With a deadline looming for me, I expect to be posting less this week. Fortunately Peter Morin, who’s guestblogged here before, has agreed to step in to fill the gap. Check out Peter’s regular site, WaveMaker.
Posts tagged as:
guestbloggers
Thanks to Jason Barney, from the Seattle area, for filling in while I met a deadline. Remember, if you’re interested in guestblogging, that it’s fine to approach us well in advance; we’ll probably need some help before and during the holidays, for example.
Ted and I both have onerous deadlines to meet over the next two weeks, so we’ve got an opening for a guestblogger or two who might like to drop by for a week’s stint. Those who’ve guested before are welcome to consider a return engagement, too. Contact editor – [at] – this domain name.
Thanks to Skip Oliva for helping fill in here again over the past week. Skip’s posts drew notice from, among others, Prof. Bainbridge and Liberal Order. You can read more of his work at the Voluntary Trade Council blog and the Mises Economics blog.
It’s time to end my week of guest-blogging here. Thanks again to Walter Olson and Ted Frank for indulging my ramblings. Since I’ve used most of my posts to dwell on the evils of antitrust regulation, I’d like to try and go out on a more positive note.
Our thanks to Steve Hantler of Chrysler for some provocative posts which stirred considerable reader interest. His post on global warming litigation drew links from (among others) Prof. Bainbridge and New York magazine’s “Intelligencer”.
Next up in this summer’s series of weekly guest bloggers is something new for us: a prominent voice from the business community. Steven Hantler, Assistant General Counsel for Government and Regulation at DaimlerChrysler, directs the automaker’s class-action, consumer-litigation and litigation-communications functions; outside the company he’s known as a tireless advocate for lawsuit reform, on which he’s become a veteran of state legislative initiatives and electoral battles. While new to blogging (so far as I’m aware), he’s the author of numerous articles in law reviews and more popular outlets, most recently in the magazine Directorship where he rated and assessed the fairness of each of the fifty states’ court systems from a litigation defense point of view (PDF). He’s also closely associated with the American Justice Partnership, which has links to many of his writings and speeches.
Also, and entirely unrelated to the above, check back tomorrow afternoon, Tuesday, for an announcement which may be of interest to some readers, especially those of a political bent.
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Our thanks to Ron Coleman who enlivened the site this week. His posts have stirred considerable comment around the blogosphere, especially the one on Rachel Corrie’s family’s suit against Caterpillar, discussed by (among others) Prof. Bainbridge, Jonathan Zasloff, Megan McArdle, and Zasloff again.
And stay tuned as another guestblogger is on deck to join us in the coming week.
So on the eve of the Sabbath (for me), I end my week of guest-blogging offering conceptually loftier reporting of loftier, if heretical, overlawyering of a Central European kind (hat tip to a blog called Religion Clause).
Now, we all remember this popular number from law school — United States ex rel. Gerald Mayo v. Satan and his Staff (“Mayo“), the guy who unsuccessfully sued The Prince of Lies (instead of hiring one) in federal court. Now a court in Timisoara, Western Romania, has dismissed a lawsuit purportedly against God Himself by Mircea Pavel, 40, who is serving 20 years in prison for murder. He has some issues, only not justiciable ones, it seems. The English is Interfax’s, and their regular English-speaking guy seems to be in the Catskills this weekend, so let’s work our way through this together, with Defendant’s help:
Failing to [receive an] answer [to] his prayers, the prisoner sued the [sic] God for “fraud, betrayal of trust, corruption and influence peddling.”
Pavel brought charges against “the defendant God, who lives in the heavens and is represented in Romania by the Orthodox Church,” the Evenimentul Zilei daily reported.
According to the act [lawsuit?], during the baptismal service he “drew a conclusion with [entered into a stipulation with?] the defense” to rescue him from any disaster.
“But the contract’s terms were offended [breached], despite of [sic] my payment in different forms and numerous compellations by way of prayers,” Pavel said in his lawsuit.
Eventually the court dismissed the case, ruling that “God is not subject to law and does not have an address.”
No address?! Now that is heretical; He is, as we know, found everywhere. Well, these folks just recently got rid of Communism, so we can be charitable on the theological training.
But the subject matter jurisdiction point is well taken. There may be other problems with the alleged contract, including most of the grounds for dismissal relied on in Mayo. Also: Pavel’s capacity to enter into a contract (Orthodox baptism is done in infancy); the statute of frauds (or its Soviet-era Romanian equivalent) on several counts; and, of course, in a suit against God, there must always be recourse to the defenses in equity — the plaintiff, the murderer Pavel, comes to court with some very unclean hands.
Give Pavel credit, though, and not just for going after the deep pockets. He believes God had a role in his misfortune, even if, perhaps, he has failed to name an indispensible necessary party — namely Mircea Pavel.
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Thanks for hosting me! It’s been a pleasure. Stay in touch at my law blog, LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®, or the entirely more wide open Likelihood of Success.
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Thanks to Christian Schneider of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute for tending the fires over the past week. Check in to the WPRI blog and Atomic Trousers to read more of his work. We’ll be welcoming more guestbloggers as the summer continues.
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It appears that I have won the Guestblogger Pageant (despite falling down and being booed by angry Mexicans), so here’s a little bit about me. My name is Christian Schneider, and I work for the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute here in lovely Madison, Wisconsin. I run the WPRI blog, a little personal project called Atomic Trousers, and as a former legislative staffer, I blogged pseudonymously as Dennis York (a blog that could generously be described as humorous). I am originally from Alexandria, VA, and I have a master’s degree in political science from the prestigious Marquette University in Milwaukee (which means I am qualified to read the newspaper). I also occasionally contribute commentaries to the show “Here and Now” on Wisconsin Public Television.
While I am not an attorney, I am a long time fan of Overlawyered.com. Plus, there’s a reasonable chance Jessica Alba will be filing a restraining order against me sometime soon, so I thought it might be a good idea to familiarize myself with the legal community.
Here are a couple past posts that people seemed to find moderately inoffensive:
Scientists to Harvest Seniors for their Coupons
Keep Your Laws Out of My Pants (and a Follow-Up)
When Religions Lobby
So there’s my resume. References available upon request.
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We’ve had a record response to our call for guestblogging volunteers, and the first in a series of guests will be dropping by tomorrow to begin a week-long stint. If you’ve been meaning to volunteer but haven’t, go ahead and drop us a line — there may still be openings later in the summer.
It’s getting to be that season. Guest blogging for a week at Overlawyered is a great way to call attention to your blog (you do have one, don’t you?) or dip your toe into blogging if you’ve written in other formats. Return guestbloggers are more than welcome too. If the idea appeals to you, drop me a line at editor – at – [this domain name] – dot – com.
I’m happy to announce that David Nieporent has kindly agreed to stay on as a regular contributor to Overlawyered. David’s writing also appears at his site Jumping to Conclusions as well as at his new venture with Ron Coleman, Likelihood of Success. His guest posts here in recent weeks have definitely struck a chord among readers. Congratulate us, and him!
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David Nieporent has completed the customary week in the guest-blogger’s chair but we’ve invited him to stay on and do some more posting, and he’s generously agreed to give it a try. Congratulate us/him…
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I want to thank Walter Olson and Ted Frank for honoring me by giving me an opportunity to guest blog here while Ted is away this week.
First, I guess I should introduce myself, for those of you wondering who the heck I am. I’m an attorney licensed in New Jersey, with a practice which focuses on commercial litigation. Aside from myself, I have several relatives who are attorneys, so it should be clear that I have nothing against lawyers. (In fact, despite all the evidence to the contrary here on Overlawyered, I happen to think we perform a useful function.)
My axe to grind is with those (such as the folks over at the website Ted affectionately calls “Bizarro-Overlawyered”) who want to use the courts, not to enforce agreements or to compensate the victims of wrongdoing, but merely as a way to transfer wealth from corporations to trial lawyers, ostensibly on behalf of consumers.
One of my first close encounters with overlawyering was in the early 1990s, when a classmate of mine got drunk, climbed up on a train, and electrocuted himself; coincidentally, this old incident was mentioned on Overlawyered just a few weeks ago. At the time, I was perhaps naively shocked to find out that someone who was so obviously in the wrong could successfully point a finger elsewhere (or in this case, a lot of fingers) and cash in. The case had everything: a grossly irresponsible plaintiff, innocent defendants whose only fault was having deep pockets, and even the failure of immunity laws to prevent abuse of the tort system. Since then, I’ve become less naive, but I’m no less shocked at these types of stories.
Oh, and I used to blog about politics more generally at Jumping to Conclusions, although I haven’t updated that in quite a long while. In any case, I’m happy to be here.
My sincerest thanks to all three of the guestbloggers who (along with Ted) have kept things lively over the past two weeks: George M. Wallace, whose work you can follow at Declarations and Exclusions and A Fool in the Forest; Kevin Underhill of Lowering the Bar; and Skip Oliva of the Voluntary Trade Blog. Well done! I also notice that the comments section has been humming along busily. I should go away more often.
Greetings, Overlawyered readers. I’m your other post-Christmas guestblogger, Skip Oliva. I’m not a lawyer, but I do write about legal subjects. For the past four years, I’ve run the Voluntary Trade Council, a public policy group that focuses on antitrust regulation. I maintain VTC’s weblog as well as write for the Mises Economics Blog. During my stint here I’ll be discussing some of the more interesting antitrust cases from the past year.
