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You know how to tell when you've been working in celebrity journalism too long? When your first impulse after getting fired is to run and hire Marty Singer as your counsel—and today's Page Six suggests that fired TMZ TV producer Bryn Friedman is talking to good old Marty about her potential employment litigation.

For those who aren't forced to labor in the foul trenches of celeb gossip, Marty's the Brooklyn-born and L.A.-based lawyer who, along with his henchpeople like Lynda Goldman, issues cease-and-desists and pissy letters any time someone sneezes in the direction of a lazy famous person. (The last one we saw contained the most tortured logic in legal history—which is, in a way, to their credit! They'll definitely go that extra mile for their clients, like while defending the reputation of James Frey!)

Page Six could roll around in his balled-up correspondence like kids in the ball pen at Chuck E Cheese; The Smoking Gun probably uses his correspondence as toilet paper.

Marty himself admits that he's threatened or started "perhaps more defamation suits in the last five years than anyone in the entire country." Weird how we don't hear about how any of those resulted in judgments! But let's let Marty speak for himself. As he says about his dealings with the once-cowed press, "I might know a story is true and I'm still able to kill the story." Mmm, it must be so rewarding to be on the side of good like that.

Firing Rattles TMZ Start-up [Page Six]
Did Mad Dog Unwittingly Defang Himself? [Deadline Hollywood Daily]