Virginia Postrel wonders why publicity-hound attorney Gloria Allred wouldn’t let her clients have the spotlight for once last week. “This is not just rude. It’s bad politics. If you want to get Californians to vote against a state-constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, you should keep the obnoxious leftist lawyers out of sight and highlight the happy families.” (Jun. 18).
Archive for 2008
Interviewed on KTUU-2, Anchorage
Anchorage is beautiful this time of year, but, alas, my interview discussing the Exxon Shipping v. Baker case was over the phone. Not sure when they’ll run the clip, but probably tonight, since the decision has a good chance of being issued tomorrow.
Update: Here’s the story.
June 21 roundup
- Sure enough, former Milberg lawyers sue the convicted ex-Milberg lawyers for breach of fiduciary duty. I was wondering when that was going to happen. [WSJ Law Blog; NYLJ/law.com; earlier]
- Why file grievance against a fellow attorney who’s only stolen $200,000 from clients? Colleagues wonder [Las Vegas Review-Journal via ABA]
- Judge: No evidence of wrongdoing by Kenneth Pasternak. Too bad he can’t get his three years back. Meanwhile SEC keeps bringing enforcement cases on same repeatedly rejected theory of liability. [WSJ; Law Blog]
- “What the AP and The New York Times’ Hansell don’t seem to realize is how hostile an act it is to send lawyer letters to individuals.” [Jarvis via Patterico]
- “When judges act like politicians, the judicial selection process – elected or appointed – becomes increasingly political. Action and reaction. The politicization of the court led to the politicization of the elections for justices. … When justices arrogate political policymaking to themselves, they should not be surprised when they are held to the same standards as politicians.” [Wisconsin Policy Research Institute via American Courthouse; I said that, too]
- Even Susan Estrich finds the Alex Kozinski web site mini-to-do as evidence of media bias. [Estrich; Patterico link roundup]
- Senator McCaskill shows her ignorance on the Anheuser-Busch merger and corporate officer duties. [Hodak]
- A clever attorney will already have a fill-in-the-blanks product liability complaint drafted against Lego. [Childs]
- Hugo Chavez expropriates wealth to consolidate dictatorship. American lawyer helps. Somehow I don’t think we’ll see an Alien Tort Claims Act suit against his law firm. [AmLaw Daily]
Studios: we shouldn’t have to prove anyone used shared movie files
The act of making available movies for P2P copying should itself give rise to damage liability, with no need for a showing that anyone actually came along and availed themselves of the illicit property, Hollywood moviemakers are arguing. “It is technologically infeasible to determine whether the public is copying an open share folder, although the RIAA makes its own downloads from defendants’ share folders, produces screen shots and, among other things, captures an IP address. An Arizona judge ruled last month in a different case that those downloads count against a defendant, a one-of-a-kind decision being appealed on grounds that the RIAA was authorized to download its own music.” Infringement penalties can run to $150,000 per copyright violation. (David Kravets, “MPAA Says No Proof Needed in P2P Copyright Infringement Lawsuits”, “Threat Level” blog, Wired.com, Jun. 20). More: Ars Technica.
The Rezko mess: a (tangential?) Madison County link
Illinois state Rep. Jay Hoffman of Madison County, who doubles as an attorney with the Lakin Law Firm, is also said to be a big-time political fundraiser and a key link between the county’s far-famed class-action culture and the world of Illinois politics. Hoffman has long been a close and loyal advisor to now-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, something that’s no longer such a big political advantage what with the Rezko trial having badly sullied the governor’s reputation. Things got worse last month when Hoffman’s name came up during some of the most explosive testimony at that trial, though he’s been charged with no wrongdoing. And now he’s at odds with a fellow Democrat, state house Speaker Michael Madigan — himself a longtime guardian of trial lawyer interests in Springfield — following what the St. Louis Post-Dispatch describes as “the airing of a secret memo from [Madigan’s] staff directing legislative candidates to call for Blagojevich’s impeachment — complete with instructions to deny that they’re getting instructions.” (AP’s version). Ed Murnane of the Illinois Civil Justice League has more at Illinois Review, as do the editorialists of the Chamber-backed Madison County Record, while Eric Zorn of the Tribune and ArchPundit speculate that Blagojevich might appoint Hoffman to Barack Obama’s seat in the U.S. Senate should his election as President leave it vacant.
June 20 roundup
- Federal judge: asking employee to get coffee not an intrinsically sexist act [Legal Intelligencer]
- Kilt-clad Montgomery Blair Sibley, at press conference, adds certain je ne sais quoi to tawdry Larry Sinclair sideshow [Sydney Morning Herald]
- Remind us why Florida Gov. Crist is supposed to be an acceptable veep pick? [PoL]. Also at Point of Law: Hill’s FISA compromise may end pending telecom-privacy suits; interesting Second Circuit reverse-preference case on New Haven firefighters.
- Virginia bar authorities shaken by charges that Woodbridge attorney Stephen T. Conrad pocketed $3.4 million in injury settlements at clients’ expense [Va. Lawyers Weekly; case of Christiansburg, Va. lawyer Gerard Marks ties in with first links here]
- U.K.: Local government instructs staff that term “brainstorming” might be insensitive to persons with epilepsy, use “thought showers” instead [Telegraph; Tunbridge Wells, Kent]
- Big personal injury law firm in Australia, Keddies Lawyers, denies accusations of client overcharging and document falsification [SMH]
- Will this be on the bar exam? Massachusetts law school dean eyes war crime trials culminating in hanging for high officials of Bush Administration [Ambrogi and more, Michael Krauss and I at PoL]
- “Just another cash grab”? New Kabateck Brown Kellner “click-fraud” class actions against Google AdWords, CitySearch [Kincaid, TechCrunch/WaPo]
- Former Rep. Bob Barr, this year’s Libertarian presidential candidate, is no stranger to the role of plaintiff in politically fraught litigation [six years ago on Overlawyered, and represented by Larry Klayman to boot]
Peter Bronson on Stanley Chesley’s testimony
From the Cincinnati Enquirer columnist, a refreshingly acerbic account of the erstwhile Master of Disaster’s time on the stand in the Kentucky fen-phen trial, during which he compared himself to Tiger Woods in explaining why he should not be asked to stoop to taking an hourly fee:
Jurors have been anesthetized by six weeks of watching witnesses avoid the truth the way cats avoid a bath. …
…when [defense attorney O. Hale] Almand tried to make Chesley admit – yes or no – that he knew his own lawyer told prosecutors he would take the Fifth unless he got immunity, Chesley’s serial evasions made the courtroom squirm.
I counted at least nine tries. After the seventh, the judge twice ordered Chesley to answer yes or no.
He would not. He wheedled, ducked, swerved and danced. He blustered about attorney-client privilege, corrected the grammar of the question, and griped about how he has been mistreated by the press. …
If you’re hoping to hit a slip-and-fall lotto jackpot by suing Amalgamated Banana Peel Inc., Chesley is just the guy to take on herds of high-paid lawyers. But if you’re looking for a straight answer under oath, look somewhere else.
(“Tiger Woods of Torts”, Cincinnati Enquirer, Jun. 19).
Thong shrapnel alleged in Victoria’s Secret suit
Macrida Patterson and her lawyer Jason Buccat say the lingerie store chain should pay for an incident in which a bit of rhinestone decoration flew off the slingshot-like undergarment as she was pulling it on, hitting her in the eye; the next morning she visited a hospital, though the only medical intervention the article mentions is that she took “some topical steroid”. They’ve been on the Today show, but Victoria’s Secret says it hasn’t been served with a suit or been given a chance to examine the item of saucy apparel, which Patterson had owned for a while and had worn and laundered previously. (Mike Celizic, “Eye-catching thong gives rise to lawsuit”, MSNBC, Jun. 19; “Dinged by a G-string?”, The Smoking Gun, Jun. 17).
P.S. Not to be confused with the exploding-bra claim against Victoria’s Secret this spring from South Carolina, the original coverage of which is still available on GoogleCache for the moment, though no longer online at the local paper.
P.P.S. Above the Law, I see, was here first.
Canada: court overturns parent’s grounding of 12-year-old
The father wouldn’t let her go on a school trip because he said she’d been acting up, including using a friend’s account to post inappropriate pictures on a dating site. “But [Quebec Superior Court] Justice Suzanne Tessier, who was presiding over the case, found the punishment too severe.” The mother, who is divorced from the father, was supporting the girl; the school’s policy was that both parents’ permission was required for such trips. According to a lawyer involved in the case, the father has legal custody but the girl has been living with her mother for the past month. (AFP/FoxNews.com, Globe and Mail, Eugene Volokh). Plus: Token Conservative suggests a new writ of “habeas bratus”.
WSJ on Navy sonar and Pacific whales
The Wall Street Journal’s editorialists weigh in on a story we’ve been covering for a long time.