• Lawyers’ contingency fee is temptation to ethical corner-cutting in consumer debt collection, too [Miami Daily Business Review, Popehat; Orlando's Palmer Reifler & Associates, mass mailing of demand letters to accused shoplifters]
• Discussion continues on loser-pays with me and many others at NewTalk, and note comment from Ontario lawyer [through today]
• Age bias suit by Hollywood writers gains traction. Next, actors? [Ink Slingers via Class Action Blawg weekly review]
• Class action against Quebec lottery on behalf of problem gamblers finally set for trial [CP/Yahoo, Lee Distad via Class Action Blawg, earlier]
• Should we and other commentators avoid mentioning litigants’ real names so as not to intrude on their Google legacy? [comments at Ron Miller/Md. Injury]
• California lawmakers OK feel-good “Donda West Law” but it won’t do much to keep impulsive clients from rushing into plastic surgery [GruntDoc, Cameron Turner/EURWeb, Truth in Cosmetic Surgery Blog]
• Probably not a swift career move for lawyer to tell bar disciplinary panel “Go to hell.” [ABA Journal]
• Class action forces HUD to allocate more to some Indian recipients, so it cuts other programs, bad news for North Carolina’s Lumbee tribe [Fayetteville, N.C. Observer courtesy US Chamber]
• Environmental authorities won’t press charges against man who shot protected rattlesnake that had just attacked and bitten him [eight years ago on Overlawyered]

• More critics pile onto new Medicare “we won’t pay for errors” policy [Orac, Chris Rangel, Universal Health, MedPundit; earlier; plus KevinMD]


• Wisconsin lawmaker wants to address perceived lawyer oversupply by cutting funding to the state’s law school [NLJ]


• What would great authors of Britain’s past have thought of pub smoking ban? [AN Wilson, Telegraph; one response; more]


• As Texas trial lawyer Mikal Watts gears up Senate run, his GOP critics turn for ammunition to a certain website [ChronBlog via Half Empty]


• Holder in due course? Pa. man has left fragrant ethical trail buying up bounced checks and demanding their payment in court [NJLJ]


• One reason for slow adoption of electronic medical records: docs’ fear of wider malpractice exposure [Medical Economics via KevinMD]


• “He knows there is irony in a criminal defense attorney being driven out of the city because of crime” [Baltimore Sun]


• More evidence that Endangered Species Act perversely encourages landowners to make their habitat inhospitable [Adler @ Volokh]


• If you recognize one of your hospital patients as a wanted fugitive, don’t let HIPAA keep you from calling cops [MedRants first, second post]


• Teenager may face year in jail for recording 20-second movie clip [Wired "Gadget Lab" via Harsanyi and Reynolds]


• Behind a judge’s order that GM pay $1.2 billion over a drunk driver’s crash [eight years ago at Overlawyered; case's eventual settlement]

More unintended consequences of the Endangered Species Act, this time to the detriment of the red-cockaded woodpecker in North Carolina: “Coastal residents clear-cut to avert protected birds’ nesting” (Wade Rawlins, News & Observer, Aug. 8)(via Jonathan Adler).

Readers may recall the brouhaha last year when a federally protected plant, the Sebastopol meadowfoam, was discovered growing on the grounds of a controversial proposed housing development in the Northern California community; state wildlife officials investigated and said it was apparently planted on purpose. (May 25, 2005). Now the plant has sprung up again on the site, and although opponents of the project have seized on the news, the developer says it’s just a result of the germination of seeds from the earlier illicit plantation. (Terence Chea, “Trouble in bloom at Calif. development site”, AP/Boston Globe, Jul. 17).

“After six years of regulations and restrictions that have cost builders, local governments and landowners an estimated $100 million, new research suggests the ‘threatened’ Preble’s mouse in fact never existed. It instead seems to be genetically identical to the Bear Lodge meadow jumping mouse, which is considered common enough not to need protection.” (Mead Gruver, “Research: Endangered Mouse Never Existed”, AP/Las Vegas Sun, Jun. 11; “More mice could muddy waters in Preble’s mouse fight”, AP/Casper Star Tribune, May 14)(more on endangered species).