Overlawyered » civil service

January 18 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:51:53 +0000

Already-infamous Coakley-for-Senate rape-ad mailer: did they really line up all those photo permissions? [Lopez, NRO] Earlier on photo-permissions legal exposures here, here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.
“Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Peyton Thomas: Blame the Libertarians!” [Balko, earlier]
Georgetown lawprof Robin West takes such a rude tone with homeschoolers, it’s enough to make you wonder who brought her up [Common Room, Izzy Lyman/Big Journalism, "The Harms of Homeschooling" (PDF)] Parents charged with child endangerment for homeschooling their kids without submitting lesson plans [Albany Times-Union]
Videogames and the ADA: “Sony Launches Defense to Gamer’s Equal Access Suit” [OnPoint News, earlier]
Regulations may spell end for independent New England fishermen [AP/MSNBC, earlier]
Veteran California pol Willie Brown criticizes civil service entrenchment [Kaus] Government employment has its privileges [Stuart Greenhut, Reason]
New Jersey appeals court reverses $260K award over student’s fatal window fall at Fairleigh Dickinson U. [Star-Ledger]
Georgia federal judge orders plaintiff to pay $268K costs of discovery for stretching patent claims [Fulton County Daily Report]

Tags: art and artists, civil service, colleges and universities, disabled rights, discovery, loser pays, Massachusetts, patent litigation, Phoenix, schools, videogames, web accessibility

January 18 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Federal Circuit: Patent Office can fire examiner with 35% error rate

Walter Olson — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 12:31:33 +0000

Annals of civil service protection: the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled in favor of the Patent and Trademark Office, which dismissed Asokkumar Pal after it “reviewed 16 randomly selected cases from Pal’s file to determine whether he was properly reviewing examiner decisions. They found he was not making the correct decisions – that he erred more than 35% of the time. (A 25% error rate would have been acceptable).” Pal’s appeal contended that others in the office had even higher error rates, that he had received many “outstanding” performance reviews, and that managers should have been required to review all of his cases rather than just a random sampling, but to no avail. (Patently-O, Dec. 16)*.

*Yes, we’re linking Patently-O even though they’re (momentarily) still ahead of us in the ABA blog contest voting. We’ll even stipulate that they’re a pretty good blog. That doesn’t excuse you from going and voting for Overlawyered now.

Tags: civil service, patent quality

Federal Circuit: Patent Office can fire examiner with 35% error rate is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Philadelphia civil service scandal

Walter Olson — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:49:40 +0000

I’m quoted on the subject today in a piece by Ben Waxman on The Next Mayor, a “Rethinking Philadelphia” blog created by the Philly Daily News, WHYY and the Committee of Seventy. My City Journal article “Fixing the Civil Service Mess” from 1997 is here.

Tags: civil service, Philadelphia, workplace

Philadelphia civil service scandal is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system