Overlawyered » civil gideon

September 9 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 15:29:13 +0000

Not a parody: economics professor sets off debate on “ugly rights” with suggestion of making unattractiveness of appearance a protected discrimination-law category [Daniel Hamermesh/NYT, PoL, Eric Crampton, Jon Hyman] Apparently Niall Ferguson needn’t worry [Telegraph]
Feds sue banks and more than 130 executives, demanding billions over their role in the mortgage crisis; new “tobacco/asbestos” predicted [Biz Insider, more, yet more] Takes some cheek to cast Fannie and Freddie as victims [John Berlau, CEI]
Also on mortgages: Rahm Emanuel’s unsound new “lender must cut the grass” ordinance [Funnell] California AG sues lawyers, telemarketers over class action loan modification scheme; lawyer fires back with civil rights suit [AP, ABA Journal] New York chief judge wants state to fund more lawyers to resist enforcement of mortgages [PoL]
Related to last, on Civil Gideon’s “‘impossible dream’ of giving every civil litigant a lawyer” [Benjamin Barton & Stephanos Bibos, SSRN via Instapundit]
Fallen tree damage from all these storms? Think twice before taking your neighbor to court [Ilya Somin]
Stories you read here first: wider coverage for EEOC suit against trucking company for not letting alcoholic drive [Fox, earlier]
Illinois advocates plan push for punitive civil suits against johns, strip club owners, sex-ad websites [NYT]

Tags: banks, civil gideon, discrimination law, mortgages, strippers and exotic dancers, trees

September 9 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“For the organized bar, it is an article of faith…”

Walter Olson — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:10:19 +0000

“… that a lawyer’s participation makes judicial proceedings more fair, not less fair.” So should we be shocked that the U.S. Supreme Court does not partake of this article of faith? [earlier on Turner v. Rogers and Civil Gideon] Related: Are we sure we want judges who are “great lawyers”? [Chiang, Prawfs, Greenfield]

Tags: civil gideon, judges, lawyers

“For the organized bar, it is an article of faith…” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

June 27 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:57:27 +0000

“Electronic Arts Has Right to Refer to John Dillinger in Its Video Games” [Volokh]
Fans of “Civil Gideon” (constitutional entitlement to publicly funded lawyers in civil cases) glum that SCOTUS didn’t give idea much of a boost in Turner v. Rogers case last week [Concurring Opinions symposium, ABA Journal]
Feds (in particular, the FTC) go after Google [AW, Manne & Wright/TotM, Stoll]
“The Dept of Education, Yale, and the New Threat to Free Speech on Campus” [Greg Lukianoff/HuffPo] “In Making Campuses Safe for Women, a Travesty of Justice for Men” [Christina Sommers, Chron Higher Ed] Feds crack down on campus flirting and sex jokes [Michael Barone, D.C. Examiner] Heather Mac Donald on Yale hostile-environment complaint [City Journal, earlier] “Why Cross-Examination Rights Matter in Campus Sexual Harassment Cases” [Hans Bader]
Trial lawyer propaganda coup? HBO airs plaintiff’s-side “Hot Coffee” documentary [Abnormal Use, Ted Frank/PoL, Schwartz/NYT, more, yet more]
Financial institutions abroad will be pleased to be roped into U.S. regulatory schemes. Won’t they? [Dan Mitchell, Cato at Liberty]
Proposal for judge-guided negotiations in NY med-mal cases leaves Ted Frank underwhelmed [PoL]
“Virginia inmate sues after gruesome tries at sex change” [AP]

Tags: banks, civil gideon, colleges and universities, Federal Trade Commission, Google, hostile environment, medical malpractice, prisoners, right of publicity, videogames

June 27 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

March 30 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 12:41:06 +0000

“Woman Sues Adidas After Fall She Blames on Sticky Shoes” [Lowering the Bar]
Texas lawmakers file loser pays proposals [SE Tex Record] Actual scope of proposals hard to discern through funhouse lens of NYT reporting [PoL] Marie Gryphon testimony on loser-pays proposals in Arkansas [Manhattan Institute, related]
Google awarded patent on changing of logo for special days [Engadget via Coyote]
“Civil Gideon in Deadbeat Dad Cases Would Be ‘Massive’ Change, Lawyer Tells Justices” [Weiss, ABA Journal, Legal Ethics Forum]
Amateur-hour crash-fakers in Bronx didn’t reckon on store surveillance camera [NY Post]
“Plaintiffs’ Lawyers in Cobell Defend $223M Fee Request” [BLT]
Show of harm not needed: FDA kicks another 500 or so legacy drugs off market, this time in the cold-and-cough area [WaPo]
“Wal-Mart v. Dukes: Rough Justice Without Due Process” [Andrew Trask, WLF]

Tags: Arkansas, civil gideon, crash faking, FDA, Google, loser pays, patent quality, product liability, slip and fall, Texas, Wal-Mart v. Dukes

March 30 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Taxpayer-funded entitlement to foreclosure defense?

Walter Olson — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:38:30 +0000

New York chief judge Jonathan Lippman floats a highly dubious idea that would build toward that even more dubious program of full employment for lawyers known as Civil Gideon. [NY Times, Alkon]

Tags: civil gideon, mortgages, New York

Taxpayer-funded entitlement to foreclosure defense? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

New York chief judge rallies “Civil Gideon” campaign

Walter Olson — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 05:10:03 +0000

But Ted Frank explains why creating a new entitlement to taxpayer-paid civil lawyers is a bad idea [New York Daily News, PoL]:

As any economist would tell you, if you lower the price of something, you get more demand for it. If it becomes completely costless to bring suit, we will see many more meritless suits.

That’s no small problem in New York, where courts are already overloaded.

If a dispute over shelter entitles a cantankerous tenant to a free attorney on the government’s dime, it will be much easier for people to fight evictions when they violate a lease in ways that threaten other tenants or intentionally refuse to pay rent. Landlords, in turn, will have to hire their own attorneys and raise rents and costs for their honest tenants.

Not unrelated: U.S. is granting asylum requests far more often than formerly. Why might that be? [Ted's answer]

Tags: civil gideon, immigration law, New York, Ted Frank

New York chief judge rallies “Civil Gideon” campaign is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

May 24 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 24 May 2010 13:11:21 +0000

Pennsylvania attorney general subpoenas Twitter in search of critics’ identities, then backs down [Volokh and more, Levy/CL&P, Romenesko, Wired "Threat Level"]
Letting kids have unsupervised time in NYC park not actually against the law [Free-Range Kids on "Take Your Kids to the Park, and Leave Them There Day"] Related from Lenore Skenazy: Spiked Online and Salon, “The War on Children’s Playgrounds”
Uh-oh: New York chief judge Jonathan Lippman endorses massive new Civil Gideon legal-aid entitlement [ABA Journal, and the NYT cheers]
“Novartis Hit With $250 Million in Punitives in Gender Bias Case” [NYLJ, WSJ Law Blog (blaming bad defense trial strategy) and more, ABA Journal, Hyman]
Med-mal law has done very well for two attorney brothers in Georgia [Atlanta Journal-Constitution via Pero]
Kagan’s Oxford thesis revealed: judges shouldn’t make it up as they go along in quest of social justice. Sensation ensues! [WSJ Law Blog, related on political-branch deference] And were the SG’s judicial-restraint principles activated by Graham v. Florida? [Stuart Taylor, Jr., National Journal]
Federal Elections Commission as net regulator: “How the DISCLOSE Act will restrict free speech” [Brad Smith/Jeff Patch, Reason]
“Law Professor Confesses ‘I’m a Criminal’” [Tim Lynch, Cato]
Argentina: “Parts of Anti-Plagiarism Bill Lifted from Wikipedia” [Lowering the Bar, TechDirt]

Tags: civil gideon, crime and punishment, Elena Kagan, Georgia, medical malpractice, online speech, Pennsylvania, sex discrimination, Twitter, Wikipedia

May 24 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

KALW and free lawyers in deportation cases

Ted Frank — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:00:48 +0000

I give an interview to KALW on the question, a question I’ve written about at length.

Tags: civil gideon, immigration law, on TV and radio, Ted Frank

KALW and free lawyers in deportation cases is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

January 27 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:52:03 +0000

U.K.: Recruitment firm told ad for “reliable workers” would discriminate against the unreliable [Telegraph]
“Against Civil Gideon (and for Pro Se Court Reform)” [Benjamin Barton (Tennessee), SSRN, via Legal Ethics Forum]
Sewn-in “Made in USA” suit-label figures in tell-all book by John Edwards aide [WSJ "Washington Wire", Hotline On Call] Did Edwards, great denouncer of M.D.s’ errors, propose getting a doc to fake DNA results? [Charles Hurt/N.Y. Post]
Lucky cops! There just happened to be $672K in the car they stopped and they plan to keep it [Freeland] “The Forfeiture Racket: Police and prosecutors won’t give up their license to steal” [Radley Balko, Reason]
Family and Medical Leave Act doesn’t cover faith-healing trips that include a vacation aspect [Michael Maslanka, Texas Lawyer]
“Dangerism” — how society constructs what’s supposedly dangerous for kids [Free-Range Kids]
This is one of those links buried deep in a roundup that hardly any readers will actually get around to clicking [Chris Clarke]
Update: Landlord’s suit over critical Twitter post dismissed [Cit Media Law, AP/Chicago Tribune, Business Insider (court sides with defense argument that so much of it's just "pointless babble"); earlier here and here]
And: Did the press jump the gun with its report that it’s now lawful to import haggis into the U.S.? A letter to Andrew Sullivan says nothing has been decided yet, though the ban seems to be under review.

Tags: advertising, civil gideon, forfeiture, John Edwards, libel slander and defamation, pro se, Twitter, United Kingdom, workplace

January 27 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

November 4 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:41:20 +0000

Four California lawyers accused in what prosecutors say is giant insurance fraud ring employing staged or “paper” car wrecks, Mark Geragos is defending [Metropolitan News-Enterprise, Glendale News-Press via ABA Journal]
“Civil Gideon law could overwhelm civil courts”, Ted is interviewed again [Legal NewsLine, earlier]
“Is that a popularly-elected state judge in your pocket?” [What About Clients?, earlier]
Audit Integrity, sued by Hertz over financial risk assessment, takes case to SEC [Felix Salmon, earlier]
OSHA nominee David Michaels, SKAPP and the right to bear arms, continued [David Kopel/America's First Freedom, earlier and more]
NJ case raises knotty questions of press liability for reporting allegations in lawsuits [WSJ Law Blog]
Washtenaw Jail Diary, which made splash on Twitter earlier this year, now reprinting at Ann Arbor Chronicle (earlier);
“Not every country bubblewraps its kids” [Free-Range Kids on Germany] Background checks for senior-center pen pals and more school overprotectiveness [same]

Tags: child protection, civil gideon, crash faking, David Michaels, insurance fraud, judicial elections, libel slander and defamation

November 4 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system