John Steele at Legal Ethics Forum finds much to unpack in a lawyer’s statement defending his zealous advocacy in a California discovery dispute.
Archive for October, 2009
MTA vs. freelance publishers
T-shirts tweaking San Francisco transit? “Like so many things, it’s all fun and games, until you get sued” — in this case, a threat of suit from New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority. [SF Weekly] And the MTA has dropped its claims against Greenwich, Ct. blogger Chris Schoenfeld (“Station Stops“), who puts out an iPhone app providing train schedule information [Greenwich Time]
Trial to open in Alice Lawrence/Graubard Miller case
The trial will consider whether the law firm is entitled to a $42 million contingency fee under circumstances criticized by Ted in this space two years ago and David Giacalone more recently. [NYLJ]
Don’t
Don’t gamble away your clients’ $2 million class action settlement on stock market day trading and lose it [Sandeep Baweja of Orange County, Calif., who has agreed to plead guilty; earlier]
“Cyberbullying Bill Gets Chilly Reception”
A House hearing last week did not go well for advocates of the speech-suppressing “Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act.” [David Kravets, Wired.com “Threat Level” via Kerr, Volokh and Greenfield]
“Wasting Billions, Doing Injustice”
Stuart Taylor, Jr. on the need for malpractice reform:
Whatever the number, surveys of doctors and anecdotal evidence — even allowing for self-serving exaggeration — suggest that the occurrence [of defensive medicine] is high. A stunning 93 percent of Pennsylvania specialists in high-risk fields admitted practicing defensive medicine, according to a 2005 survey by the Journal of the American Medical Association. So did 83 percent of high-risk specialists in a 2008 Massachusetts Medical Society survey. That study also found that respondents’ fear of liability accounted for almost 30 percent of the CT scans and MRIs they ordered and had spurred 28 percent of them (including 44 percent of OB-GYNs) to avoid treating high-risk patients. …
Similar considerations explain why we already have specialized courts without juries for vaccine liability, workers’ compensation, bankruptcy, and tax cases.
(cross-posted from Point of Law)
“Birth Defect Study Casts Doubt on Phthalate Fears”
What, you mean the phthalate provisions in CPSIA might have been an overreaction? [Scientific American, July]
More: “Why It’s Impacting Textile Screen Printing” [Ed Branigan, International Coatings Blog]
The feds’ eagle-feather waiting list
Indian rights, religious freedom, equality claims and strict criminal penalties have gotten into a tangled mat [Marcia Zug, Prawfsblawg] Earlier on eagle feather law here, here, and here.
UK: Keep kids away from library seniors
Or they might get coffee spilled on them [Daily Mail via Free Range Kids]
Cablevision sues blogger into submission
Be careful what you say about the New York-based media giant and parent of Long Island’s Newsday. It has a lot of money to spend on lawyers. [Gawker] More: Citizen Media Law (stronger anti-SLAPP laws needed).