Overlawyered » Georgia

May 22 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 22 May 2012 04:10:24 +0000

Lacey Act madness: might Feds be empowered to disrupt summer concerts by seizing musicians’ Gibsons? [Bedard, DC Examiner; earlier; recent Heritage Foundation work; reworded to reflect comment from "Density Duck," below]
Contributors to new “Privatization Blog” include friend of this blog Coyote, e.g. here and here;
“Big Government Causes Hyper-Partisanship in the Judicial Appointment Process” [Ilya Shapiro] Fuels Culture War, too: “The faster the state expands, the more likely it is to violate your values” [Matt Welch]
Demagogy on expatriates: Schumer proposal for stiff tax on emigrants may have read better in original German [Ira Stoll, Roger Pilon/Cato, Paul Caron/TaxProf]
Georgia high court considers $459 million fax-spam verdict [AJC, AP, my take] “Hot fuel” class actions enrich the usual suspects [PoL]
New rebuttal to trial lawyer/HBO movie “Hot Coffee” [Victor Schwartz et al, auto-plays video] Ted Frank crossed swords with Litigation Lobby on the movie in January, particularly on the question of coffee temperature and the Liebeck case [PoL]
Overlawyered “will become the first [law] blog teenager this summer” [Bruce Carton, Legal Blog Watch] “I’ve been a fan of Walter Olson’s Overlawyered blog for years.” [Amy Alkon, Advice Goddess] Thanks!

Tags: accolades, endangered species, Georgia, hot coffee, judicial nominations, on other blogs, taxes

May 22 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Self-defense, black on white

Walter Olson — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:47:45 +0000

Radley Balko on the John McNeil case from Georgia. By reversing some of the assumed racial valences, will it give partisans on both sides reason to think harder about both the value of self-defense rights and the importance of a neutral rule of law? Well, one can hope.

Tags: crime and punishment, Georgia, self-defense

Self-defense, black on white is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Legal woes of “invisible” man

Walter Olson — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:41:42 +0000

He had previously faced charges of, yes, failure to appear [Lowering the Bar]

Tags: Georgia, humor

Legal woes of “invisible” man is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

September 19 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 05:34:48 +0000

Educator: please don’t bring lawyers to parent-teacher meetings [Ron Clark, CNN] Steve Brill: what I found when I investigated NYC teacher “rubber rooms” [Reuters] “The Six Dumbest Things Schools Are Doing in the Name of Safety” [Cracked] School waterfall liability [Lincoln, Neb. Journal-Star]
As predicted: “Dodd-Frank Paperwork a Bonanza for Consultants and Lawyers” [NYT]
“Running out of common drugs” [Josh Bloom, NY Post] Pharmaceutical shortages: the role of Medicare price controls [Richard Epstein, Hoover; earlier here, here, etc.]
DoT insists on exposing private flight plans online. Yoo-hoo, privacy advocates? [Steve Chapman]
New class action law in Mexico includes loser-pays provision [WSJ]
Newt Gingrich candidacy revives memories of his 1995 call for death penalty (with “mass executions”) for drug smuggling [NYT archive via Josh Barro; see also @timothy_watson "Sounds kinda like Shariah Law to me.")
"Cy pres slush fund in Georgia under ethics investigation" [PoL]

Tags: aviation, class actions, cy pres, Georgia, illegal drugs, loser pays, Mexico, pharmaceuticals, schools, teacher tenure

September 19 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Annals of prosecutorial stunts

Walter Olson — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 06:40:49 +0000

Prosecutors in a Georgia murder trial produced a birthday cake and proceeded to sing “Happy Birthday” to the deceased child victim for the benefit of the jury as well as a national Court TV audience. The defense lawyer failed to object, and the Georgia Supreme Court declined to order a new trial. [A Public Defender, Balko]

Tags: Georgia, prosecution

Annals of prosecutorial stunts is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Best law firm sign?

Walter Olson — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 05:13:32 +0000

Atlas carrying the law firm’s weight on his shoulders: a mobile photo from Steve Dillard of Georgia.

Tags: chasing clients, Georgia

Best law firm sign? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Claim: it’s “open season” for saying bad things about lawyers

Walter Olson — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 05:04:20 +0000

And that’s just so unfair, according to Lester Tate, president of the State Bar of Georgia. After all, it’s not as if lawyers have a lot of power or behave aggressively or hurtfully toward anyone else, right? “Particularly abhorrent are the attacks that come from candidates who are lawyers themselves.” Where’s their professional solidarity? [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

Tags: bar associations, Georgia, lawyers

Claim: it’s “open season” for saying bad things about lawyers 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

May 3 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 03 May 2010 11:15:12 +0000

Lawmakers in Georgia vote for bill to forbid forced micro-chipping after listening respectfully to “this happened to me” story [Popehat]
“Why does the Wall Street regulation overhaul give FTC authority over the Internet?” [Morrissey and WaPo via Gillespie]
“Woman alleges termination due to gender, not sleeping on the job” [SE Texas Record]
Writers’ Union of Canada surprisingly unfriendly toward writers’ freedom regarding fair use/fair dealing [BoingBoing]
Despite purported bar on strategic use, Senate bill to stay deportation of illegal aliens while workplace claims are pending would create incentive to come up with such claims [Fox, Employer's Lawyer]
“California Magistrate Scoffs at Plaintiff’s MySpace Page, But Awards Damages Anyway” [Abnormal Use]
State of free speech in Britain: police confront man over political sign in window of his home, arrest preacher over anti-gay remarks [Mail and more, Telegraph via Steyn, related from Andrew Sullivan and MWW]
“Should Tort Law Be Tougher on Lawyers?” [Alex Long, TortsProf]

Tags: Canada, copyright, Federal Trade Commission, free speech, Georgia, MySpace

May 3 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

New at Point of Law

Walter Olson — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:32:59 +0000

Things you’re missing if you’re not following my other site:

Rick Esenberg on health care reform and the Constitution (with Mark Steyn link, no less). And Peggy Little on shifting views of state AGs’ role;
A first: attorneys nailed in asbestos fraud (more: Law.com)
Jonathan Wilson: Georgia high court strikes down medical malpractice damages cap, while upholding offer of judgment rule and emergency room liability standard.
“That nice Mr. Smith does not have to pay this personally, does he?” Jurors and insurance;
James Copland on the friends of Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid;
Lawyers up, lobbyists down, which creates opportunities for arbitrage in D.C.

Tags: asbestos, Georgia, Harry Reid, insurance, lobbyists, Washington D.C.

New at Point of Law is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system