Ways (successful ways!) of wheedling oneself out of a contempt of court rap (Feral Child, Sept. 25; Tim Blair, Daily Telegraph (Australia), Sept. 25; Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of New South Wales v Hall, Australia, 2008).

• Cameras in the Neiman Marcus “loss security” (anti-theft operations) room? So unfair when they catch two employees making whoopee [Chicago Tribune via Feral Child]
• Flipping their wigs: after three centuries judges in British civil and family courts today end tradition of horsehair wigs [Times Online]
• The right number? $28 million to Boston victim of negligent Big Dig construction [Globe]
• White collar advice: “Always commit crimes with people more important than you are, so you can turn them in” [Dershowitz, Forbes]
• Injured while skylarking on freight trains, now want Oz taxpayers to pay for their injuries [The Australian]
• That’ll spoil the fun: New Jersey high court bars judges from discussing future employment with lawyers who have pending cases before them [NJLJ]
• Compromise on Capitol Hill lets Pandora survive a little longer to negotiate with music rights owners [ReadWriteWeb; earlier here, here]
• Rapists with leverage over the adoption of a resultant child? [four years ago on Overlawyered]

For quite a while I’ve been getting complaints that readers in other countries — Australia, in particular — are locked out of Overlawyered with a “403 — you don’t have permission to access the server” error message. (Similarly, see these bulletin board discussions from New Zealand and Germany). Reader Stephen Mepham from Australia wrote to alert me when he encountered this problem on switching to a new cable provider, and helpfully included his IP number (the 777.77.7.777 thing). That allowed me to track down what had happened: in response to a series of spam and denial-of-service attacks, our hosting providers over the years have taken aggressive measures to exclude various large blocks of IP numbers (as well as country domains associated with spam and DOS attacks). I’ve now taken a few gingerly steps to relax these controls, which I hope should let more Australian readers access the site in particular. Should the attacks resume, of course, we’ll need to go back to tougher blocking.

If you’re a reader who’s encountered this problem or knows someone who has, give it a try again, and feel free to email me with a message along the lines of “Yes, now it works again” or “No, I still get blocked” — and try to include your IP address if convenient, which you can identify here.

• Jones Day catching more flak over heavy-handed trademark lawsuit against BlockShopper real estate news service [Levy/CL&P, Ambrogi/Legal Blog Watch, earlier; more, EFF, Plain Dealer]
• California state bar ethics complaint against serial ADA lawyer Thomas Frankovich, mostly over Jarek Molski cases [ABA Journal]
• When suing your community college professor, it’s not a good idea to include death threats [KSAT, Strange in San Antonio]
• Australia: school bans cartwheels, handstands on playground [Oz-ABC via Common Good]
• Myron Levin, whose L.A. Times journalism was known to induce hair-pulling at this site, turns up among plaintiffs in Joe Cotchett lawsuit seeking to eject Chicago meanie Sam Zell from paper’s ownership; and did you know co-plaintiff Henry Weinstein’s a founding faculty member of Chemerinsky’s new ideologically charged UC Irvine law school? [Editor & Publisher Fitz and Jen, Portfolio, PaidContent.org via Class Action Blawg; Forbes]
• Well-known Manhattan criminal defense lawyer arrested on charges of trying to “eliminate” and “neutralize” witnesses against drug dealer client [NYLJ, Greenfield]
• More coverage of Pearson pants appeal [Legal Times "BLT"]
• Swiping Nicole Black’s content and running it without credit on a splog is an ill-advised way to boost NYC services of attorney Michael Rehm [Sui Generis, Greenfield, viaTweet @nikiblack]
• Update on Barnstable harbor dredging blogger defamation suit [Cape Cod Today, earlier]
• “Ten things your lawyer won’t tell you” [five years ago on Overlawyered]

• It’s still not over: Judge Roy Pearson of lost-pants fame returns to court with appeal against Custom Cleaners owners, the Chung family [WJLA]
• Columbus cops’ class action: dept. shouldn’t have asked us what our ailments were when we took sick leave [Dispatch]
• Culture Warrior Jeff Bell hopes Palin will reverse trends that have “legitimated a contraceptive ethic” [Weekly Standard] Better not count on it [York, NRO "Corner"]
• RIAA has now filed 30,000 lawsuits against file-sharing music fans [Wired "Threat Level", Ambrogi]
• Recently at Point of Law: Ohio’s Supreme Court in the balance this November; Biden vs. legal reform; guestblogging by Peggy Little and Jane Genova; Lilly Ledbetter at Democratic convention; big Peter Angelos cellphone-cancer case strikes out; call for Australian no-fault cerebral palsy fund; and more;
• Massachusetts high court ruling that docs can be sued over their patients’ medication-impaired behavior is predictably leading to new suits [Globe, Brockton hospital crash; earlier]
• What Alinsky-style “community organizers” do [York, NRO via Bookworm Room] “Organizers break laws if they have to.” [Thomas Geoghegan @ Slate -- and he's being admiring]
• California trial lawyers successfully gut original Schwarzenegger plan to reform award of punitive damages [four years ago on Overlawyered]

• Eeeeeeuw: House of Meats employees show reporter “they have all ten of their fingers” after customer reports human digit in her dish of oxtails [BayNews 9 Tampa]
• Press keeps digging into Joe Biden ties to asbestos bar [American Lawyer, more links in PoL roundup]
• Black eye for big law site FindLaw with reports that it’s been selling law firms links in editorial material, a practice sure to raise Google wrath [Oilman, Kevin O'Keefe/Real Lawyers Have Blogs, ABA Journal, Search Engine Land, National Post] More: WSJ on FindLaw’s denial; O’Keefe.
• Overlawyered favorite Fred Baron, of Rielle Hunter generosity, much in evidence at Democratic convention [Dallas Morning News, ABC News] Texas trial lawyer Steve Susman is only individual lawyer listed as convention sponsor [AmLaw Daily, scroll]
• As if legislative expansion of the Americans with Disabilities Act weren’t worry enough, 1,000 pages of new DoJ regulations will add billions in costs, as by requiring that 50 percent of miniature golf holes be wheelchair-accessible [Las Vegas Review-Journal via ABA Journal]
• “Bond reduced for two fen-phen attorneys” in Kentucky [Lexington Herald-Leader, more]
• Cozen O’Connor and insurers dealt big setback as Second Circuit’s Judge Jacobs rules they can’t sue Saudi government over 9/11 [Philadelphia Inquirer, more; related on FOIA, Legal Intelligencer; earlier here and here]
• Jury awards $500,000 in malpractice suit against D.C.-based plaintiffs’ firm Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll [Legal Times]
• Australia: “A serial protester who injured a policewoman during the G20 riots wants her conviction overturned so she can still practise as a lawyer.” [Melbourne Herald Sun, Julia Dehm]

Justinian Lane crows: Pfizer fined by an Australian trade group! Indeed it was; drug reps went off the reservation of what they were supposed to talk about without telling managers, and exaggerated the health effects of a competing drugs for personal profit. (Note that there was no need for a regulator or plaintiffs’ attorneys to get involved; this was entirely an Australian free-market self-policing arrangement through contractual agreements that fined Pfizer. Lane forgets to mention that part.)

Lane thinks this is a just result worth noting. So let us consider that trial lawyers do the same thing every day: lie about or exaggerate health effects of drugs for profit (just Google the name of any prescription drug to get a lawyer’s ad)–and without the intermediating effects of doctors to assess the claims and correctly inform patients, so it is clearly worse. But the lawyers do so with impunity, with no consequences for the adverse health effects on patients. (E.g., POL June 2007; POL Feb. 12.) There’s no private cause of action; and the trial bar and its professional organizations lionize such tactics, rather than punish them. All we can do is criticize plaintiffs’ lawyers for putting profits before people.

We continue to hear reports, scattered and so far unexplained, from readers around the world who get an “unavailable” or “forbidden” message when they call up http://www.overlawyered.com in their browser. Thus some readers in Australia have no problem with access to the site, while others have reported that they are blocked; and we got a similarly inconsistent report the other day from New Zealand.

The Australian lawyer who writes the interesting blog Stumblng Tumblr writes to say that

I have outflanked the problem. I only regret that it took me so long to think of it. I use Bloglines and it permits me to choose how much of a feed I want to see in Bloglines itself. It finally occurred to me to change the setting for Overlawyered to show the full post in Bloglines in every case, rather than just a summary. That means that I don’t have to go to your site. I just read it all in Bloglines.

I’m very happy to be able to read Overlawyered again!

In about the site; Australia; New Zealand

• Federal judge: asking employee to get coffee not an intrinsically sexist act [Legal Intelligencer]
• Kilt-clad Montgomery Blair Sibley, at press conference, adds certain je ne sais quoi to tawdry Larry Sinclair sideshow [Sydney Morning Herald]
• Remind us why Florida Gov. Crist is supposed to be an acceptable veep pick? [PoL]. Also at Point of Law: Hill’s FISA compromise may end pending telecom-privacy suits; interesting Second Circuit reverse-preference case on New Haven firefighters.
• Virginia bar authorities shaken by charges that Woodbridge attorney Stephen T. Conrad pocketed $3.4 million in injury settlements at clients’ expense [Va. Lawyers Weekly; case of Christiansburg, Va. lawyer Gerard Marks ties in with first links here]
• U.K.: Local government instructs staff that term “brainstorming” might be insensitive to persons with epilepsy, use “thought showers” instead [Telegraph; Tunbridge Wells, Kent]
• Big personal injury law firm in Australia, Keddies Lawyers, denies accusations of client overcharging and document falsification [SMH]
• Will this be on the bar exam? Massachusetts law school dean eyes war crime trials culminating in hanging for high officials of Bush Administration [Ambrogi and more, Michael Krauss and I at PoL]
• “Just another cash grab”? New Kabateck Brown Kellner “click-fraud” class actions against Google AdWords, CitySearch [Kincaid, TechCrunch/WaPo]
• Former Rep. Bob Barr, this year’s Libertarian presidential candidate, is no stranger to the role of plaintiff in politically fraught litigation [six years ago on Overlawyered, and represented by Larry Klayman to boot]

• High school graduation got rained out in Gilbert, Ariz., and a dad wants $400 from the school district for that [Arizona Republic]
• Happens all the time in one-way fee shift awards, but still worth noting: lawyer in police-misconduct case “billed 22 hours at $480 an hour — a total of $10,560 — just to figure out how much his fees are going to be” [Seattle Times]
• We get to decide and that’s that: New York judge orders that salaries of New York judges including his own be raised [PoL, Bader] Also at Point of Law: white-shoe Clifford Chance throws a party for New York lefties, should anyone be surprised? outsourcing of interrogation to profit-minded private contractors is bad when it’s Blackwater, good when it’s Motley Rice; tax break for trial lawyers said to be blocked for now.
• One firefighter killed in Boston restaurant blaze had sky-high .27 blood alcohol level, the other traces of cocaine, which probably won’t impede the inevitable lawsuit against the restaurant and other defendants [Globe, background]
• Writing again on U.S. exceptionalism, Adam Liptak contrasts our First Amendment with Canadian speech trials; James Taranto thinks he’s siding with the Canadians, but the piece looks pretty balanced to me [NYTimes, WSJ Best of the Web]
• Milberg said to be on verge of deferred prosecution agreement deal with feds involving $75 million payment and admissions of wrongdoing [NLJ]
• Courts in Australian state of Victoria, emulating a model tried in Canada, will resort more to mediation of intractable disputes [Victoria AG Rob Hulls/Melbourne Age]
• Great moments in international human rights: KGB spy on the lam sues British government for confiscating royalties he was hoping to make from his autobiography [five years ago on Overlawyered]

Judge Diane Sykes, on behalf of a three-judge Seventh Circuit panel, disposing of a suit that arose over whether the plaintiffs’ Halloween display of “wooden tombstones with epitaphs describing, in unflattering terms, the demise of their neighbors” was or was not Constitutionally protected, and if so what the consequences were for their suit against police:

In closing, a few words in defense of a saner use of judicial resources. It is unfortunate that this petty neighborhood dispute found its way into federal court, invoking the machinery of a justice system that is admired around the world. The suit was not so wholly without basis in fact or law as to be frivolous, but neither was it worth the inordinate effort it has taken to adjudicate it–on the part of judges, jurors, court staff, and attorneys (all, of course, at public expense). We take this opportunity to remind the bar that sound and responsible legal representation includes counseling as well as advocacy. The wiser course would have been to counsel the plaintiffs against filing such a trivial lawsuit. . . . Not every constitutional grievance deserves an airing in court. Lawsuits like this one cast the legal profession in a bad light and contribute to the impression that Americans are an overlawyered and excessively litigious people.

No live link to this site, though, apparently. (opinion link fixed now, sorry)(via Bashman). More: WSJ law blog, SkepticLawyer (Australia).

As mentioned, I know very little about RSS, Atom, feeds, etc. but just try to take the minimum steps needed to make sure readers can follow the site that way if they wish. This note from a reader in Australia is not the first to indicate that our software upgrade and site redesign of recent weeks may have caused some disruption:

I hope you’ll accept my apology in advance, but it just occurred to me today that I hadn’t had any feeds from you for quite some time now. I use Bloglines as my newsreader. I tried to resubscribe to Overlawyered using a different type of feed and that seemed successful, but when I looked at what had been supplied with the different type of feed, all of the material was from mid-March. Are you able to throw any light on this? Is there some problem with Bloglines and Overlawyered? Is there something I can do to restore the feeds? Thanks for any assistance.

Knowledgeable comments welcome.

• Speaking of patients who act against medical advice and sue anyway: doctor who advised against home birth is cleared by Ohio jury in $13 million suit [Plain Dealer and earlier via KevinMD]
• UK: “A feud over a 4ft-wide strip of land has seen neighbours rack up £300,000 in lawyers’ bills, and left one family effectively homeless.” [Telegraph]
• Last of the Scruggs judicial bribery defendants without a plea deal, Dickie’s son Zack, takes one [Folo]
• By reader acclaim: securities trader sues over injury from lap dancer’s attentions [AP/NY Sun]
• Amid the talk of FISA and retroactive telecom immunity, it would be nice to hear more about the actual lawsuits [Obbie]
• Australian worker loses suit over firing despite a doctor’s note vouching that stress of worrying about upcoming football game made it medically necessary for him to take day off to go see it [Stumblng Tumblr]
• Megan McArdle and Tyler Cowen toss around the question of federal FDA pre-emption of drug liability suits, as raised by Medtronic;
• Should Coughlin Stoia have bought those stolen Coke documents? For one lawprof, question’s a real head-scratcher [David McGowan (San Diego), Legal Ethics Forum] And WSJ news side is oddly unskeptical of trial lawyers’ line that the affair just proves their power to go on fishing expeditions should never have been curtailed [Jones/Slater]
• Dashboard-cam caught Tennessee cops red-handed planting marijuana on suspect, or so Jonathan Turley suggests — but could it be a little more complicated than that? [WSMV, AP/WATE] (& Greenfield)
• “Heck Baptists don’t even sue you for disagreeing with them,” though no doubt there are exceptions [Instapundit; NYT on Danish cartoons; Ezra Levant with more on those Canadian speech tribunals]
• Bestselling authors who sue their critics [four years ago on Overlawyered]

• Examiner newspaper begins series on how Milberg Weiss used nonprofit foundation to project its clout among judges, academics, influentials [Institute for Law & Economic Policy, three-parter]
• Judge Canute, or just reporter’s awkward wording? Australian jurist with great eyeglasses bans screening of TV drama in state of Victoria; “Under the order, all internet material relating to the series is also banned.” [Herald Sun] (More explanation on the court order: The Australian).
• Times Square’s Naked Cowboy sues over M & M candy ad playing off his image [NY Post]
• Bite mark testimony makes another chapter in catalogue of dubious prosecutorial forensics [Folo's NMC on two Mississippi Innocence Project cases]
• Update: Pennsylvania court upholds disputed fees in Kia-brake class action [Legal Intelligencer; earlier]
• Best not take McCain too literally when he says he’d demand that judicial nominees have a proven record on Constitutional interpretation [Beldar]
• Expert witness coaching …. by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? [Nordberg; earlier]
• For some reason many Boston residents feel menaced by city’s plan for police to go door to door asking “voluntary,” “friendly” permission to search premises for guns [Globe]
• Lots and lots of publications print Mohammed cartoon in solidarity with Danish cartoonist and assassination-plot target Kurt Westergaard [CNN; Malkin]
• Calgary Muslim leader withdraws official complaint against Ezra Levant over his publication of Mohammed cartoons [National Post; earlier]
• Steyn, relatedly: critics dragging my book before Canadian tribunals wish not to “start a debate”, but to cut one off [National Post]

• Vioxx settlement is good for Merck and the trial lawyers suing it, the price being paid in legal ethics [Gryphon/City Journal]
• Australia: will-contest lawyers “will have their fees capped after a string of cases where the bill has exceeded the final inheritance.” [Sydney Morning Herald]
• ADA obliges golf courses, at least Marriott’s, to furnish accessible carts to disabled golfers, federal judge rules [Egelko, SF Chronicle]
• Henry Fonda/Sidney Lumet jury-deliberation classic Twelve Angry Men normally spoken of in tones of reverence. But what’s this? [Leo McKinstry, U.K. Spectator; Gracchi, Westminster Wisdom]
• Columnist and talk show host Michael Smerconish, himself former trial lawyer, is among latest to be sued by inmate/fantasist J*nath*n L** R*ch*s [Philadelphia Inquirer; earlier]
• Biggest-ever EEOC settlement for individual racial discrimination will bring Lockheed Martin electrician $2.5 million [Reuters/NYT]
• U.K.: Coast guard wins award for saving teen from cliff, then loses job because he didn’t follow prescribed health and safety precautions [Times Online, Sun]
• Lawsuit by baseball pros who missed out on big careers because they never abused steroids? [RedBirdsFan]
• Until Sarkozy, French heads of state liked to cancel outstanding parking tickets on taking office; contrast with American practice of pardons as departing Presidential gesture [Rittelmeyer/Cigarette Smoking Blog]
• New at Point of Law: Ted on med-mal statistics; Prof. Richard Nagareda on recognizing that mass torts are lawyer-driven; voter intimidation and union card check; state AGs and letters of marque and reprisal; Prof. Michael Krauss on thread-count class action; IRBs vs. hospital safety; Ted’s continuing coverage of the Vioxx settlement; and much more.
• OSHA backs down from its plan to regulate hazards like trippable power cords and rickety chairs in telecommuters’ home offices [eight years ago on Overlawyered]

Updates:

• The Canadian Transportation Agency (as part of its regulation of airline ticket prices) has ruled that obese passengers are entitled to have two airline seats for the price of one, which will no doubt encourage further suits against the American practice. (h/t Rohan) One looks forward to the Canadian lawsuits complaining that an obese passenger wasn’t adjudged obese enough to get a free second seat. [Australian; Toronto Star; Gunter @ National Post; earlier on Overlawyered]
• Also in Canada, Ezra Levant defends his free speech rights against a misnamed Alberta “Human Rights Commission” over his republication of the Danish Muhammed cartoons. [Frum; National Post; Steyn @ Corner; Wise Law Blog; Youtube; related on Overlawyered]
• Alleged car-keying attorney “Grodner is now under investigation by the state’s Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, sources said. Commission officials declined to comment Thursday.” [Chicago Tribune; Jan. 4]
• “Life is short—get a divorce” attorney Corri Fetman parlays her tasteless billboard (May 10; May 8) into tasteless Playboy topless-modeling and advice-column gig. In the words of Alfred E. Neuman, “Blech.” On multiple and independent grounds. Surprisingly, Above the Law avoids the snark of noting that the lead paragraph of Fetman’s law firm web site bio includes a prestigious 23-year-old quote from a college professor’s recommendation for law school. [Above the Law; Chicago Sun-Times; Elefant]
• Wesley Snipes (Jun. 11; Nov. 2006) appears to be going for a Cheek defense in his tax-evasion trial—which is hard to do when you’re a multimillionaire whose well-paid accountants explicitly tell you you’re violating the law. (Remember what I said about magical incantations and taxes?) [Tampa Tribune; Quatloos]
• Accountant Mark Maughan loses his search-engines-make-me-look-bad lawsuit (Mar. 2004) against Google, which even got Rule 11 sanctions. (That happened in 2006. Sorry for the delay.) More on Google and privacy: Jan. 16. [Searchenginewatch]
• Bribed Mississippi judges in Paul Minor case (Sep. 8 and much more coverage) report to prison. [AP]

• “Of all the body parts to Xerox!” Another round of stories on efforts to reduce liabilities from office holiday parties [ABA Journal, Above the Law, and relatedly Megan McArdle]
• New edition of Tillinghast/Towers Perrin study on insurance costs of liability system finds they went down last year, which doesn’t happen often [2007 update, PDF]
• Vermont student sues Burger King over indelicate object found in his sandwich; one wonders whether he’s ruled out it being a latex finger cot, sometimes used by bakery workers [AP/FoxNews.com]
• Good discussions of “human rights commission” complaints against columnist Mark Steyn in Canada [Volokh, David Warren and again @ RCP, Dan Gardner; for a contrasting view, see Wise Law Blog]
• Having trousered $60-odd million in fees suing Microsoft in Minnesota and Iowa antitrust cases, Zelle Hofmann now upset after judge says $4 million in fees should suffice for Wisconsin me-too action [Star-Tribune, PheistyBlog]
• Australian rail operator will appeal order to pay $A600,000 to man who illegally jumped tracks, spat at ticket inspectors, hurt himself fleeing when detained [Herald Sun]
• Lawyers’ fees in Kia brake class action (Oct. 29, Oct. 30) defended by judge who assails honesty of chief defense witness [Legal Intelligencer]
• Who deserves credit for founding Facebook? Question is headed for court [02138 mag]
• Yes, jury verdicts do sometimes bankrupt defendants, as did this $8 million class action award against a Kansas City car dealer [KC Star, KC Business Journal]
• Dispute over Burt Neuborne’s Holocaust fees is finally over, he’ll get $3.1 million [NY Sun]
• So long as we’re only fifty votes behind in the race for this “best general legal blog” honor, we’re going to keep nagging you to vote for Overlawyered [if you haven't already]

Earlier this week, we quoted an Australian newspaper that Michael Flatley had won an “$11 million settlement” in his lawsuit against Tyna Marie Robertson, a woman who had falsely accused him of rape and tried to extort him through the threat of litigation, and speculated that Robertson’s other romantic shenanigans with the wealthy may permit her to pay it. Alas, other press coverage reveals that this was not a settlement, but a default judgment, which suggests the inability to pay for a lawyer to defend herself as well as to pay Flatley. On Point’s report of the default judgment notes that Robertson’s child support litigation claims she has $6 to her name. Flatley did come to an undisclosed financial settlement with D. Dean Mauro, the attorney who handled Robertson’s claim, so there will be some justice done.