Being a model citizen and a person of taste, you probably don’t need this reminder, but some others do: Federal judges do not like it when lawyers electronically watermark every page of their legal PDFs with a gigantic image—purchased for $20 online—of a purple dragon wearing a suit and tie. Not even if your firm’s name is “Dragon Lawyers.”
Federal Magistrate Judge Ray Kent of the Western District of Michigan was unamused by a recent complaint (PDF) that prominently featured the aubergine wyrm.
“Each page of plaintiff’s complaint appears on an e-filing which is dominated by a large multi-colored cartoon dragon dressed in a suit,” he wrote on April 28 (PDF). “Use of this dragon cartoon logo is not only distracting, it is juvenile and impertinent. The Court is not a cartoon.”