The L.A. Times invites readers’ dudgeon about the judge’s private emailing of tasteless jokes to friends. Patterico and Althouse take somewhat different views of the supposed offense. The West Coast newspaper, writes James Taranto, “has been drawn into a vexatious litigant’s smear campaign against Kozinski“, and Ted has called the paper’s coverage “appalling“. More: Obbie, Patrick @ Popehat.
Archive for 2008
Arrest of NYC litigator Marc Dreier (bumped and updated)
[Originally published in the early hours of Dec. 7. Bumped Monday afternoon to reflect new developments and reader interest; updated Tuesday morning.]
News accounts are still piecing together the strange story of high-powered New York litigator Marc Dreier and his arrest by Canadian officials on charges of “impersonation”. Allegedly, Dreier posed as an official of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan to support his pretense that he had a guarantee for a $50 million investment he was seeking from a hedge fund. (Sinclair Stewart, Paul Waldie and Timothy Appleby, “From $50-million deal to $100,000 bail – in a N.Y. minute”, Toronto Globe and Mail, Dec. 6). The blog Above the Law broke the story and has been on top of later developments (Dec. 4, more posts). Dreier LLP, a 250-person law firm that is said to have been owned outright by Dreier rather than run as a partnership, was “one of several firms that hired refugees from Milberg Weiss after that firm was indicted”. (Nate Raymond, “Arrest of Dreier Founder Clouds Firm’s Future”, American Lawyer, Dec. 5; NYLJ, Dec. 8; NYT, Dec. 5).
More: Huge developments on Monday:
Marc Dreier, the owner of a prominent New York law firm who was arrested last week, was hit Monday with criminal charges and civil complaints alleging he defrauded investors of about $100 million by selling them phony financial instruments.
Federal prosecutors on Monday unsealed charges of one count each of securities and wire fraud, describing a bizarre scheme to bilk hedge funds. [U.S. Complaint at ClusterStock] The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil suit making largely the same allegations against the 58-year-old Mr. Dreier….
The criminal and civil complaints released Monday offer the following account of events: Mr. Dreier fabricated promissory notes by an unnamed New York real-estate developer — identified as Solow Realty by a person with knowledge of the situation — and sold them to hedge funds, when in fact such notes were never issued. He fabricated supporting financial statements, and letters from an accounting firm using the firm’s logo, that purported to audit the statements. The SEC complaint says $113 million in phony notes was deposited to an account in the name of the law firm.
Scott Greenfield has more on reports circulating of missing escrow accounts and is stunned at the magnitude of the allegations: if true, “the firm is now at the epicenter of perhaps the greatest instance of lawyer dishonesty ever.” [Updated Tuesday morning to replace breaking-news WSJ account with paper’s most recent version; see comments section regarding an apparent inaccuracy in earlier version.]
“Change They Can Litigate”
Occasionally a reader will ask why I’m averse to linking to the conservative publication WorldNetDaily. Reason #17,945: the birth certificate/citizenship trutherism by which WND promotes litigation aimed at keeping Barack Obama from being inaugurated President. (David Weigel, Slate, Dec. 4).
Update: Supreme Court turns down first of such cases (Doug Mataconis, Below the Beltway, Dec. 8).
“Reparations, R.I.P.”
City Journal has now put online the article-length version of my essay on why the movement for slavery reparations has faded back into obscurity after its peak in 2001. I posted a few weeks ago on the shorter newspaper version and a lively discussion ensued.
Wii class action claim: controller keeps flying out of our hands
“Nintendo’s Wii game remote controller has a defective wrist strap that lets the thing fly out of the users’ hands while they simulate tennis, nunchucks or similar actions, and then it crashes into TVs, walls and children,” according to an intended class action filed by attorney Robert Kleinman of Austin, Texas on behalf of a Colorado woman. (Courthouse News, Dec. 4 via Above the Law).
“How many hernias…?”
How many elective inguinal hernia repairs do you think a surgeon might have to perform to raise the money to pay his annual malpractice insurance bill? We’re not told which state he practices in or what kind of practice or community, only that he’s getting a relatively good deal on insurance because he has no outstanding suits.
Guess for yourself, and then go see whether ER Stories’ answer is higher or lower than you guessed (Dec. 7).
Cops busted in probable cause sting
Police wouldn’t manufacture fictitious probable cause to obtain warrants for a drug raid, would they? Don’t be so sure:
KopBusters rented a house in Odessa, Texas and began growing two small Christmas trees under a grow light similar to those used for growing marijuana [grow lights are themselves lawful — ed.]. When faced with a suspected marijuana grow, the police usually use illegal FLIR cameras and/or lie on the search warrant affidavit claiming they have probable cause to raid the house. Instead of conducting a proper investigation which usually leads to no probable cause, the Kops lie on the affidavit claiming a confidential informant saw the plants and/or the police could smell marijuana coming from the suspected house.
The trap was set and less than 24 hours later, the Odessa narcotics unit raided the house only to find KopBuster’s attorney waiting under a system of complex gadgetry and spy cameras that streamed online to the KopBuster’s secret mobile office nearby.
(WindyPundit, Dec. 6; Balko, “Hit and Run”, Dec. 6; J.D. Tuccille, Dec. 7). A cautionary view: Greenfield. And Orin Kerr @ Volokh has likewise warns that we don’t know yet all of the circumstances about the engineering of the sting, raid and video; read the comments as well.
Religious accommodation law
I expect to be blogging on that subject quite a bit at the new site I’ve helped launch, Secular Right. Today I’ve got a few thoughts up on the so-called Freedom of Choice Act and its potential impact on Catholic hospitals, so-called conscience laws entitling employees of clinics and drugstores to opt out of their job duties when asked to dispense contraceptives or assist in other reproductive services, the never-ending war over Christmas and tit-for-tat atheist displays, and more. (Dec. 7).
U.K.: “Drug addicts win human rights compensation for being forced to go cold turkey”
Welcome Law.com readers
In an article for Law.com on legal blogging (“How to Build a Better Law Blog”, Dec. 8) C.C. Holland is kind enough to quote me and discuss this site:
…Walter Olson imagined that his Overlawyered blog would pull an audience of his friends and acquaintances and a cadre of legal policy wonks.
“But you don’t know who your audience really is until you start writing and find out,” he notes. “My readership has a large following among lawyers, but I’ve been surprised to find that a lot of doctors are reading it, as are a lot of people from other countries.” …
Olson, who has been writing Overlawyered since July 1, 1999, knows a thing or two about longevity. His blog is widely considered to be the oldest legal blog and is also one of the most popular, regularly surpassing 9,000 unique daily visitors.
“People who force themselves to blog, it’s a sad spectacle,” he says. “You can tell reading it that it’s painful to them.” The key is to find a topic that will sustain you. “You have to think, ‘Boy, there’s so much to write about I can’t imagine getting tired of it anytime soon,'” he says.
And I still can’t.