August 10 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Annals of rape allegations is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Client, lawyer charged with extortion over settlement talks is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Update: lawyer’s baseless demand letter amounted to extortion is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Deceased Austin lawyer probed over demand letters to restaurants is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“The first time we ever lost a case in trial, it was 2001. We tried it in Beaumont, Texas, and lost $7.5 million. . . . The judge sat there through the trial reading a newspaper. At one point an objection was made, the bailiff taps him on the shoulder and says ‘judge, objection is being made.’ He looks at our lawyer and says ‘overruled.’ The plaintiffs’ lawyer raises his hand and says ‘no, judge, it was me.’ He says ‘sustained’ and goes back to reading the paper.” …

[U.S. Silica CEO John A.] Ulizio shares a memo that plaintiffs’ lawyer Joe Gibson sent to silica defendants in 2004 with a blunt offer: Settle our 9,000 cases for $900 million, or pay $1.5 billion in pretrial discovery alone, plus an even bigger verdict. “That’s the genius of the economics of litigation from the plaintiffs’ perspective. Sue a lot of people, sue on behalf of a lot of plaintiffs, get into an adverse jurisdiction, and then don’t make too big of a demand, so you can settle it for a relatively small percentage of the cost of defending the case,” Mr. Ulizio says.

Kim Strassel has a must-read account of how U.S. Silica beat a mass-tort fraud attempting to steal its solvency—and did so almost entirely by the luck of the MDL draw, as a different judge might have refused to conduct the hearings that exposed the wrongdoing. (See also Michael Krauss at Point of Law.)

Note that that $900 million proposal for 9000 bogus cases works out to $100,000/case—which is exactly what the Vioxx litigation settled for.

Beaumont justice and the silicosis mass torts is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Stroock & Stroock’s Daniel A. Rozansky and Scott M. Pearson have an op-ed in today’s San Francisco Chronicle discussing problems with a similar California law. California prohibits businesses from requesting or requiring “personal identification information” while accepting a credit-card payment; this includes address and phone number, but doesn’t specify what else. Entrepreneurial trial lawyers are asking courts to hold that it includes harmless information like ZIP codes: since the statute provides for $1000/violation damages in the absence of a showing of harm without a cap, extortionate lawsuits are easy to create–and a further drag on the already-suffering California economy.

“Sued for seeking a ZIPcode?” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Now Robertson is back in the news leveling bizarre charges against another of her former paramours, Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher. Lowering the Bar has details (Dec. 14).

Tyna Marie Robertson back in the news is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it historically the case that someone who says “Pay me money or I will file a lawsuit and issue press releases that reveal private facts you find to be embarrassing” guilty of blackmail or extortion in other contexts?  What distinguishes this case–especially when the underlying allegations are so legally flimsy?

A question about the AutoAdmit litigation is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Deep pocket files: The Great White shakedown winds down is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system