- 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!
Tagged as:
accolades,
endangered species,
Georgia,
hot coffee,
judicial nominations,
on other blogs,
taxes
Listicles and award contests from around the blawgosphere: Popehat on censorious clowns, Legal Ethics Forum, Trask on class action cases and articles, White Collar Crime Law Prof, Heritage on worst federal regs, Greenfield on best criminal law blawg post (and winner), Faces of Lawsuit Abuse (Chamber) on most ridiculous lawsuits, Balko on worst prosecutor (and finalists).
P.S. From The Week, “8 craziest lawsuits of 2011.” This in turn prompted a NYC personal injury attorney named David Waterbury, taking up valuable real estate at Eric Turkewitz’s, to write a counter-article saying the cases weren’t so bad, which involved me in the comments section after I observed Waterbury spreading the trial lawyer-favored line that the “Kara Walton” series of bogus lawsuit stories was a purposeful political fabrication.
Tagged as:
on other blogs,
urban legends about lawsuits
Several interesting reactions to my book already from around the blogosphere:
- University of Illinois law professor Larry Ribstein (who commented at my speech there last week): “There was a good turnout and a lot of deserved buzz for this very interesting book. … The book deserves a lot of attention, particularly from law professors and their students as a source of critical perspective on trends in legal education. There is little doubt that the ideas Olson criticizes are hatched mainly in law schools rather than by practicing lawyers and judges, and have led to costly and questionable litigation.” And a response from Scott Greenfield, who says the book’s premise that law professors have great influence over the state of the law “warms the cockles of lawprofs’ hearts given that most of the legal profession considers their influence marginal at best.”
- Ted Frank: “should be required reading for law students, and deserves a place on any Federalist Society member’s bookshelf.”
- Alan Crede writes a lengthy and thoughtful review at Boston Personal Injury Lawyer Blog. He notes that on, e.g., the work of legal clinics, “the traditional taxonomy of liberal and conservative breaks down when you start to deal with many fine-grain legal issues.” And: “There are at least two law professors – Tim Wu and Elizabeth Warren (who is now in the Obama administration) – who possess rock star cachet in progressive circles” and can hardly be charged with any sort of airy unwillingness to engage with the demands of practical law reform. Crede generously concludes “whether you agree with Olson’s conclusions or not, there is a lot that you can learn from ‘Schools For Misrule.’”
- Perhaps my favorite review so far (aside from the great one in Publisher’s Weekly) is from Ira Stoll at Future of Capitalism. It begins: “Of all the possible explanations for Barack Obama, one of the most intriguing is that, like Bill Clinton before him, he was both a law school graduate and a law school professor.” Stoll summarizes many of the book’s themes, particularly as regards “public interest”, human-rights and institutional-reform litigation, and includes this takeaway: “Any donor or foundation wanting to reshape legal education would find Mr. Olson’s book a fine place to begin.”
Tagged as:
law schools,
legal blogs,
on other blogs,
Schools for Misrule
- EPA considers petition to ban lead sporting ammunition and fishing sinkers [National Shooting Sports Federation via Zincavage]
- Claremont-McKenna economist Eric Helland, known for his work on litigation policy, joins the group blog Truth on the Market;
- European Union expresses concern about provisions of Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act [Sidley Austin, PDF letter courtesy Learning Resources]
- Michigan judge rules two waitresses can proceed with weight discrimination claim against Hooters [WSJ Law Blog, earlier]
- San Francisco prosecutors charge former MoFo partner and wife with misappropriating nearly $400,000 from funds earmarked for autistic son’s services [The Recorder]
- When litigants demand to depose the opponent’s CEO [Ted at PoL]
- Wal-Mart seeks Supreme Court review of billion-dollar job-bias class action [Ohio Employer's Law]
- If you want to hire a home attendant to keep grandma from needing a nursing home, better hope you’re not in California [five years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Environmental Protection Agency,
guns,
obesity,
on other blogs,
Wal-Mart
Things you’re missing if you aren’t checking out my other site:
Tagged as:
arbitration,
CPSIA,
CPSIA and Congress,
EEOC,
Florida,
loser pays,
Medicare,
on other blogs,
politics,
qui tam,
retroactive,
subpoenas,
Toyota,
trial lawyer earmarks
Kevin Underhill rounds up four amusing miscellanies at his excellent site. From the fourth:
In June, a committee of the Oregon Legislature stuck some language into a bill that would (I think) have briefly redefined “no” as “yes.” Allegedly, Democrats were trying to head off an initiative they feared Republicans would later put on the ballot, asking voters to reject a spending measure. The bill provided that a vote to reject the measure would be counted as a vote to adopt it:
A measure referred to the people by referendum petition may not be adopted unless it receives an affirmative majority of the total votes cast on the measure rejecting the measure. For purposes of this subsection, a measure is considered adopted if it is rejected by the people.
The bill was amended again a few days later to remove the controversial language, after it became public.
P.S. And another installment missed above (“We are all tarnished by your stupidity.”)
Tagged as:
humor,
legislature,
on other blogs,
Oregon
- Alleged wife murderer “sues J.P. Morgan for cutting off his home equity line of credit.” Reason cited: “imprisonment”. [Joe Weisenthal, Business Insider via Fountain]
- Charles Krauthammer on the need to “reform our insane malpractice system. … I used to be a doctor, I know how much is wasted on defensive medicine.” [Der Spiegel interview]
- Popehat looks back on turning two, in customarily entertaining fashion [unsigned collective post]
- Sigh: “Chamber of Commerce Sues ‘Yes Men’ for Fake News Conference” [ABA Journal]
- Coverage mandates explain a lot about why health insurance is so much costlier in some states than others [Coyote] More: Tyler Cowen (autism treatment)
- Watch out for those default judgments: PepsiCo hit with $1.26 billion award in Wisconsin state court, says word of suit never got to responsible officials within the company [National Law Journal]
- Ohio appeals court: characterizing incident as “Baby Mama Drama” is not prosecutorial misconduct [The Briefcase]
- Ideological tests for educators? On efforts to screen out would-be teachers not seen as committed enough to “social justice” [K.C. Johnson, Minding the Campus]
Tagged as:
banks,
defensive medicine,
insurance,
mortgages,
Ohio,
on other blogs,
prosecution,
schools,
soft drinks,
Wisconsin
