- Judge Edith Jones rules: 5th Circuit spanks judge who overturned result of anti-traffic-cam vote [The Newspaper, background]
- “UK Nanny State: Let’s Send Gamers To Rehab” [Nick Sibilla, Reason] “If Poker Is a Public Health Issue, What Isn’t?” [Jacob Sullum]
- Struggle Resolutely Against Misleaders of the People In Weather Broadcasts Everywhere! [TP; reactions from Tony Hake/Examiner, Geoff Fox, Andrew Revkin, Watts Up With That]
- Jury awards $178 million in bariatric-surgery case against Jacksonville hospital, sum greater than GDP of several small island nations [Florida Times-Union]
- Sikh sues Jay Leno over comparison of Romney vacation home to Golden Temple of Amritsar [Daily Mail]
- Redevelopment without prerequisite “blight” akin to Hittite sack of Babylon [Gideon Kanner]
- Convinced hospital broke naming promise, jury tells it to pay $1 million to country singer Garth Brooks [AP]
- “Dean of law bloggers” — why, thank you, sir [Hans Bader, CEI]
Tagged as:
accolades,
climate change,
eminent domain,
Fifth Circuit,
global warming,
hospitals,
India,
red light cameras,
videogames
I’m pleased to announce that Overlawyered has been named by the American Bar Association as one of its “Blawg 100″ noteworthy legal blogs. It’s not our first appearance on the list, but it’s always gratifying when it happens.
And here’s the good part: you can vote for us. In particular, you can go to this page:
http://www.abajournal.com/blawg100
You’ll need to register (which only takes a few moments) and then vote for your favorite in each of a list of categories. (They put Overlawyered in the “Torts” category.)
The nominations include many of our favorite and most-linked blogs, including Lowering the Bar, Prof. Bainbridge, Volokh, Jon Hyman, Daniel Schwartz, Abnormal Use, Eric Turkewitz, and Russell Jackson, to name a few. A number of these are also in the “Torts” category which means you’ll need to resist the urge to vote for them and select Overlawyered instead. Please take a moment to vote now. Thanks in advance for your support!
Tagged as:
accolades,
legal blogs
“Overlawyered” is the name of a widely read blog on America’s legal system….
Thus begins an article in the new issue of The Economist, the London-based newsmagazine, discussing First Thing We Do, Let’s Deregulate All the Lawyers, a new book by Clifford Winston and Robert Crandall (Brookings) and Vikram Maheshri (University of Houston) on barriers to entry in the legal profession. Check it out here.
Tagged as:
accolades,
United Kingdom
In a new Reason symposium on how to revitalize the American job market, I explain my answer to that question.
More: This set off a round of discussion on employment blogs including Jon Hyman (nominating FLSA for vaporization), Suzanne Boy (concur), Daniel Schwartz (leave laws), Suzanne Lucas (citing “the fabulous Overlawyered.com”), the ABA Journal, Tim Eavenson, Jon Hyman again, HR Daily Report, and Russell Cawyer. Also relevant on age discrimination laws: a June symposium in the NYT’s “Room for Debate” feature; ComputerWorld on age bias and IT.
Tagged as:
accolades,
age discrimination,
wage and hour suits,
WO writings,
workplace
The methodology for estimating traffic is unclear, but it’s still nice to see Overlawyered in the top 10. [Cision]
Tagged as:
about the site,
accolades
I’m scheduled to be a guest on two of the nation’s leading radio programs, both California-based: Dennis Prager’s today (Tuesday) (broadcast times vary; find a station), and Ronn Owens at San Francisco’s KGO AM 810 tomorrow (Wednesday) at 11 a.m. Pacific. Tune in and listen!
P.S. Both shows were a pleasure; host Prager generously singled out the book as “so devastating” and “mandatory reading,” and said it was “difficult to overstate the importance of this book.”
Tagged as:
accolades,
Bay Area,
California,
on TV and radio,
San Francisco
My new book — officially out today — gets a great review in Publisher’s Weekly. “Part historical overview and part cutting-edge commentary. … This hard-hitting, witty account reveals the effect of law on the individual and the collective and astutely forecasts the future of law reform, in the academy, in politics, and across the globe.” Read the whole thing here.
Tagged as:
accolades,
Schools for Misrule
- If you’re thinking of starting in: “A law blogging FAQ” [Venkat Balasubramani] Recommended, even if not new: “Notes on blogging for journalists” from Felix Salmon [July]
- Welcome the Originalism Blog, from Prof. Mike Rappaport’s Constitution Center at the University of San Diego. Acclaimed blogger Mark Herrmann is back, this time at Above the Law. Blogs proliferate on the hot legal area of employment class actions [Trask] Disgraced class-actioneer Bill Lerach has an online column now [John Frith/CJAC, HuffPo]
- A brief history of law blogging [Alex Aldridge, LegalWeek UK] Milestones: Drug and Device Law Blog reaches fourth anniversary (more, Abnormal Use) and Eric Turkewitz reflects on his 1000th post.
- “Lawyer by day, blogger by night:” profile of Anna Berend of Motherly Law [Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and thanks for kind mention]
- Plenty of good reading to be found on ABA’s annual Blawg 100 list despite baffling omissions [Turkewitz, Abnormal Use, Russell Jackson]
- R.I.P: Peter Nordberg, attorney with Philadelphia’s Berger & Montague and a pioneer of online legal commentary with his outstanding site on scientific and expert testimony, Daubert on the Web [Tributes.com obituary, April 2010 but not seen until recently]
Tagged as:
accolades,
Bill Lerach,
legal blogs
S. 510, which in its various versions has been much criticized in this space, passed the Senate Tuesday by a vote of 73 to 25, but its final passage may be tripped up because it includes new taxes; the Constitution requires that revenue-raising measures originate in the House, and S. 510 didn’t. (More: Reuters, WaPo, USA Today) For more critiques of the bill’s substance, see Ronald Bailey/Reason, Greg Conko/CEI (podcast), and our extensive earlier coverage.
In the mean time there’ve been lots of pixels and ink directed at our recent Cato piece on the subject, including Jonathan Adler/Volokh Conspiracy, Ann Coulter (right-hand links column Dec. 1, flatteringly), Coyote, Michelle Malkin, Ed Morrissey, Hans Bader/CEI, and others; see also Ambreen Ali/Congress.org. Thanks!
Tagged as:
accolades,
food safety
I’m delighted to announce that bound galleys of my forthcoming book on legal academia, Schools for Misrule, arrived last week from Encounter Books. Both Encounter and the Cato Institute have a limited number of these available for potential reviewers or others who may write about the book and its themes. (Or inquire about an advance PDF copy if you’re in this position.) And I’m further delighted to report that some blush-makingly favorable blurbs have already come in from well-known public figures and opinion makers who’ve had an advance look at the contents. I’ll share some of them in the weeks ahead.
Even before getting a copy of the book, law-blogger extraordinaire and leading corporate law scholar Prof. Stephen Bainbridge of UCLA did a wonderful post (thanks!) in which he called Overlawyered “one of the great voices in tort reform” and added, “I’ve preordered a copy from Amazon and am really looking forward to reading what I am sure will be an important critique of my chosen profession.” You can pre-order too.
Tagged as:
accolades,
Schools for Misrule
A new report in the WSJ quotes a retiring NHTSA official as saying higher-ups are refusing to release the results of the agency’s staff investigation into charges of Toyota sudden acceleration, because those findings are not unfavorable enough toward the automaker. I’ve got more detail in a new post at Cato at Liberty, and Ted covers the story at PoL.
Meanwhile, proponents of a sweeping expansion of federal auto safety law, one that would thrust Washington much more deeply into the operations of the automotive industry, are really in a hurry — a quick, urgent, must-do-now hurry — to pass it, even though many of its provisions have not had much airing in public debate. An editorial today in the New York Times — a newspaper that almost comically underplayed the revelations earlier this month about the NHTSA probe’s pro-Toyota results — flatly asserts that the Japanese automaker’s vehicles suffer “persistent problems of uncontrolled acceleration,” and demands that the sweeping new legislation “be passed into law without delay.” It’s almost as if they are afraid of what might happen if lawmakers pause to take a closer look.
Among the many other things the new legislation would do is greatly enhance the legal leverage of automaker or dealership employees who adopt the mantle of “whistleblowers”. But if the new revelations from a responsible career employee of NHTSA are ignored, we will have another confirmation that some types of whistleblowing are more welcome in America’s governing class than others. (& welcome Coyote, Gabriel Malor, Death by 1000 Papercuts, Mark Hemingway/D.C. Examiner (”the indispensable Overlawyered blog”), Allen McDuffee/Think Tanked readers).
Tagged as:
accolades,
NHTSA,
Toyota,
whistleblowers
Comment of the day
by Walter Olson on April 26, 2011
By Scott Jacobs, on a guest post by Aaron Worthing (regarding class actions over Apple device location tracking) at Patterico:
How, indeed?
Tagged as: accolades, Apple, class action settlements, open threads and commenter posts
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