Legal News

White House Hires Personal Injury Lawyer to Launch New Blog*

By Ashby Jones

* This isn’t true.

Yes, it’s April Fools. Yes, we know that, and yes, we’ve already been burned by news that our beloved In-N-Out Burger is opening a restaurant in Manhattan and tripped up, if not exactly fooled, by this Google/Topeka business.

Still, on the “news” that Eric Turkewitz, the author of this good personal injury blog, had been hired by the White House to be the White House’s first law blogger, well, we were had. Apparently either we weren’t alone — or a whole host of others were in on the joke. (Here, here, here.)

The word that it’s a joke comes straight from the White House itself. Said White House spokesman Ben LaBolt, in an email:

It’s an April Fool’s joke

We called up Turkewitz to confirm the ruse. He hemmed and hawed, but wouldn’t budge, saying only (while laughing): “There must be a mis-communication of some kind. I’ll try to straighten it out tomorrow.”

Uh, sure, Eric, You do that. But kudos on a job well done (while it lasted). We think this paragraph gave it a real note of authenticity:

To the political bloggers that have already started to send me stories: Please stop. My gig hasn’t started yet and I’m already being swamped. That which is relevant today may have no relevance in two-three weeks time, and I’m also going to have to port much of this stuff to a new account that will be subject to federal record-keeping rules. Logistics can be a pain and I don’t have help yet, so please bear with me.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 01, 2010 (boomark / email).