Are Lawyers out of Control or What?

New York Times 1/12/04

MEDIA TALK
A Freelancer Tale: Paycheck Clears; Suit Demands It Back
By DAVID CARR

Published: January 12, 2004


The legacy of the Lingua Franca, a literate magazine for academics and like-minded folks that closed in 2001 and went into bankruptcy, lives on, but perhaps not in the way that its contributors may have hoped.
The bankruptcy trustee in charge of the case, Robert Geltzer, has served summons to many freelance writers who collected fees from the magazine when it was in its death throes. The demand: If the fees are not returned, he is threatening to sue.
Joanna Smith Rakoff, a writer who worked as a Web editor and wrote for University Business Daily, an affiliated publication, had her first substantial article for Lingua Franca published just before the magazine folded. Two years later, she has been told to return the money for the work she did. The money is to be directed to "secured" creditors, rather than freelancers, who are the unsecured kind.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/12/business/media/12lingua.html