Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for March, 2013

67 leading law profs: time to reform legal education

A letter to the ABA signed by 67 big names in legal education [Caron/TaxProf] comes to conclusions about the economic organization of law schools very similar to those I reached two years ago in the relevant section of Schools for Misrule (not claiming any particular prescience on my part, others had made a similar case before and the signs were clear enough to anyone who would look). Their recommendations:

Legal education cannot continue on the current trajectory. As members of a profession committed to serving the public good, we must find ways to alter the economics of legal education. Possible changes include reducing the undergraduate education required for admission to three years; awarding the basic professional degree after two years, while leaving the third year as a elective or an internship; providing some training through apprenticeship; reducing expensive accreditation requirements to allow greater diversity among law schools; building on the burgeoning promises of internet-distance education; changing the economic relationship between law schools and universities; altering the influence of current ranking formulas; and modifying the federal student loan program. As legal educators, it is our responsibility to grapple with these issues before our institutions are reshaped in ways beyond our control.

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“University settles student’s lawsuit over emotional-support guinea pig for $40,000”

Kendra Velzen had a note from a doctor prescribing the companionship of the rodent, but Grand Valley State University outside Grand Rapids, Mich. nonetheless resisted her request to keep the guinea pig with her at class, in the dorm, and in food service areas. Now school administrators have folded. [Eric Owens, Daily Caller](& Greenfield)

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CEQA and California’s “reputation as a lousy place to do business”

A highly placed Democrat in Sacramento is acknowledging the problems with the state’s environmental-review law, which empowers complainants to stop, slow down or drive up the cost of new development projects. Among those who’ve learned to turn CEQA to their own uses: NIMBY-minded neighbors, business competitors seeking to hobble rivals, and unions looking for a shakedown tool. [Los Angeles Times]

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Guns roundup

  • Report: White House at pains to hush anti-gun groups from voicing their more extreme ideas [Washington Times]
  • If we were really serious about reducing gun violence… [Steve Chapman] Futility of gun buyback programs [Trevor Burrus podcast, Cato]
  • Lawyer hit with $20,000 sanction after federal judge says he didn’t adequately vet client’s dubious gun-malfunction case [Legal Intelligencer/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
  • No one’s talking about gun confiscation, right? Right? [Gateway Pundit, Christopher Fountain, more]
  • D.C. councilmember sponsors bill requiring gun owners to buy $250K liability insurance [WaPo, earlier] Discussion of mandatory liability insurance for gun owners with Jacob Sullum, Don Taylor of Duke, and Michael Barry of the Insurance Information Institute [Reason/HuffPost]
  • “Obama’s gun agenda is at least as much about provoking Republicans to say and do things to alienate women voters as it is about passing laws.” [@davidfrum]
  • “The Second Amendment Protects Both Keeping and Bearing Arms” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]

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Judge to Bloomberg: unhand that soda

In a sweeping decision, trial court judge Milton Tingling has struck down the ban on sugary drinks decreed by the New York City Department of Health, which had been scheduled to go into effect tomorrow. I discuss the ruling in a Cato podcast above. I’m also quoted by Jillian Kay Melchior at National Review Online:

It was a sweeping ruling, because the judge said not only was the ban arbitrary and capricious, but it also went beyond the public-health agency’s powers under the statute. It meant that, even if Bloomberg went back and got a better factual justification for it, he had no legal right to do it. The agency just plain lacked the power. It means that the powers that public-health agencies claim because of emergency dangers like a raging epidemic — they don’t get to rule by dictate about other elements of our life that are not emergencies.

Other coverage: New York Post, CBS New York, Moin Yahya, David Henderson. As the law’s effective date approached, city residents were learning more about its unpleasant effects on such everyday activities as ordering beverages to split with pizza delivery, mixers at nightclubs, table pitchers to serve kids’ birthday parties, and, most recently, coffee, the subject of a virally famous poster from the local Dunkin’ Donuts operation.

P.S. And now I’ve got a Daily Caller piece out on the decision. See follow-up post here.

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Update: NIH distances itself from Stanton Glantz tobacco-influence study

Or maybe “disavowed” is a better word. Questioned by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins said he was “troubled” by the revelation that NIH funds paid for a laughably conspiracy-minded report by Stanton Glantz attacking political conservatives, calling it an “unfortunate outcome” and saying, “We thought we were funding a different kind of research when those grants were awarded.” This is not the first (or the fifth, or the tenth) round of axe-grinding advocacy “research” from Glantz — the National Cancer Institute dished out more than a million dollars this time — and one must wonder at what point he will stop asking the general public to pay for it. [Science Mag; Jacob Sullum; earlier]

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N.M.: “Driver who killed 2 sisters suing restaurants, friend”

“A repeat drunken driver convicted in a crash that killed two teenagers has sued his drinking buddy and two Santa Fe restaurants that served him alcohol.” James Ruiz, who has since been convicted and incarcerated, “was out on bond on his fifth DWI arrest” when he slammed into the car of the teens’ family. [AP/WHEC; Albuquerque Journal, with headline above; UPI]

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Judge dismisses ideological bias case against Iowa Law

Teresa Wagner had sued the University of Iowa’s law school alleging bias against her as an ideological conservative, but a jury ruled against her on most counts, and now the judge in the case has denied her retrial motion and granted the university’s motion to dismiss the remaining count. [AP via Adler; court opinion; comments by lawprofs Herbert Hovenkamp of U of I and David Bernstein of George Mason; earlier on this case, on which I was quoted in the press a number of times.]

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Free speech roundup

  • “Crime to Create a ‘Hostile Environment’ That ‘Substantially Interferes’ with Person’s ‘Psychological Well-Being’ Based on Race, Religion, Sex, Etc.?” [Volokh] “Minnesota Bill to Ban K-12 Speech That Denies Fellow Students a ‘Supportive Environment'” [same]
  • Blogger dropped as defendant in “pink slime” defamation litigation, but suit against ABC and others continues [Bettina Siegel/Lunch Tray] Suit against ABC based in part on state food-disparagement statute occasionally criticized in this space [Reuters] Dearborn residents: are you sure you want to patronize a restaurant that deploys lawyers to suppress criticism? [Paul Alan Levy, earlier]
  • Libya arrests foreigners accused of distributing Christian literature, charge could carry death penalty [Guardian]
  • Sometimes it seems NYT editors are First Amendment absolutists about everything except political speech First Amendment was meant to protect [SmarterTimes]
  • Global Wildlife Center of Folsom, Louisiana sues a satirical website and then menaces Ken of Popehat;
  • Long piece on Naffe/O’Keefe backstory of Kimberlin/Patterico legal/media war [Chris Faraone, Boston Phoenix, earlier]
  • Update: following outcry, publishing company drops suit against Canadian librarian [CBC, earlier] Also from Canada: Nanaimo, British Columbia: “Mayor ensures ‘Koruption’ stickers never seen again” [Beschizza, BoingBoing] Voltaire wept: Bruce Bawer on the Canada Supreme Court’s “hate speech” decision [Front Page mag, earlier]
  • “Donald Trump, paper tiger?” [Paul Alan Levy]

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