Overlawyered » Senate

February 29 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:17:27 +0000

Jackpot justice and New Jersey pharmacies (with both a Whitney Houston and a Ted Frank angle) [Fox, PoL, our Jan. 3 post]
New Mexico: “Trial lawyers object to spaceport limits” [Las Cruces Bulletin]
Dodd-Frank: too big not to fail [The Economist] Robert Teitelman (The Deal) on new Stephen Bainbridge book Corporate Governance After the Financial Crisis [HuffPo] Securities suits: “trial lawyers probably won’t be able to defend a defective system forever” [WSJ Dealpolitik]
Uh-oh: U.K. Labour opposition looks at unleashing U.S.-style class actions [Guardian] “U.K. Moves ‘No Win, No Fee’ Litigation Reforms to 2013″ [Suzi Ring, Legal Week]
More on controls on cold medicines as anti-meth measure [Radley Balko, Megan McArdle, Xeni Jardin, earlier here, here, here]
Recognizable at a distance: “In Germany, a Limp Domestic Economy Stifled by Regulation” [NY Times]
Fewer lawyers in Congress these days [WSJ Law Blog]

Tags: Germany, illegal drugs, New Jersey, New York Times, pharmaceuticals, regulation and its reform, securities litigation, Senate, spac, U.S. House of Representatives, United Kingdom

February 29 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

February 24 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 05:07:47 +0000

Melissa Kite, columnist with Britain’s Spectator, writes about her low-speed car crash and its aftermath [first, second, third, fourth]
NYT’s Nocera lauds Keystone pipeline, gets called “global warming denier” [NYTimes] More about foundations’ campaign to throttle Alberta tar sands [Coyote] Regulations mandating insurance “disclosures” provide another way for climate change activists to stir the pot [Insurance and Technology]
“Cop spends weeks to trick an 18-year-old into possession and sale of a gram of pot” [Frauenfelder, BB]
Federal Circuit model order, pilot program could show way to rein in patent e-discovery [Inside Counsel, Corporate Counsel] December Congressional hearing on discovery costs [Lawyers for Civil Justice]
Trial lawyer group working with Senate campaigns in North Dakota, Nevada, Wisconsin, Hawaii [Rob Port via LNL] President of Houston Trial Lawyers Association makes U.S. Senate bid [Chron]
Panel selection: “Jury strikes matter” [Ron Miller, Maryland Injury]
Law-world summaries/Seventeen syllables long/@legal_haiku (& for a similar treatment of high court cases, check out @SupremeHaiku)

Tags: Canada, climate change, discovery, environment, global warming, Hawaii, humor, illegal drugs, jury selection, low-speed auto collisions, Nevada, North Dakota, oil industry, patent litigation, politics, Senate, United Kingdom, Wisconsin

February 24 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The STOCK Act and Congressional inside trading

Walter Olson — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:49:20 +0000

DealBreaker and Prof. Bainbridge try to clarify what the proposed ban would do, and address fears that it would criminalize stock trading by persons not employed by Congress who learn of impending legislative developments. Related: Jim Copland.

Tags: Securities and Exchange Commission, Senate, U.S. House of Representatives

The STOCK Act and Congressional inside trading is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Hearings on Congressional insider trading

Walter Olson — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:00:57 +0000

They’re coming up within the next few days, but Prof. Bainbridge warns that the draft legislation circulating from the office of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is “bizarre” and “toothless.” Earlier here, here, etc.

More: Gillibrand’s office says the weakness of the proposal was due to an inadvertent drafting error and that it will be given teeth. C-SPAN covers the hearing, the SEC and Sen. Scott Brown make their views known, Todd Henderson and Larry Ribstein take a contrarian position, and Prof. Bainbridge covers the scholarly testimony.

Tags: Securities and Exchange Commission, Senate, U.S. House of Representatives

Hearings on Congressional insider trading is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

November 22 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:35:53 +0000

Furor continues over insider trading by Congress [Roger Parloff/Fortune, Bainbridge ("unimpressed" with reform proposal entitled STOCK Act), earlier] Rep. Bachus disputes claims in Peter Schweizer book [AW, Perry]
“Fort Hood victims’ families seek $750M from feds” [Kenneth Timmerman, Daily Caller]
“Chicago Lawyer Sues Southwest, Says Airline Breached Free-Drink Coupon Contract” [ABA Journal]
“Lawyer Solicitation: Penn State Sex Abuse Edition” [Turkewitz] Slate slags Merck CEO [Ted Frank]
Akaka Hawaii-racialization bill, smuggled in through the back door? [Ilya Shapiro, background]
Suits over Hurricane Irene electrical outages expected to spread [Connecticut Law Tribune, Chris Powell]
Fiasco envy? “RIAA Thinking Of Backing Righthaven” [Masnick, TechDirt] “Righthaven ordered to pay nearly $120,000 in attorney fees, court costs” [VegasInc., Ars Technica, American Power Blog]

Tags: airlines, contracts, Hawaii, military, RightHaven, Senate, terrorism, U.S. House of Representatives, Vioxx

November 22 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Busting Congress for insider trading

Walter Olson — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:57:45 +0000

Thanks to the sensational revelations from Hoover’s Peter Schweizer on 60 Minutes and elsewhere, the public is now aware of the uncanny investment success that members of the U.S. Congress enjoy when they personally bet on the stocks of companies with business in the capital. But is it lawful for them to be trading on inside information? I take up that question in my new Cato at Liberty post. More: Bainbridge, Stoll, @AndrewBreitbart.

Tags: Securities and Exchange Commission, Senate, U.S. House of Representatives

Busting Congress for insider trading is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Leahy hearing pushes “SCOTUS soft on business” theme

Walter Olson — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:49:59 +0000

Hans Von Spakovsky’s write-up (complete with Schools for Misrule mention, for which thanks) sums up the event: “Leahy stacks hearing, still loses.” More: Adler, Kendrick, Bader, Pincus, Richer/Kendrick, Stoll.

Tags: Schools for Misrule, Senate, Supreme Court

Leahy hearing pushes “SCOTUS soft on business” theme is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

February 13 roundup

Walter Olson — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 14:15:25 +0000

Rules for Growth: Promoting Innovation and Growth Through Legal Reform is new book from Kauffman Foundation in which “formidable” contributors including Henry Butler, George Priest, and Peter Schuck prescribe pro-growth policy changes across a variety of fields [available at Kauffman or on SSRN via contributor Larry Ribstein, Diana Furchtgott-Roth/Real Clear Markets]
Nick Farr is awfully apologetic (not really) for saying those mean things about Hot Coffee, the new documentary film presenting Lawsuit Lobby view of the world [Abnormal Use, earlier] Related: TBD, more. More: Bob Dorigo Jones.
AEP v. Connecticut global warming case invites courts to supplant other branches’ role [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
Washington jury awards $46 million to victim of shooting spree at Denny’s who charged negligent security [Kent Reporter, KOMO, Seattle Times, earlier]
New bipartisan Congressional Civil Justice Caucus forms on Capitol Hill [BLT, PoL]
Oh, Professor Tribe, your rhetorical moves on the Supreme Court and Obamacare are so transparent [Ann Althouse] (& Ilya Shapiro letter in NY Times)
DRI says “if you [defend] Med Mal cases the news isn’t good,” new filings show a drop; clients may take different view [For the Defense] James Pinkerton on med-mal reform [Serious Medicine Strategy] Jan. 20 medical liability hearing in the House [PoL]
Jury: “customer of size” not victim of airline bias [five years ago on Overlawyered]

Tags: climate change, global warming, medical malpractice, restaurants, Senate, Stella Liebeck, third party liability for crime, U.S. House of Representatives

February 13 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Food safety bill: goodbye, artisanal cheese?

Walter Olson — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 12:08:00 +0000

Even using the powers it has on the books now, according to one expert, the Food and Drug Administration could largely shut down the making of artisanal farmhouse cheese if it chose. This week the Senate will consider the Food Safety Modernization Act, which will put much more power in the agency’s hands and greatly ramp up regulatory and paperwork requirements for producers, though (in a welcome improvement) the new Senate version of the legislation does at least nod more toward the principle of “tiering” burdens for smaller local producers. Meanwhile, some press outlets continue to pretend that the only real debate is between do-nothing lawmakers who don’t care whether Americans die of food poisoning, and more interventionist lawmakers who are trying to keep that from happening. I’ve got a fuller report on the politics of the food bill — and of the lame duck Congress more generally — at Cato at Liberty.

More: Bill advances toward expected Senate floor vote Tuesday [WaPo]. The Daily Caller reports on continuing small-farmer concerns, and recalls a raw-milk raid; David Frum wonders about elitism and its taint; Michelle Malkin questions the lame-duck railroad (& thanks to both of the last two for kind links).

Tags: food safety, Senate

Food safety bill: goodbye, artisanal cheese? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

October 12 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 15:04:11 +0000

Representing Prof. Michael Krauss, Ted Frank will file objection to Classmates.com class action settlement [CCAF]
Not without condescension, Harvard historian/New Yorker writer Jill Lepore asks why Woodrow Wilson’s so disliked these days; Radley Balko offers some help [The Agitator, NYT "Room for Debate"]
China needs true private property rights, according to Charter 08 document, which helped Liu Xiaobo win Nobel Peace Prize [Tyler Cowen]
Axelrod “foreign funders under every rug” demagogy might be turned against his own allies [Stoll; New York Times refutes earlier Obama talking point; Atlantic Wire; Sullum]
R.I.P. influential class actions and mass torts scholar Richard Nagareda [Vanderbilt Law School]
“Web Seminar Makes Case for Patent Troll Lawsuit Targets to Fight Back” [Washington Legal Foundation Legal Pulse]
Contrary to WSJ report, if Congressional staffers are profiting in stock trades by way of insider knowledge, they probably do face some risk of legal liability [Bainbridge; a not entirely unrelated inside-trading controversy]
Underpublicized: “California’s Proposed ‘Green Chemistry’ Regulations Move Forward” [Wajert]

Tags: California, campaign regulation, class action settlements, patent trolls, Senate, Ted Frank, U.S. House of Representatives

October 12 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system