Overlawyered » North Carolina

May 10 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 10 May 2013 12:39:18 +0000

Electric-car maker Tesla doesn’t get many kind words from free market types, but here’s one [Coyote] More: North Carolina auto dealer lobby strikes back [News & Observer]
One lawyer’s selection of the worst lawyer billboards, though they’re far from the worst we’ve seen [John M. Phillips]
House hearings on litigation abuse and on litigation and international competitiveness [Judiciary, more, Point of Law]
Ninth Circuit cites conflict of interest, throws out credit reporting class settlement [Trial Insider; Daniel Fisher]
Private pensions, market-based water rates and more: “Australian travel notes from a policy wonk” [Alex Tabarrok]
“Use elevators properly. Riding outside of cars can be dangerous and deadly” [Scouting NY, seen in Bronx apartment building]
“It’s long been my view that blawgs, law blogs, are the greatest peer reviewed content ever created.” [Greenfield]

Tags: Australia, auto dealership protection laws, chasing clients, class action settlements, elevators and escalators, legal blogs, North Carolina, U.S. House of Representatives

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

Criminal background checks… for dog owners?

Walter Olson — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:29:51 +0000

North Carolinians should hold on to their long-established right to own whatever dog breed they prefer without having to petition the authorities for permission, argues Patrick at Popehat. The bill, filed by state Rep. Rodney Moore (D-Charlotte), would give police departments discretion to deny permits to would-be owners and would require that owners “submit to a criminal background check and enroll in a four hour course sponsored by the Humane Society on responsible ownership of pit bulls, rottweilers, mastiffs, chows, and similar ‘aggressive dog breeds.’” More: OhMiDog.

P.S. Flagged by GraniteGrok, a commenter at the News & Observer: “When are we going to close the dog show loophole?”

Tags: dog bites, North Carolina

Criminal background checks… for dog owners? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Environment roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 04:05:20 +0000

Doughnut oil and the environment: NYT misses a story of unintended consequences [Ira Stoll, SmarterTimes]
N.C.: “Guy Who Runs Wilderness Camp Told to Install Sprinklers, Use County Approved Lumber” [Katherine Mangu-Ward]
“With Proposed Policy Change, EPA Fully Embraces Role of ‘Environmental Justice’ Advocate” [Cory Andrews, WLF]
“While the taxes… are irritating, what has really killed my interest in expanding in California is the regulatory burden.” [Coyote on SLOLeaks blog; another California Coastal Commission horror story]
Natural crop breeding = safe, biotech-assisted breeding = unsafe? Tale of the toxic potato teaches otherwise [Maggie Koerth-Baker, BoingBoing] (broken link fixed now)
Peak Oil? Welcome instead to Trough Oil, as titanic new fossil fuel supplies begin coming online [Andrew Sullivan]
Deregulation of accessory dwellings is a reform both free-marketeers and New Urbanists in search of density can get behind [David Alpert, Greater Greater Washington]

Tags: California, environment, Environmental Protection Agency, North Carolina, oil industry, real estate, restaurants

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

At Duke on Friday

Walter Olson — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:54:09 +0000

On Friday at Duke Law School, the Duke Forum for Law and Social Change is giving its annual symposium, this year’s subject being legal approaches to obesity prevention. The organizers have kindly invited me to participate in a late morning panel, where my views are likely to differ from those of the other participants; details here.

If you’d like to book me to speak at your own event or campus, contact me directly at editor – at – overlawyered – dot – com, through the Cato Institute’s Events staff, or, if you’re associated with a Federalist Society chapter, through the Society’s national office.

Tags: live in person, North Carolina, obesity

At Duke on Friday is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Doormat warning

Walter Olson — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 18:47:52 +0000

Courtesy Michael Schearer:

(& welcome Above the Law, Free-Range Kids readers)

Tags: North Carolina, wacky warnings

Doormat warning is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Don’t

Walter Olson — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 13:57:49 +0000

If you’re a lawyer who specializes in defending DWIs (or even if you’re not) it’s probably a poor idea to charge your clients extra for getting their court records backdated [Charlotte Observer; ABA Journal; James Crouch, Wake County, N.C., takes plea and gives up law license]

Tags: alcohol, don't, North Carolina

Don’t is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Free speech roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 11:55:45 +0000

Why did Chevron subpoena a lawprof/blogger who took opposite side in Ecuador case? [Kevin Jon Heller, Opinio Juris]
“Paleo Diet Lawsuit Dismissed By Court in Blow to Free Expression” [Brian Doherty, Reason; earlier here, etc.]
“[National Hispanic Media Coalition] Renews Call for Federal Government to Study Hate Speech in Media” [Volokh]
Call for “oversight board of regional experts” to direct more YouTube takedowns [Ann Althouse]
No more dirty looks: North Carolina students now face possible jail time for what they say about teachers online [Reason]
Popehat sampler: “Schadenfreude Is Not A Free Speech Value; Holmes’s fire-in-theater quote the most “pervasive lazy cheat in American dialogue about free speech”; “Zampolit Angela McCaskill, Report For Reeducation.”
EU “terror” web-muzzle schemes: “We should start to freak out, but in a sort of preliminary way” [Ars Technica]

Tags: Chevron, hate speech, North Carolina, subpoenas, terrorism, YouTube

Free speech roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Law enforcement and prosecution roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 04:08:20 +0000

Small favors dept.: police chiefs group supports use of drones, but concedes they probably shouldn’t be armed [USA Today; more on drones, Michael Kirkland, UPI, Paul Enzinna, PoL]. Earlier here, here, and here.
Gibson Guitar settlement with feds controls what it can say about the case. Dangers in that, no? [Harvey Silverglate, earlier here, here, etc.]
“Mission Creep Leads TSA to Racially Profile in Pursuit of Non-Terrorists to Arrest” [Virginia Postrel]
Guestblogging at The Agitator, William Peterson outlines doubts about prosecutions that include the pursuit of Victoria Sprouse on mortgage-fraud charges in North Carolina, abuse accusations relating to the Creative Frontiers school near Sacramento, and the conviction of Courtney Bisbee at the hands of Maricopa County D.A. (and Overlawyered favorite) Andrew Thomas in Arizona;
Canada: “Pay your dog license on time or we’ll arrest your wife!” [Sherwood Park News via @derekjamesfrom]
“Overcriminalization, the comic” [Ted at PoL; plus videos from NACDL]
“Police enlist young offenders as confidential informants. But the work is high-risk, largely unregulated, and sometimes fatal.” [Sarah Stillman, New Yorker]

Tags: Arizona, Canada, child abuse, crime and punishment, North Carolina, prosecutorial abuse

Law enforcement and prosecution roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Against North Carolina Amendment One

Walter Olson — Tue, 08 May 2012 13:05:37 +0000

Patrick at Popehat, who lives in Durham, N.C., interviewed his neighbors Gale and Elizabeth, who are a same sex couple, “about how Amendment One would affect them. This is what they had to say.” Earlier here (conservatives who oppose Amendment One include John Locke Foundation president John Hood) and here (most North Carolinians don’t realize measure would ban legal recognition of civil unions and domestic partnerships).

P.S. More from Richard Painter. And Gene Nichol (UNC Law) writes about the other time North Carolina amended its constitution to restrict marriage, which was back in 1875 [News & Observer]

Tags: North Carolina, same-sex marriage

Against North Carolina Amendment One is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

May 3 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 03 May 2012 04:07:59 +0000

Salute to Bill Childs, who blogged with distinction at TortsProf, on departing academia for private practice [Sheila Scheuerman and Chris Robinette]
North Carolina voters who know that Amendment One would ban civil unions oppose the measure by 22 points; unfortunately, most don’t know that [Greg Sargent, WaPo; earlier] Patrick at Popehat proposes 5 things Tar Heels can do to help defeat it;
Cellphone app to hail nearby taxi? DC government searches for a way to keep that illegal [Julian Sanchez, Cato at Liberty]
Can’t the left-wing Alliance for Justice be at least minimally consistent on Supreme Court ethics? [Freedman, Legal Ethics Forum]
On lawyer jokes [David Conway and commenters, Law and Liberty]
“2,000 patents have been granted for shaped pasta” [Doctorow; see also Martin Weiss ("It pays to noodle around in the lab")]
Texas barratry law trips up state rep [Southeast Texas Record, ABA Journal]

Tags: cellphones, humor, legal blogs, North Carolina, patent quality, same-sex marriage, Texas, Washington D.C.

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