After all, that’s the way to disqualify them: “If he speaks long enough, he might say something that lets you strike him for cause, too.” (Trial Theater, Oct. 24).
Archive for 2008
Microblog 2008-11-06
- Expects to have to fight Obama on policy, wept anyway when he came to podium for victory speech [Jonathan Blanks] #
- Every self-respecting insider-trading ring should include an exotic dancer and a Croatian underwear seamstress [Bainbridge] #
- New panel discussion: why are schools so bureaucratized and what can we do about it? [NewTalk] # @sekimori “Bureaucracy is to protect the system from litigation.” Not cynical to think this is one big part of the problem. #
- @bschuelke: “Why is it so difficult to get clients’ medical records? Should be easy but is often the hardest part of the case.” #
- Primer on role of Delaware in corporate law [NY Times] #
- Ways to find good, underrated people [Ben Casnocha h/t Tyler Cowen] #
- Cluelessness alert: U.K. cabinet minister criticizes blogs for not “allowing new voices” [Massie] #
- Dems swept races for judge in Houston — unless their names were too unusual [Houston Chronicle] #
“‘Bong Hits 4 Jesus’ student nets $45,000”
“The Juneau-Douglas (Alaska) School District and former student Joseph Frederick have reached a settlement in the ‘Bong Hits 4 Jesus’ case …. The school district will pay Frederick $45,000, [and] it is ‘required to hire a neutral constitutional law expert to chair a forum on student speech’ at its high school at a cost of up to $5,000.” (DRJ @ Patterico, Nov. 6; earlier).
P.S. And, yes, to clarify in response to commenter Melvin, the student lost his high-profile case last year before the U.S. Supreme Court. Imagine what the school would have had to pay if he’d won.
Don’t you mention that tax
The state of Kentucky enacted a new sales tax on the services of telecommunications companies. It also forbade the companies from breaking the tax out as a line item on customer’s bills — that might get people mad at the legislators, after all. The Sixth Circuit, Sutton, J., ruled that under the intermediate level of First Amendment scrutiny applied to limitations on commercial speech, the “no-stating-the-tax” provision was unconstitutional. (BellSouth v. Farris, Sept. 9).
The costs of universal jurisdiction
“International human rights law” — what could sound more cuddly and humanitarian? Who could disapprove of such a thing? That’s one reason it’s so popular at almost every law school nowadays following years of generous support by the Ford Foundation, Soros, and other donors. In practice, as is now clear, it often tends to furnish a set of handy weapons for carrying on “lawfare” — warfare by means of courtroom action against one’s adversaries, particularly in the courts of third countries. (Anne Herzberg, “Lawfare against Israel”, WSJ, Nov. 5). For the closely related issue of laws empowering private attorneys and litigants to pursue foreign entities over alleged terrorist support whether or not such actions advance U.S. diplomatic goals, see Sept. 12, 2007.
“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).
Microblog 2008-11-05
- “Friend named superlawyer five years after she quit practice” [@vpynchon] #
- Unreality meets unreality: inmate Jonathan Lee Riches files third-party brief in World of Warcraft case [Duranske, Virtually Blind] #
- Uh-oh: new White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is on record as a supporter of “universal citizen service” [Lindgren @ Volokh] #
- Ralph Nader is vile (but you knew that) [Weigel, Reason “Hit and Run”] #
- U.K.: new pet welfare regs could mean jail for owners who fail to put obese dogs and cats on a diet [Daily Mail via Bookworm Room] #
- Frum: GOP future should be in going after educated voters [National Post] #
- Idea for re-use of McCain-Palin yard signs [Steve Hayward, NRO Corner] #
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.
“Obama Presidency is Good News for the Legal Profession”
The “light at the end of the tunnel for law firms”! Tons more regulation, no more attempts to limit lawsuits, a “boom” in financial disputes, new union contracts to negotiate all over the place! Let’s hope Larry Bodine is proved wrong (Legal Marketing Blog, Nov. 5)
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.