Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for November, 2008

“You’ve got yourself an unconfirmable nominee”

The buzz about a possible seat in the Cabinet for hothead scion and anti-vaccine crank Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. continues with a second article in Politico, this time shifting the speculation to the Environmental Protection Agency and citing “Democratic officials” who claim Obama is “strongly considering” RFK, Jr. for that post (Mike Allen, “Obama considers stars for Cabinet”, Nov. 5; earlier). Tim Noah at Slate shouts a timely “don’t”:

Environmental Protection Agency or Interior Department. Do not hire Robert Kennedy Jr. He’s too partisan and kind of a nut when it comes to policy. Check out this dangerously alarmist 2005 Rolling Stone piece about the purported link between autism and childhood vaccines. (To learn why Kennedy’s piece was alarmist, see “Sticking Up for Thimerosal” by Arthur Allen in Slate, August 2005.) Throw in Kennedy’s 1983 heroin bust, and you’ve got yourself an unconfirmable nominee.

(“The Uncabinet”, Nov. 5). Jonathan Adler @ Volokh, frequent vaccine-blogger Orac/Respectful Insolence, Jason Zengerle at the New Republic, and Hans Bader @ CEI are all on the case as well. Even David Roberts at GristMill is very far from enthusiastic, to say the least. I said exactly what I thought of Kennedy’s book Crimes Against Nature in a New York Post review, and our tagged posts here provide a lot of background on the celebrity environmentalist.

More: Orac returns with a lengthy, devastating and link-rich second post; Mike Dunford/Questionable Authority (“The politicization of science is bad no matter who does it. It wasn’t just bad when the Republicans were involved. It will be just as bad if it’s a Democrat doing it.”); Eric Berlin (“hope it’s someone’s idea of a bad joke”). And Michael Moynihan, Reason “Hit and Run” (“nutty” pro-Hugo-Chavez rants).

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Microblog 2008-11-05

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Lawyer presidents

25 of the 44 presidents have been lawyers; the WSJ law blog has a list. Only one other besides Barack Obama has been a graduate of Harvard Law. It would take a trivia expert (or perhaps a Harvard grad) to identify that one: Rutherford B. Hayes.

P.S. See also, in comments, John Peralta’s list indicating that lawyer-nominees have lately been more common on the Democratic side than the Republican.

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Election observations

  • Lots of coverage of litigation-reform angles of the election over at my other website, Point of Law (here, here, here, and here). For me the heartbreaker of the evening reform-wise was the surprise defeat of the very fine Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, Clifford Taylor. He will be sorely missed.
  • Interesting perspective from Bill Marler, the Seattle plaintiff’s attorney who’s become well-known for virtually “owning” the issue of food poisoning in the press: “Obama may actually see tort reform as a way to show he is a moderate”. [Jane Genova, Law and More]
  • Voters in California and elsewhere ignored the urgings of this site and wrote anti-same-sex-marriage provisions into their constitutions. There are many possible interpretations, but one is that the California Supreme Court will be Exhibit #2,971 toward the proposition that judicial activism does not always improve the well-being of its intended beneficiaries. Garrison Keillor titled one of his Lake Wobegon books We Are Still Married, and Eugene Volokh looks at the question of whether same-sex couples previously wed in California can say that (Nov. 5; more, Dale Carpenter, Jonathan Rauch). In other news, “Yesterday, 57 percent of Arkansas voters decided that the state’s 9,000 children in foster care are better off there than adopted by a gay couple.” [Radley Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”]
  • As to Topic A, the presidential election, I’ve decided to retire to the countryside and raise heirloom eggplants. Just kidding! Actually, as one who sat the election out after Giuliani quit the race, I’m happy for my friends and colleagues who are happy, awestruck by the historic moment like everyone else, and hoping for the best (i.e., centrist governance) policy-wise.

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Microblog 2008-11-04

  • Quoting normally Republican friend, early in day: “Already have buyer’s remorse and he hasn’t even won yet.” [@asymmetricinfo] #
  • “Milk. Allergy warning: Contains milk” [Flickr; h/t @petewarden] #
  • Deer-vehicle collision at Connecticut & M, one of downtown D.C.’s busiest intersections? [Wood, ShopFloor] #
  • Milberg case, highest-profile law firm prosecution ever, finally winds up; 11 convictions, $100 million givebacks [WSJ law blog] #
  • Even expecting to disagree w/ many of his policies, it’s a great day when America can elect a black president [Megan McArdle] #

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National Journal: bloggers on the White House race

Various well-known bloggers talk about how the blogs did this year in stimulating discussion, challenging errors and omissions in the general press, and so forth. I contribute a quote about how “when you sit out an election without backing a candidate, you become painfully aware of how easy it is for blogs turn themselves into an echo chamber for their side’s talking points. Not attractive.” Some blogs I turned to this fall for politics coverage in part because I couldn’t always guess ahead of time what line they’d take: Steve Chapman, Megan McArdle, Marginal Revolution, Culture11’s Confabulum, Ann Althouse, Virginia Postrel, Mickey Kaus (not an exhaustive list by any means).

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November 4 roundup

  • Thanks to guestbloggers Victoria Pynchon (of Negotiation Law Blog) and Jason Barney for lending a hand last week;
  • Will the U.S. government need to sponsor its own motorcycle gang in order to hold on to trademark confiscated from “Mongols” group? [WSJ law blog]
  • With a little help for its friends: Florida Supreme Court strikes down legislated limits on fees charged by workers’ comp attorneys [St. Petersburg Times, Insurance Journal]
  • Stripper, 44, files age discrimination complaint after losing job at Ontario club [YorkRegion.com, Blazing Cat Fur via Blog of Walker] The stripper age bias complaint we covered eight years ago was also from Ontario;
  • Federal judge green-lights First Amendment suit by college instructor who says he was discriminated against for conservative political beliefs [NYLJ] (link fixed now)
  • Judge orders parties to settle dispute over noisy parrots after it reaches £45,700 in legal costs [Telegraph]
  • How to make sure you’re turned down when applying for admittance to the bar [Ambrogi, Massachusetts]
  • Questions at depositions can be intended to humiliate and embarrass, not just extract relevant information [John Bratt, Baltimore Injury Lawyer via Miller]

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Nicotine addiction as a protected disability?

The courts have been unwilling to treat dependence on smoking as a disability requiring reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disability Act. Some are wondering whether that will change, however, with the new expansion of protected categories under the ADA Amendments Act. (Michael Moore, Pennsylvania Labor and Employment Blog, Oct. 29; Jon Hyman, Ohio Employment Law, Oct. 30).

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