Mouse's Ear Memoirs: Representation

Private attorneys represent me when I need to sue a workplace for misclassification. Their job is to retrieve all of my unpaid wages, illegal house fees, illegal tips, and illegal cuts of dance money. The NLRB gets involved when I am illegally terminated by my employer for engaging in protected activities. The NLRB retrieves the money that I would have made after getting fired. The NLRB can get a workplace to offer me my job back. The NLRB can make the workplace put up a really nice mandatory poster about worker rights. Many of my former workplaces have been decorated with mandatory NLRB posters, after firing Yours Truly. Sometimes, people get confused about the differences between what my private attorney is for, and what the NLRB is for. Below I will describe my search for a private attorney to sue Mouse's Ear. I will also describe my experiences with the Nashville NLRB. This post will provide educational information on the outcome of holding Mouse's Ear accountable.

I just start with a google or DuckDuckGo search to find labor and employment lawyers in whatever geographic location a workplace is in. Using key words or phrases like “East Tennessee Labor Lawyers” is a good place to start. I started searching for a private attorney to sue Mouse's Ear while I was still working there, because it was very obvious that I was being misclassified and having my money stolen from me on a nightly basis. I intended to get my money back not because I am greedy, but because the Brownings are greedy thieves who like stealing from vulnerable people. Retards call me greedy when I fight back. It is important that one's labor lawyer is not an utter douche bag who hates strippers and/or women. Sometimes that search is an obstacle. It is important that the lawyer works on a contingency fee basis. It is important that the lawyer does not charge me for a consultation. Searching for a lawyer is an obnoxious task, but this task has become routine for me at this point in my life. In some states, I have multiple candidates to choose from. In other states, I only have one option that becomes my default choice. In Knoxville, I only found one potential lawyer in town who was willing to work with me on contingency, rather than charge hourly or use some other pay structure. His name is Dale Montpelier. Sometimes consultations take place over the phone, and sometimes consultations take place in person. Dale and I had an in-person consultation that turned into hours upon hours of friendly conversation. He was mostly enjoyable to chat with. He and I both charge people to talk to us, so it is noteworthy that we both enjoyed chatting with one another for free. If I recall correctly, I hung out at the Montpelier office a few different times, shooting the shit. I have a pattern of hitting it off with vaguely sociopathic alpha males who have right-wing leanings-- such was the case with Dale Montpelier. He is an aging military veteran with a weight problem. Taxidermy animals decorate his office, as well as guns and other items from his time in the military. Montpelier represents both employees and employers, which I did not like. I try to find lawyers who exclusively represent the worker, and never the boss. But, I didn't have any other options in Knoxville at that point, and we spent so much time chatting, that I was willing to hire him. However, Dale was still undecided on representing me until he had a chance to read the Mouse's Ear contract and make an educated decision. Unfortunately, I did not have a copy of the Mouse's Ear contract while working there, and only obtained one on my last night of working there. It is pretty standard for strip clubs to withhold contracts from the dancers, in order to keep them as ignorant of their situation as possible, as well as to deter lawyers from representing the dancers.

Another obstacle that I faced when considering Dale, was that he read over my blog and wanted me to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding the interactions between him and I, stating that I wouldn't talk shit about him on my website or anything like that. No other lawyer who I have ever hired has ever proposed any such gagging, in part because lawyer-client conversations are privileged anyway. However, Dale also creeped me out in a non-professional way, by casually mentioning something about three-ways with his wife, and that same day coincidentally introducing me to his young wife who he got from Asia. While I enjoyed talking with Dale, I was also weirded out. Regardless of the red flags, I didn't know what else to do. I really wanted to sue Mouse's Ear and find a lawyer ASAP, so I still wanted to hire him. I planned to just ignore his creepy comments and focus on suing the club. After I finally got my contract from Mouse's Ear in November of 2019, I showed it to Dale in his office. After looking over the contract, he was unwilling to represent me. He was too threatened by the sneaky language in the contract and exclaimed,

“This contract scares me!”

Short-term, his unwillingness to represent me was very upsetting, because he made it seem as though suing Mouse's Ear would be extremely difficult with the contract they have. Long-term, I am glad that I didn't end up hiring Dale. He and I no longer talk. I left Knoxville without yet finding representation on the Mouse's Ear matter. Workers generally have three years after the crime has taken place to sue a workplace for misclassification. In late 2019, I still had plenty of time to find a private attorney who wasn't Dale. He made it seem like I would never find a lawyer willing to take on the Mouse's Ear contract, but I wasn't convinced.

After leaving Knoxville, I had to shift my focus to the NLRB charge of unlawful termination. Unlike the three-year time frame for holding a workplace accountable for misclassification, the NLRB only gives about six months to file a charge of unlawful termination and proceed with an affidavit. After zig-zagging around the Southeastern United States in search of a decent new workplace, only to end up back in Camden, TN, I did my NLRB Mouse's Ear affidavit in Nashville. Nashville is where I met NLRB attorney Katie Miller.

If I recall correctly, Katie didn't take my initial charge of unlawful termination when I called it in, but she was assigned to the case after the NLRB determined that my charge was worth investigating. Katie seemed disappointed to have been assigned my case. When I met her, it seemed as though she strongly disliked me. She already knew who I was. She already saw my blog. She explained that when she first heard about me, she thought the site must've been for “fighting the good fight,” but expressed some kind of vague disappointment about the contents of the site upon her closer inspection. Katie was pregnant at the time, quite heavy and tall, with a ruddy flushed freckled look that is common among Celtic-American people from Missouri-- her state of familial origins. Judging from her expressed resentment for me, I considered asking for a new agent, but I worried about raising too much of a fuss with the NLRB about her. Several NLRB agents have expressed discontent with me in the past, in an unprofessional manner. Occasionally, I have complained about agents to the point of being re-assigned, but since Katie was not a male agent who was giving me shit, and because she was being vague about her resentment with the chance of plausible deniability if I complained about her, I couldn't exactly provide direct quotes or an explicit reason to request a switch. But, I did feel uncomfortable when talking to her in the office for the affidavit. I did not feel welcome, or accepted, or understood with compassion. Katie vaguely alluded to thoughts that I got fired on purpose in order to collect back pay. Katie also made a few odd and inappropriate sexual innuendo jokes that I cannot remember the specifics of. When I am talking to legal professionals who are supposed to help me and they end up making sex jokes, it is a sign of disrespect. She is a cheeky, big boned, masculine, snarky type of a hearty liberal female who doesn't like me, and I very much worried about what effect it would have on making my claim Meritorious.

In late November and early December of 2019, I spent my time dancing at Teazers, exploring my ancestral origins in Camden, getting my car fixed in Camden, driving out to the Nashville NLRB headquarters to do my affidavit, and hanging out in Loretta Lynn's museum/store/buffet in Hurricane Mills. I vented about my hatred for Elyssa Cabral to Katie Miller, and was advised not to discuss the case or express myself to Cabral or anybody else at Mouse's Ear. Witnesses from both sides are protected during an investigation, so I don't know who was talking to Katie from Mouse's Ear, be them dancers, paid staff, or Brownings. I will always wonder which scabby bitches went so far as to talk to the NLRB on behalf of the club. I wouldn't rule anyone out-- not Brandy, not Cabral, certainly not Justine Marie Cox or Brittany Wood.

Teazers illegally fired me after I finished my Mouse's Ear affidavit. I left Tennessee after my car was fixed. Katie seemed disappointed that Teazers was also in the Nashville NLRB's jurisdiction, and that she was assigned a second case of mine. She took my Teazers affidavit after Mouse's Ear, only the second one was by phone. Katie Miller gave birth in early 2020, after I moved to Champaign, Illinois. The Meritorious case of Mouse's Ear was then reassigned to NLRB attorney Meagan Dolleris, who I liked much better than Katie-- though I do suspect the two of them are buddies. She had some of the banter tone that Katie exhibited. I never met Meagan in person, only spoke with her over the phone. Regardless of what those two thought of me, I provided the NLRB with so much evidence, that proving my misclassification and unlawful termination at Mouse's Ear was utterly undeniable. I was most definitely my best Advocate in that one, not them.

In the Spring of 2020, I picked up the search for a private attorney to sue Mouse's Ear. I can't remember how I found Matthew W. Herrington. Sometimes after search engines don't yield good results for finding an attorney, I will ask my previous attorneys if they know anyone who can help me. I will try to find out who is licensed in a given state, and just rely on word-of-mouth referrals. That might've been how I found Matthew W. Herrington, but I am not completely sure. His firm at the time was out of Georgia, and they had a lot more experience suing strip clubs than Dale Montpelier's one-man operation in Knoxville. Sometimes law firms in other states can still do cases out of state. Matthew W. Herrington's firm was not concerned about the Mouse's Ear contract whatsoever, especially given the extensive evidence I provided to prove that I was indeed a misclassified employee unable to defend myself without getting fired. I was happy to have signed with Matthew's firm in the middle of 2020. For a few weeks in 2020, I was footloose and fancy free, thinking about how nice it was to finally have a lawyer suing Mouse's Ear. However, Matthew's firm was unable to find local counsel in Knoxville. Their method of operation involved getting local counsel in Knoxville, from their remote location in Georgia. His firm dropped the case, reluctantly, and I was again on the search for a lawyer to sue Mouse's Ear. This was very disappointing, because I really enjoyed speaking with Matthew Herrington and learning about all of the strip clubs his firm has sued. He was extremely respectful, intelligent, and easy to talk to. Finding a lawyer to sue Mouse's Ear became the most frustrating search I experienced so far, and I worried I would never find anyone to help me. But, I fuckin hate Alex Cave, Chris Conner, Robert Udovich, and The Brownings so much, that I was unwilling to stop looking.

In the Summer of 2020, I was also looking for an Illinois attorney to help me sue some Illinois clubs. If I recall correctly, I found an article about Club Cabaret in Creve Coeur getting sued by attorney Bradley Manewith. He is based out of Chicago and co-counsel with the Liss-Riordan law firm in Boston. Adelaide Pagano is a wonderful Boston attorney from Liss-Riordan, who Bradley works with on my Illinois cases. My case against Mouse's Ear accounted for lost wages and money stolen from me as an individual. It wasn't a class action, and it didn't include sexual harassment and/or discrimination. Sometimes when I sue clubs, they are class actions and/or do include EEOC complaints. For whatever reason, Adelaide and Bradley didn't need local council in Knoxville like Matthew Herrington's firm did. So, while deciding to take the Illinois cases, they also took on Mouse's Ear. It wasn't a hassle at all. Dale Montpelier's opinion is inconsistent with many other people who I have spoken with about Mouse's Ear.

Sometimes I get hate mail or in-person criticisms, accusing me of being a bad person for not doing more than sue clubs. I'm not sure what more people want me to do with my limited resources and comrades. Do you want me to organize a strike after getting fired for engaging in protected workplace speech? Who would organize it with me, scab fat bitch Elyssa Cabral? I blog about the lawsuits and present information to the public in an honest and candid manner to the best of my abilities, at the constant threat of losing my job, home, and life. I do a lot more than most people, so fuck you.