Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for 2013

“Realizing King’s dream in business and politics”

I’m quoted in this report today in the Washington Times by Annie Yu:

“It’s often not realized that much of the civil rights movement in the 20th century was a movement for economic liberty against economic restrictions,” said Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies. “Many of the landmark decisions in the courts were on the basis of economic liberty.”

David Bernstein of George Mason has written in detail about how the old Jim Crow system was based on massive regulation of private economic decision-making, and how reformers often managed to chip away at it in court by invoking rights of contract, property, and free association. A sampling here and here (Buchanan v. Warley), here (labor regulations, and related), here, and in papers here.

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Claim: “most lawyers won’t even take age discrimination cases”

In an article today on challenges facing older jobless workers, New York Times reporter Michael Winerip asserts that “Since the Supreme Court ruling [Gross v. FBL Financial Services, a 2009 Supreme Court ruling that made it slightly more difficult to win suits] most lawyers won’t even take age discrimination cases.” Connecticut employment-law blogger Daniel Schwartz wonders where that claim comes from, since the number of EEOC charges in age-bias cases has gone up, not down, since 2009, and since “NELA – the National Employment Lawyers Association — continues to put forward CLE programs discussing how to advance ADEA claims. … So, where did the Times get this assertion from? I’ve hunted for a source but have yet to find one.” [Connecticut Employment Law Blog]

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Labor and employment roundup

  • “Is the main effect of the minimum wage on job growth?” [Tyler Cowen] Minimum wage is transitional wage; most workers who receive it will earn higher rate in the next year if they stay employed [same] “Obama’s Bogus Case for a ‘Decent Wage'”[Ira Stoll]
  • “Equipment manufacturer sues EEOC over email survey trolling for potential class members” [Jessica Karmasek, LNL]
  • Don’t mess with SEIU? “Service Employees Suit Assesses Harsh Penalties against Breakaway Reformers” [Steve Early, Labor Notes]
  • NLRB is fully staffed now, so watch out employers [Rod Kackley, Crain’s Detroit Business]
  • Major League Baseball latest to face suit over unpaid volunteer workers [ABA Journal]
  • Dent in lawyers’ business plan? Judge doesn’t think Michigan meatpacking workers’ $1,000 don/doff claim is adequate basis for $140,000 legal fee award [Free Press]
  • Workplace vagrants: many employees quit jobs regularly as garnishment catches up to them [Coyote]

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School district pays private firm to monitor students’ after-hours social media

If a private employer tried to pull this kind of thing I expect there’d be an outcry:

Glendale school officials have hired a Hermosa Beach company to monitor and analyze public social media posts, saying the service will help them step in when students are in danger of harming themselves or others.

And with a private employer, you’d be there by your own choice.

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Want to learn what the law is? There’ll be a charge.

Should private standards organizations be entitled to retain copyright over building and fire codes when those codes have been adopted into public law? “On August 3, the National Fire Protection Association, ASTM International and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers filed a lawsuit with a federal court in Washington, D.C., alleging ‘massive copyright infringement’ by Public.Resource.Org for publishing codes and standards that have been incorporated into law.” [EFF]

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Law school roundup

  • Now we’re getting somewhere? “ABA Task Force Releases Draft of Recommendations to Reform Legal Education” [Orin Kerr] “ABA Panel Favors Dropping Law School Tenure Requirement” [Karen Sloan, NLJ]
  • Now we’re getting somewhere, cont’d? “Obama: two years of law school should be enough” [Prof. Bainbridge, Stephen Gillers]
  • Many law reviews continue to “struggle with forthrightness” on circulation, Virginia’s claims 1700 but actual number is 304 [Ross Davies’ annual Green Bag survey, just out; my related Atlantic take last year]
  • “Washington U. Dean Syverud Tells ABA Task Force: Law Profs, Deans Are Paid Too Much; 50% Pay Cut Would Solve Problem” [TaxProf] “New Law School Gets Just A Third Of Its Expected Starting Class” [Elie Mystal, Above the Law; Indiana Tech]
  • How misleading are stats Rutgers-Newark puts out for its grads’ “median private sector starting salary”? [Paul Campos] “Sixth Circuit: it was unreasonable for Cooley applicants to believe Cooley’s ‘objectively untrue’ statements” [John Steele] “Former Villanova Law Dean Suspended from Practice for Filing Knowingly False Admissions Data” [Legal Ethics Forum]
  • Claim: under “principles of social justice lawyering …lawyers have a fiduciary duty to create equal justice under the law.” Would she disbar those who don’t? [Artika Tyner, SSRN, via Legal Ethics Forum]
  • Has Georgetown figured out a way to offer free law school tuition, and if so how much of the “free” winds up being on the taxpayers’ dime? [Politico, Milan Markovic, Hans Bader]
  • “Law School to Remove Fraudster’s Name From Atrium” [Indiana; Lowering the Bar]

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White House: dog breed bans a bad idea

It isn’t really the federal government’s business one way or the other, but the Obama administration is at least lending moral support to the idea that animal control laws should not single out particular dog breeds as inherently ultradangerous. A court decision in Maryland establishing elevated liability for bites by pit bulls has resulted in continued pressure for pet abandonment and a resulting flow of related breeds into the animal shelter system. [Arin Greenwood, HuffPo; earlier here, here, etc.]

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A life blighted, a wrist slapped

In Hopewell, Va., Mr. Montgomery spent four years behind bars after Ms. Coast falsely accused him of a rape eight years earlier, when he was 14. Eventually she admitted she’d made it up. “Coast however was sentenced by Hampton Circuit Court Judge Bonnie L. Jones to just two months in jail and ordered to make $90,000 in restitution for perjury. Jones suspended the rest of the five-year sentence and even allowed Coast to serve the remainder on weekends so not to disrupt her life.” [Jonathan Turley via Amy Alkon, Richmond Times-Dispatch]

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