Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

November 9 roundup

  • White House panel’s counsel: no evidence corner-cutting caused Gulf spill [NYT, Reuters] Furor ensues [WaPo]
  • Report: grief counselors assigned to Democratic congressional staffers [Maggie Haberman, Politico]
  • “Lawyer Sues for Humiliation and Lost Business Due to Misspelled Yellowbook Ad” [ABA Journal, South Dakota]
  • Argument today in important Supreme Court case, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion: will courts respect freedom of contract in consumer arbitration context, or yield Litigation Lobby the monopoly it seeks over dispute resolution? [Ted at PoL]
  • No search warrant needed: armed deputies in Orlando storm unlicensed barbershops, handcuff barbers [Balko, Reason “Hit and Run”]
  • After Colorado hit-run, banker allowed to plead down to misdemeanors lest his job be at risk [Greenfield]
  • FDA to decide whether to ban menthol in cigarettes [CEI]
  • Reshuffling blackjack decks is not “racketeering” [ten years ago on Overlawyered]

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4 Comments

  • Describing the arbitration requirement imposed by a huge cell phone company as “freedom of contract” is disingenuous. There is no negotiation between the contracting parties and there are no competing companies offering similar services without mandatory arbitration. De facto, without laws protecting consumers’ access to the courts, companies can all but exempt themselves from responsability for their actions toward their customers.

  • Why do I even question how the police get away with this?
    “No search warrant needed: armed deputies in Orlando storm unlicensed barbershops, handcuff barbers ”
    “I, D, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…” So these are domestic enemies, right?

    • By D

  • About the article on the misspelled ad I couldn’t help but notice that the last name of the lawyer was spelled with and without an embedded space. I hope he isn’t so humiliated that he files a second misspelling suit against the reporter.

    I know firsthand that Yellowbook sends a copy and requires someone to sign off on the ad before they publish it. The true culprit here is on the lawyer’s staff or even him

  • I understand Metro is thinking about hiring grief counselors to aid their passengers and escalator riders.

    • By Carter