Parsing the new lawsuit against Frank McCourt

The suit against the Dodgers' top McCourt-in-residence, by the Boston-based law firm that made the big gaffe enshrined in McCourt v. McCourt, "is the strangest damned thing to read," writes Gene Maddaus of the LA Weekly.

They're not seeking money (beyond, perhaps, the hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal bills that Frank has not paid). Apparently they expect to be sued for malpractice, and they want to get the jump on Frank. So all they're really after is a judicial declaration that their lawyers are not incompetent.

But the evidence suggests that Bingham's lawyers really are incompetent. From Judge Scott Gordon's ruling, it seems that the Harvard-trained Silverstein screwed up at least six different ways -- including by drafting two contradictory versions of the same agreement (an error we dubbed "Silverstein's Boner"); by switching one set of agreements after they were signed; and by doing a few other things that are too tedious to get into even here. Just a total horror show.

But the question raised by the new Bingham lawsuit is this: If Silverstein had done everything right, would Frank have sole ownership of the Dodgers?

And the answer is probably no.

Here are other takes by the LAT's Bill Shaikin, law student Josh Fisher of Dodger Divorce.com and NBC.com baseball blogger Craig Calcaterra.