A purple dragon dressed in a business suit seemed like a natural choice for a logo when Jacob A. Perrone, a lawyer in East Lansing, Mich., recently opened a new firm and named it Dragon Lawyers.
He noted that some lawyers liked to call themselves “bulldogs” and said the dragon symbolized “aggressive representation.”
But a federal magistrate judge, Ray Kent, was not impressed. He was so disgusted by the dragon that he struck a lawsuit filed by Mr. Perrone on behalf of an inmate who had accused jail officials in Clinton County, Mich., of being “deliberately indifferent” to her when she started vomiting last year.
In a brief order issued on Monday, Judge Kent noted that “each page of plaintiff’s complaint appears on an e-filing which is dominated by a large multicolored cartoon dragon dressed in a suit, presumably because she is represented by the law firm of ‘Dragon Lawyers PC © Award Winning Lawyers.’”
“Use of this dragon cartoon logo is not only distracting, it is juvenile and impertinent,” Judge Kent wrote. “The Court is not a cartoon.”
Judge Kent gave the woman, who was identified only as Jane Doe No. 2, until May 5 to refile her lawsuit “without the cartoon dragon.” He also ordered her not to file “any other documents with the cartoon dragon or other inappropriate content.”
Mr. Perrone, the lawyer, said in an interview on Tuesday that he planned to comply and would remove the dragon, which had appeared as a watermark on all 12 pages of the complaint. “I regret putting it on the pleadings so prominently displayed,” he said.
But Mr. Perrone, 43, also defended his use of the mythical beast as a way to market his firm. He said that he had he bought the image of the dragon in a suit for about $20 online.
“People like dragons,” he said, adding: “The whole ‘Game of Thrones’ era is how I initially came up with the concept.”
The judge’s order prompted some amusement in legal circles after it was reported by The Volokh Conspiracy blog under the headline, “Exit the Dragon.” Another legal blog, Lowering the Bar, also picked up the story, and commented, “So many things people shouldn’t be doing, so little time.”
Dyane O’Leary, a professor of legal writing at Suffolk University in Boston, was among those taking note of the judge’s dim view of the dragon. She said that many lawyers had experimented with unusual typefaces, hyperlinks, photos and graphics in their filings, but typically in an effort to illustrate the substance of a case.
“This seems to have zero substantive purpose and is more, like the court said, decorative and silly,” Professor O’Leary said. “So I think that’s where the line gets drawn.”
Mr. Perrone, who has practiced law for 17 years, said he would not stop using the dragon, but would be more judicious about displaying it on legal filings.
“I’m not trying to push the envelope,” he said. “I’m just trying to run a business.”
