Overlawyered » Joe Biden

September 30 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:51:48 +0000

Trips over firefighter’s bag at rescue scene, now wants cash from city [Salem, Mass., News]
Oh, my: “Bidens owe SimmonsCooper [huge mass tort firm in Madison County, Ill.] $1 million in hedge fund deal” [MC Record, earlier] Update: plenty more in a Wednesday WSJ editorial.
Florida Supreme Court rejects latest attempt by attorney Montgomery Blair Sibley to resist discipline [North Country Gazette]
“Women’s advocacy groups have persuaded Congress to begin intensive Title IX equity reviews of science programs.” Bad news for American academic science [Sommers, AEI/Teachers College Record]
You may have run into everyone’s favorite fashion law blog. But did you know there’s also a furniture law blog? [Womble Carlyle; via Blawg Review #179 at Securing Innovation]
Eavesdrop on jury deliberations, get wind of defense verdict, move quick to settle case? That would be a very naughty thing for a lawyer to do [American Justice Partnership]
Myrhvold the last straw: “Up until now I have been criticized in many corners for taking the side of so-called patent trolls. …No tax policy could ever do as much damage to an economy.” [Gene Quinn, PatentFools.com, also via above]
Okay, towns, build sidewalks or else [four years ago on Overlawyered]

Tags: Biden, fire departments, Joe Biden, Madison County, Montgomery Blair Sibley, patent trolls, technology, Title IX

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

Microblog 2008-09-24

Walter Olson — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:59:59 +0000

Both McC and Palin seem cold-blooded about firing people, might be seen as feature rather than bug [McLaughlin/Baseball Crank] #
Legal obstacles to four day work week [Point of Law via @lilyhill] #
Yep, that’s Joe: Biden said he’s “done more than any other senator combined” for trial lawyers [Point of Law] #
Day of protest against software patents [OUT-LAW via @lawtweets] #
Related? “EPO staff strike over patent quality” [OUT-LAW] #
What a curious Nigerian scam email, do you think it could be genuine? [Cernovich] #

Tags: Biden, Joe Biden, John McCain, patent quality, Sarah Palin, workplace

Microblog 2008-09-24 is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

September 11 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 04:09:45 +0000

It’s still not over: Judge Roy Pearson of lost-pants fame returns to court with appeal against Custom Cleaners owners, the Chung family [WJLA]
Columbus cops’ class action: dept. shouldn’t have asked us what our ailments were when we took sick leave [Dispatch]
Culture Warrior Jeff Bell hopes Palin will reverse trends that have “legitimated a contraceptive ethic” [Weekly Standard] Better not count on it [York, NRO "Corner"]
RIAA has now filed 30,000 lawsuits against file-sharing music fans [Wired "Threat Level", Ambrogi]
Recently at Point of Law: Ohio’s Supreme Court in the balance this November; Biden vs. legal reform; guestblogging by Peggy Little and Jane Genova; Lilly Ledbetter at Democratic convention; big Peter Angelos cellphone-cancer case strikes out; call for Australian no-fault cerebral palsy fund; and more;
Massachusetts high court ruling that docs can be sued over their patients’ medication-impaired behavior is predictably leading to new suits [Globe, Brockton hospital crash; earlier]
What Alinsky-style “community organizers” do [York, NRO via Bookworm Room] “Organizers break laws if they have to.” [Thomas Geoghegan @ Slate -- and he's being admiring]
California trial lawyers successfully gut original Schwarzenegger plan to reform award of punitive damages [four years ago on Overlawyered]

Tags: Australia, Barack Obama, Biden, disabled rights, Joe Biden, Lilly Ledbetter, Massachusetts, Ohio, police, punitive damages, RIAA and file sharing, Roy Pearson, Sarah Palin, wrong right

September 11 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

White House race roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:23:57 +0000

High-profile trial lawyer and Hillary fundraiser John Coale now backing McCain, believes plaintiff-friendly Sen. Lindsey Graham, a confidant of the GOP candidate, will sway him on liability issues [Gerstein, NY Sun, Tapper/ABC, Haddad/Newsweek] More on McCain-Graham friendship [New Republic]
Reasonably neutral evaluation of contrasting McCain and Obama positions [Chris Nichols, NC Trial Law Blog]
No Naderite he? Sen. Biden has generally taken a “protect the golden goose” approach toward his state’s niche as provider of corporate law [Pileggi, Bainbridge]
Palin’s views on legal reform mostly unknown; Alaska (like Delaware) has one of the most highly regarded state legal systems, and wouldn’t it be fun if the state’s distinctive and longstanding (if somewhat attenuated) loser-pays rule got mentioned in the campaign?
Lending spice to campaign: prospect that victorious Dems might criminally prosecute Bush officials [Guardian (U.K.), Memeorandum, OpenLeft ("we'll put people in prison" vows whistleblower trial lawyer/Democratic Florida Congressional candidate Alan Grayson)] Some differences of opinion among Obama backers on war crimes trials [Turley (Cass Sunstein flayed for go-slow approach); Kerr @ Volokh (Dahlia Lithwick doesn't think it has to be Nuremberg or nothing); earlier]
If anyone’s keeping track of these things, co-blogger Ted is much involved with the McCain campaign this fall, I am not involved with anyone’s, so discount (or don’t discount) accordingly.

Tags: Alaska, Barack Obama, Biden, Dahlia Lithwick, Delaware, Joe Biden, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, loser pays, Sarah Palin

White House race roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

September 3 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:05:21 +0000

Eeeeeeuw: House of Meats employees show reporter “they have all ten of their fingers” after customer reports human digit in her dish of oxtails [BayNews 9 Tampa]
Press keeps digging into Joe Biden ties to asbestos bar [American Lawyer, more links in PoL roundup]
Black eye for big law site FindLaw with reports that it’s been selling law firms links in editorial material, a practice sure to raise Google wrath [Oilman, Kevin O'Keefe/Real Lawyers Have Blogs, ABA Journal, Search Engine Land, National Post] More: WSJ on FindLaw’s denial; O’Keefe.
Overlawyered favorite Fred Baron, of Rielle Hunter generosity, much in evidence at Democratic convention [Dallas Morning News, ABC News] Texas trial lawyer Steve Susman is only individual lawyer listed as convention sponsor [AmLaw Daily, scroll]
As if legislative expansion of the Americans with Disabilities Act weren’t worry enough, 1,000 pages of new DoJ regulations will add billions in costs, as by requiring that 50 percent of miniature golf holes be wheelchair-accessible [Las Vegas Review-Journal via ABA Journal]
“Bond reduced for two fen-phen attorneys” in Kentucky [Lexington Herald-Leader, more]
Cozen O’Connor and insurers dealt big setback as Second Circuit’s Judge Jacobs rules they can’t sue Saudi government over 9/11 [Philadelphia Inquirer, more; related on FOIA, Legal Intelligencer; earlier here and here]
Jury awards $500,000 in malpractice suit against D.C.-based plaintiffs’ firm Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll [Legal Times]
Australia: “A serial protester who injured a policewoman during the G20 riots wants her conviction overturned so she can still practise as a lawyer.” [Melbourne Herald Sun, Julia Dehm]

Tags: asbestos, Australia, Biden, Cozen O'Connor, disabled rights, finger in the chili, Fred Baron, insurers, Joe Biden, Kentucky fen-phen settlement fraud, Michael Hausfeld, miniature golf, politics, Rielle Hunter, Saudi Arabia, September 11, stephen susman

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

Joe Biden and the trial lawyers redux

Ted Frank — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:11:12 +0000

Add the August 28 LA Times to the list of newspapers looking askance at Joe Biden and his family’s cozy relationship to judicial-hellhole asbestos attorneys, in this case Madison County’s SimmonsCooper. (Chuck Neubauer and Tom Hamburger, “Business dealings of Biden family could be problematic for him”, Aug. 28). Unfortunately, the article somehow manages to miss the rationale for creating the trust fund, which was the degree to which so much asbestos litigation in the country is abusive.

Update: also, Am Law Daily.

Tags: asbestos, Biden, Joe Biden, litigation lobby, Madison County, politics

Joe Biden and the trial lawyers redux is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Biden and the trial lawyers

Ted Frank — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:59:20 +0000

A USA Today story delves deeply into how Biden’s done the bidding of the litigation lobby special interest group, particularly with respect to the bipartisan asbestos litigation reform bill.

Tags: asbestos, Biden, Delaware, Joe Biden, litigation lobby, politics, tort reform

Biden and the trial lawyers is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Biden and civil liberties

Walter Olson — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 01:53:15 +0000

Wired.com, meet Radley Balko and Jeralyn Merritt.

Tags: Biden, crime and punishment, Joe Biden

Biden and civil liberties is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Edwards scandal updates

Walter Olson — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:20:16 +0000

Those who saw only the earliest version of our Friday post on Lee Rohn, the Virgin Islands attorney whose name came up in National Enquirer coverage, will want to check out the updated version, which notes Rohn’s categorical denial of the Enquirer story’s veracity and other important additions. Commenters have been adding to the picture as well;
Ted must be feeling prescient regarding his speculations about an Edwards-contributor refund class action now that Warren Buffett has weighed in on the idea [Kaus]. And in fact the Edwards campaign does seem to be refunding some contributions in interesting ways, if one account pans out (bundlers! Thomas Girardi! John O’Quinn!) [DBKP, more, yet more]
Edwards moneyman and perennial Overlawyered mentionee Fred Baron will be at the Democratic convention in Denver, and there’s little chance his name will fade from the news right away since he’s been a key backer of Sen. Biden as well [Matthew Mosk, WaPo]

Tags: Biden, Joe Biden, John Edwards, John O'Quinn, Lee Rohn, Thomas Girardi

Edwards scandal updates is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system