II. That’s another feather in the athletic cap of LSUE, which has bejeweled the diamond with excellence over the last few years in both softball and baseball. You go, girls!

PAS BON
Known for their TV commercial slogan, “Get the E. Eric Guarantee,” Baton Rouge attorneys E. Eric Guirard and Thomas R. Pittenger now have some time to rethink their business model. The personal injury lawyers and partners in the firm E. Eric Guirard & Associates had their law licenses yanked for five years last week by a Louisiana Supreme Court that said “enough already.” The court’s vote was unanimous, suggesting Guirard’s and Pittenger’s sins were egregious even by ambulance-chasing standards; the justices, however, stopped short of the Louisiana Disciplinary Board’s recommendation that the pair be permanently disbarred. Bar investigators found that Guirard and Pittenger conscripted non-lawyer employees to quickly settle client cases for a cut of the settlement, in effect to practice law. When it comes to the legal profession, practice does not make perfect.

COUILLON
Members of his own party are calling for him to resign or publicly apologize, but so far Louisiana Republican Party Chairman Roger Villere is doing neither. Villere came under fire from fellow Repubs when he pulled off one of the more ham-fisted and embarrassing attempts at political intimidation in recent Louisiana history. After House Speaker Pro Tem Karen Peterson, a New Orleans Democrat, criticized Gov. Bobby Jindal for opposing a bill that would open up his office to greater public scrutiny, Villere fired off a public records request for documents pertaining to the schedules and e-mails of Peterson and her staff. Villere, however, is unlikely to pursue his gambit much further: House Clerk Butch Speer informed the GOP boss that it would cost nearly $200,000 to fulfill his request.