
I’m Not that Dan Goldstein
Lawyers named Dan Goldstein are apparently more common than I realized. And some are apparently pretty vocal. Just before Christmas 2016, news sources reported that a lawyer boarding a commercial airplane took time to heckle Ivanka Trump, in front of her husband and her three children. That lawyer was named Daniel Goldstein. He is not me.
That tirade is now causing problems for other lawyers named Dan Goldstein. Stories are circulating of other lawyers coincidentally named Dan Goldstein mistakenly targeted for retribution.
I personally have not been mistaken for the mad heckler of New York, although several of my friends and colleagues picked up on the story and threw some laughs my way. Some of them even saw it specifically because of a Google alert for the name “Dan Goldstein.”
I suppose our anger-management friend in New York probably didn’t think about the possible broader consequences of doing something so stupid – catharsis being what it is – but perhaps he should have. Now the New York Dan Goldstein is suffering consequences too, including a petition to have him fired from his job as a law professor. If I had been the subject of some of the backlash, perhaps I would even consider signing the petition myself.