My new book — officially out today — gets a great review in Publisher’s Weekly. “Part historical overview and part cutting-edge commentary. … This hard-hitting, witty account reveals the effect of law on the individual and the collective and astutely forecasts the future of law reform, in the academy, in politics, and across the globe.” Read the whole thing here.
Archive for 2011
An unconstitutional patent false-marking statute
Along with the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies, I’ve filed an amicus brief (a first for me) urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to recognize the constitutional flaws in the federal “false marking” statute, which empowers private parties to sue over inaccurate (in practice, mostly expired) patent markings on products and collect fines of a generally criminal/punitive as opposed to civil/compensatory nature. Here’s our argument in a nutshell, from the Cato website:
Read On…
Cato podcast on my new book
I’m interviewed by Cato’s Caleb Brown (appx. 11 minutes). I discuss the roots in legal academia of developments ranging from modern tort law (thank you, William Prosser) to sexual harassment law (thank you, Catharine MacKinnon) and quite a few others besides.
New York Times poll on public employment
Ira Stoll dissects its slanted wording.
BoingBoing applauds cops’ lawlessness
Sure. What could go wrong with that? Relatedly, Ann Althouse wonders how we’ll all react next year when Group X demands the right to occupy the Wisconsin capitol for 10+ days. Consistently? (& welcome Instapundit readers).
More: “Did Wisconsin Police Violate the First Amendment through Selective Enforcement of Limits on Protests?” [Hans Bader]
Advice from a physician
Don’t stop taking your medication just because you saw a lawyer referral ad on TV that claimed it was dangerous [Throckmorton, related]
February 28 roundup
- Feds indict activist for handing out “jury nullification” tracts outside courthouse [Volokh, Greenfield] Anti-abortion billboard taken down after demand by NYC pol; co. says fear of violence was spur [NY Times]
- Pigford class action (USDA bias against black farmers) defended and assailed [Friedersdorf and readers, Daniel Foster/NR, Mark Thompson/LOG, earlier here, here, here, etc.]
- Avik Roy on Pennsylvania defensive-medicine study [Forbes]
- Backstory: Scott Walker battled AFSCME for years as Milwaukee County exec [Aaron Rodriguez, Hispanic Conservative] “Wisconsin’s teachers required to teach kids labor union and collective bargaining history” [Daily Caller]
- “The return of the $0 Costco fuel settlement” [CCAF]
- Historic preservation vs. the obesity crusade: should a vintage Coke sign in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood come down? [SFGate]
- Law blog that covers a single beat closely can turn itself into a valued practice tool [Eric Turkewitz on John Hochfelder’s New York Injury Cases]
- “Soda suits: Banzhaf browbeats school officials” [five years ago on Overlawyered]
Flak for Cobell fees, cont’d
Criticism continues to mount (“shameful,” “excessive”) over lawyers’ effort to nab $223 million in fees for representing Indian tribes’ interest in the long-running Cobell litigation over management of trust funds. [BLT (quoting former Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.), and more (DoJ); PoL; earlier here and here (Kilpatrick Stockton lawyer Keith Harper considered for Tenth Circuit appointment)]
Woman sues TV station that broadcast wrong lottery numbers
“If you’ve ever doubted the wisdom of letting lawyers run our country, read this book”
Conservative Book Club has this write-up of my forthcoming book Schools for Misrule. David Frum’s FrumForum is featuring it as well. Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) just got his in the mail. From what I hear, copies of the book ordered online began arriving in readers’ mailboxes around Tuesday.
More: Legal Skills Prof Blog, Young Americans for Liberty (on my Cato speech this upcoming Thursday). And a great preview post from Carter Wood at NAM’s ShopFloor.