Dominic DePamphilis

Trial Lawyer, Litigator, & Atlantic City Enthusiast. Happy to chat about #TheRulesOfEvidence. F&M ‘05 🏈.

[Dominic DePamphilis @ddepamph]

Designated by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Certified Civil Trial Attorney. #CertifiedCivilTrialAttorney. #NJ

[NJ Law Journal @NJLJ]

Outback 'Should Have Known': New Ruling Offers Guidance on Evidence Preservation https://t.co/GOVytx8RWN

[Michelle Strowhiro @strowhiro]

“AI will take lawyers’ jobs”

The AI:

[NJ Law Journal @NJLJ]

Will E-Scooter Riders Be Considered Pedestrians and Entitled to PIP? State High Court Hears Oral Arguments https://t.co/j3P4FG5T19

[NJ Law Journal @NJLJ]

Is New Jersey's judicial vacancy crisis coming to an end? Maybe.
https://t.co/IwO6hOdrhD

[David R. Fine @finedr1965]

As somehow who spends a lot of time reviewing trial-court records when cases come up to appellate courts, I’m grateful for the lawyers who create really good deposition, hearing and trial transcripts. What do I mean by that? 1/

[Governor Phil Murphy @GovMurphy]

Have you ever had a problem trying to cancel your gym membership?

I just signed legislation requiring gym memberships to have an online cancellation option. We need to protect consumers from predatory renewal policies & ridiculous in-person cancellation requirements.

[NJ Law Journal @NJLJ]

ICYMI. Expert’s 'Rule of Thumb' Not Scientifically Reliable, According to Supreme Court
https://t.co/kGJTzxYPe8

[Dominic DePamphilis @ddepamph]

There are 56 judicial vacancies in New Jersey.

[NJ Law Journal @NJLJ]

Eleven Superior Court Nominees Confirmed, Reducing Open Seats to 56 https://t.co/LAQ4QSeQl8

[Dominic DePamphilis @ddepamph]

#LegalNews

[Chris “Law Dork” Geidner @chrisgeidner]

BREAKING: SCOTUS grants expedited review of Special Counsel’s petition filed today seeking immediate review of Donald Trump’s presidential immunity claim and related constitutional claims. Trump’s response is due by 4p Dec. 20. More to come at Law Dork: https://t.co/oFbD0Zrr6I

[Chris “Law Dork” Geidner @chrisgeidner]

To be clear, Special Counsel filed two things: a motion for certiorari before judgment (skipping over the DC Circuit) and a motion to expedite the cert petition consideration.

SCOTUS granted the latter, and ordered Trump's response to the former.

Docket: https://t.co/VJeEd6QSgK

[The First Amendment @USConst_Amend_I]

Without looking can you name the five rights I protect?

[Luke Bradley @lucasdrayton]

when you're a lawyer and your kindergartener is freaking out because she can't find the tooth she lost last night and won't get paid by the tooth fairy

[CNN @CNN]

Multiple Camp Lejeune water contamination plaintiffs have died while waiting for trial, leaving their families to seek justice through wrongful death claims. https://t.co/kAJs9GGKCJ

[The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor]

What the hell is an ampersand and why does it look like that?!

The first thing you need to know is that "&" used to be the 27th letter of the alphabet...

But there are three parts to this story. And the first begins over two thousand years ago in Ancient Rome with a single word: et. It's the Latin for "and". At some point Roman scribes started combining the two letters of et into a single symbol, which was the ancestor of our modern &.

The earliest example of the "et" symbol is actually from graffiti in Pompeii. In any case, it did not disappear with the fall of the Roman Empire.

Latin survived as the language of the Catholic Church and of scholarship in Medieval Europe. Scribes during the Dark Ages continued to use the & symbol. It evolved down the centuries, in places losing any semblance of the letters e and t whatsoever.

The second part of the story is that during the 18th and 19th centuries, as education and the teaching of literacy spread, & was added to the end of the alphabet as a sort of 27th letter.

On a related note, although "et cetera" is now usually just abbreviated as etc., for a long time it was instead abbreviated as "&c". The & was for et and the c for cetera.

The third and final part of the story is about how the alphabet was taught to children — and how it was read out loud.

As this 1822 Glossary of Words and Phrases explains, it had been normal during the Renaissance, when speaking the alphabet, to add "per se" before any letter which could also be a word on its own — "per se" means "by itself" in Latin.

Take the letter A, which can also be a word of its own. When reading out the alphabet people would say "A, per se A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, per se I..." and so on. O was also considered a word of its own.

Which means, when people got to the end of the alphabet, with & being the 27th letter, they would say: "S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, and per se &."

When this old way of reading the alphabet was taught to children in the 18th century and they were reciting it aloud, they would garble "and per se " into what eventually became... ampersand.

A Dic­tion­ary of Slang and Col­lo­quial Eng­lish from 1905 relates some of the many other pronunciations school children apparently came up with:

"Am­persand. The sign &; am­persand. Vari­ants: Ann Passy Ann; an­pasty; an­dpassy; an­parse; aper­sie; per-se; am­passy; am-passy-ana; am­pene-and; am­pus-and; ampsyand; am­pazad; am­siam; am­pus-end; ap­perse-and; em­per­siand; am­perzed; and zumzy-zan."

Well, of all the many pronunciations that might have stuck, it was "ampersand" which came to be accepted and is now the official name for &... rather than zumzy-zan. So, from hurried Roman scribes to unruly school children, that's where "&" came from.

[Dominic DePamphilis @ddepamph]

@fodderyfodder For what it’s worth, my experience is that most public defenders - and personal injury attorneys - have trial experience and understand the rules of evidence, both of which make for a good lawyer, regardless of law school status.

[njdotcom @njdotcom]

Pork roll ice cream? Funky flavor is huge hit at this N.J. shop. https://t.co/59sM8Lwkn1

[Orin Kerr @OrinKerr]

If you're starting law school next month, you might be interested in my guide for how to read a legal opinion.
https://t.co/mnDsKPkoIB

[Nathan Baugh @nathanbaugh27]

I revisit this lesson on writing structure every 3-4 months.

Gold:

[Dominic DePamphilis @ddepamph]

@ILMVFX @tvaziri @KPIXtv @tvaziri is the man!