Ira Stoll dissects its slanted wording.
From the monthly archives:
February 2011
Sure. What could go wrong with that? Relatedly, Ann Althouse wonders how we’ll all react next year when Group X demands the right to occupy the Wisconsin capitol for 10+ days. Consistently? (& welcome Instapundit readers).
More: “Did Wisconsin Police Violate the First Amendment through Selective Enforcement of Limits on Protests?” [Hans Bader]
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Don’t stop taking your medication just because you saw a lawyer referral ad on TV that claimed it was dangerous [Throckmorton, related]
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- Feds indict activist for handing out “jury nullification” tracts outside courthouse [Volokh, Greenfield] Anti-abortion billboard taken down after demand by NYC pol; co. says fear of violence was spur [NY Times]
- Pigford class action (USDA bias against black farmers) defended and assailed [Friedersdorf and readers, Daniel Foster/NR, Mark Thompson/LOG, earlier here, here, here, etc.]
- Avik Roy on Pennsylvania defensive-medicine study [Forbes]
- Backstory: Scott Walker battled AFSCME for years as Milwaukee County exec [Aaron Rodriguez, Hispanic Conservative] “Wisconsin’s teachers required to teach kids labor union and collective bargaining history” [Daily Caller]
- “The return of the $0 Costco fuel settlement” [CCAF]
- Historic preservation vs. the obesity crusade: should a vintage Coke sign in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood come down? [SFGate]
- Law blog that covers a single beat closely can turn itself into a valued practice tool [Eric Turkewitz on John Hochfelder's New York Injury Cases]
- “Soda suits: Banzhaf browbeats school officials” [five years ago on Overlawyered]
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Criticism continues to mount (”shameful,” “excessive”) over lawyers’ effort to nab $223 million in fees for representing Indian tribes’ interest in the long-running Cobell litigation over management of trust funds. [BLT (quoting former Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.), and more (DoJ); PoL; earlier here and here (Kilpatrick Stockton lawyer Keith Harper considered for Tenth Circuit appointment)]
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Conservative Book Club has this write-up of my forthcoming book Schools for Misrule. David Frum’s FrumForum is featuring it as well. Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) just got his in the mail. From what I hear, copies of the book ordered online began arriving in readers’ mailboxes around Tuesday.
More: Legal Skills Prof Blog, Young Americans for Liberty (on my Cato speech this upcoming Thursday). And a great preview post from Carter Wood at NAM’s ShopFloor.
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$1.3 billion in fees are headed toward lawyers and consultants [FT via Salmon]
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Barrick Gold and Banro Corporation have sued three authors of a book that alleged human rights violations in African mining operations; Barrick has also threatened suit against a Vancouver-based publisher over a not-yet-published book. [BoingBoing, Canadian Business, Quill and Quire; FreeSpeechAtRisk.ca]
P.S. Also, welcome listeners from Richmond, Va.’s WRVA, which had me on to discuss these issues this morning. And a retrospective on the Toyota scare from The Truth About Cars’ Edward Niedermeyer.
- “Lawyer held in contempt for advising clients to retake foreclosed home” [Ventura County Star, earlier]
- Some perspective on Wisconsin Gov. Walker’s plans: about half the states curtail some or all public-sector unionism [Barro]
- Guy who sued over Jimmy Carter book offers his side of story [Turley, earlier]
- “Disbarment recommended for litigator Chesley over fen-phen fees” [NLJ, PoL, previously on scandal] Kenneth Feinberg affidavit in case draws scrutiny [Steele/LEF, Frank/PoL]
- Mississippi: “Minor, 2 ex-judges disbarred by state Supreme Court” [Sun-Herald, related on scheduled resentencing, earlier]
- “AIG Ended Up Having To Pay Millions For the Duke Lacrosse Stripper Lawsuit” [Business Insider, earlier]
- Labor Department hotline to put workers in touch with private lawyers [Fox Biz, Wood/PoL]
- Underage man on hook for child support to older woman [seven years ago on Overlawyered]
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California: “The wife of a Roseville city employee has filed a $3.9 million claim against the city alleging it improperly demoted her soon-to-be ex-husband for his extramarital interoffice romance.” [Sacramento Bee]
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A review copy arrived recently and I’ve much enjoyed reading the first chapters. It’s discussed by Larry Ribstein, by Glenn Reynolds, and by Cato’s Dan Mitchell (with special reference to the problem of tax complexity). The publisher’s description:
Virtually all American judges are former lawyers. This book argues that these lawyer-judges instinctively favor the legal profession in their decisions and that this bias has far-reaching and deleterious effects on American law. There are many reasons for this bias, some obvious and some subtle. Fundamentally, it occurs because – regardless of political affiliation, race, or gender – every American judge shares a single characteristic: a career as a lawyer. This shared background results in the lawyer-judge bias. The book begins with a theoretical explanation of why judges naturally favor the interests of the legal profession and follows with case law examples from diverse areas, including legal ethics, criminal procedure, constitutional law, torts, evidence, and the business of law. The book closes with a case study of the Enron fiasco, an argument that the lawyer-judge bias has contributed to the overweening complexity of American law, and suggests some possible solutions.
Earlier on Barton’s book, including a video, here.
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An Oregon man robbed and shot during a fishing vacation to the state of Sinaloa, Mexico says the tour operator should have warned of the endemic risk of violence [OnPoint News]
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- Judge Ciavarella defiant after racketeering conviction in Pennsylvania cash-for-kids horror [TheLegalIntel, Sullum and more, WSJ Law Blog, Greenfield, earlier]
- Widener lawprof Lawrence Connell facing discipline over hypotheticals in class [Orin Kerr, NLJ, interview at NAS]
- “Do we even want to remain a child care center if we have to eliminate all the parts we love?” [Free-Range Kids] Lawsuit fears tame a Frederick, Md. ice playground [same]
- Marquette lawprof Rick Esenberg on Wisconsin showdown [first, second, third posts]
- A patent owner, the Chicago Tribune and Sen. Durbin: Anatomy of a pool drain scare story [Woldenberg, AmendTheCPSIA.com]
- Mayor Thomas Menino vows to save Boston from scourge of everyday low prices [Mark Perry]
- “Comp Hearing Scheduled ‘On the Sly’ for Texting Cop Who Caused Fatal Accident” [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal] “Paying for bad cops” [Balko]
- Demand for shaker abstinence: nosy, hectoring CSPI files suit asking that salt in food be subjected to FDA regulation [six years ago on Overlawyered]
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Attention readers in the Washington, D.C. area: I’ll be speaking at a Cato Policy Forum next Thurs., March 3, at 4 p.m. at the Cato Institute auditorium, discussing my new book Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America. Roger Pilon, who directs Cato’s program of legal studies, will be the moderator, and commenting on my remarks will be one of the most distinguished federal judges, the Hon. Douglas Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The event is free, but you do need to register in advance here, where you’ll find more details. There’ll be a reception afterward and a chance to buy the book. Please introduce yourself and mention that you’re an Overlawyered reader!
Scott Greenfield calls to our attention a Rochester lawyer whose criminal defense clients are not only grateful, but rather more articulate than one might have expected.
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“Please Send News Tips By E-Mail, Not By Posting Off-Topic Comments”
by Walter Olson on February 27, 2011
Advice given at the Volokh Conspiracy blog, and good advice here too.
Tagged as: open threads and commenter posts