The Darwin business model

If survival of the fittest applies to business then JL Kirk Associates and their law firm King & Ballow deserve extinction. Ed Morrisey explains:

A husband and wife, struggling through unemployment, place a resumé on line, and a placement firm notices it and invites the couple to an interview. The husband completes an application and a first interview, and everything seems fine. However, when the placement firm calls back, they want the wife to accompany the husband for the second interview, which seems rather strange -- until the "counselor" gets to the point at the end of the presentation. After regaling the couple with tales of how difficult it is to find placement, and how traditional headhunters (who get paid by the employer) eat into the compensation plan offered by companies, the placement firm tells the couple that for just over $4,000, they are 90% sure they can find the husband a job.

Sound like a scam? That's what Katherine Coble thought, too, and she blogged about her experiences with Tennessee placement firm JL Kirk Associates. Shortly thereafter, however, JL Kirk sent the Cobles a different kind of proposal -- to shut up or else:

I am being ordered to take down all of my blog entries pertaining to JL Kirk & Associates. If I don’t, they will so me for tortuous interference and other damages.
In a subsequent conversation with the attorney, Alan Kopady of King & Ballow Law Offices, if I do not take down the blog entries they will contact my Internet Service Provider, Comcast, to have my internet access shut down.

I have until April 13th to comply with the demands of the letter.

As an engineer in the high technology field for 30 years I have seen my share of unemployment. One of the first things I discovered was that pay for service employment agencies were a racket. I have little doubt that Katherine Coble has the truth on her side. I also doubt that JL Kirk & Associates has a legal leg to stand on and their law firm should know that. But if we put all that aside this action was just plain stupid. Even if they shut up Mrs Coble they have guaranteed pages of bad publicity, one third of memeorandum at 11:50 AM ET, April 12, 2007 is taken up with this story. Both the company and their law firm deserve to go the way of the dinosaur because of their clueless stupidity.