Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

“Britain has no responsibility to protect Iraqis from their own legal system”

Fun with international human rights law, continued:

Lawyers for two Iraqis accused of the murder of two British soldiers now maintain that the men cannot get a fair trial in Iraq, and are entitled to one here in Britain instead. A High Court judge will rule on the case this week. Lawyers have already received several thousand pounds for representing the Iraqis, who, although not British citizens, have their case in the British courts funded by British taxpayers. Win or lose, the lawyers will receive more from that source. If the judge rules against them, they will no doubt appeal. The appeals process is lengthy, and lucrative. If they win, then there will be another issue to be litigated: whether the Iraqis should be given asylum in the UK, on the grounds that Iraq is not a safe place for the accused.

(“Iraqi crimes have no place in our courts” (editorial), Telegraph, Nov. 16).

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Microblog 2008-11-16

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American Apparel arbitration, cont’d

A couple of weeks ago I did a brief post, and guestblogger Victoria Pynchon did a longer one, on the unusual sequence of events by which American Apparel and its founder Dov Charney settled a sexual harassment lawsuit for an agreement to pay $1.3 million tied to an (abortive) agreement to send the case to what a judge characterized as a sham arbitration designed to end favorably to the company. The company hadn’t at that point (so far as I know) responded publicly to the controversy, but shortly thereafter got its side of the dispute more or less on the record as part of a lengthy post at the blog Jezebel (Oct. 31). There’s also a related Oct. 30 item on the case at Portfolio. It quotes ubiquitous NYU legal ethicist Stephen Gillers, with whose views this blog is frequently out of step, who “said he found no real ethical problems with the ginning up of a sham arbitration to issue a press release. ‘The lawyers had no duty to insure that the public got the facts or that the issues were resolved based on a real trial before a real tribunal with real evidence.'”

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Microblog 2008-11-14

  • Lawyers and other professionals who blog should read new Kevin LaCroix post “On Blogging” [D&O Diary h/t @SecuritiesD] #
  • Daily H.L. Mencken quotes [courtesy @ahndymac] #
  • Funny, earthy blog by urban emergency room nurse [Crass-Pollination] # @danimari Odd how ERs generate so many of the best medblogs e.g. WhiteCoatRants, ER Stories, Movin’ Meat, SymTym, GruntDoc etc. #
  • Calm down, conservatives, Dems aren’t planning to revive Fairness Doctrine [James Rainey, L.A. Times] # Or are we sure about that? [Ed Morrissey, Patterico]
  • Advice on jury selection: “don’t continue to poke a bee hive with a stick” [Texas Country Trial Lawyer, h/t @HouCrimLaw] #
  • Video humor for font geeks [College Humor, h/t @sekimori] #
  • Do you blog, tweet, send saucy emails or IMs? You may not be well suited for a job in the new admin [Caron, TaxProf] #
  • @rebeccawatson of possible interest regarding litigious diploma mills [this site, Oct. 27, 2003] #
  • Beautiful photos of New York in the 1930s [Flickr h/t @CoolPics] #

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Gerry Spence to trial lawyers: “We are the most important people in America”

The Wyoming-based legal gunslinger spoke at the annual conference of the Consumer Attorneys of California, and (U.S. Chamber-backed) Legal NewsLine took down some audience-rousing quotes that went pretty far even by grandiose Spence standards: “We are the most important people in America… I want to ask you which would be more important: If all of the doctors in the country somehow disappeared or all the trial lawyers in America somehow disappeared?” he asked. “We can live without medical care, but we cannot live without justice.” (Chris Rizo, “Spence: Trial lawyers more important than doctors”, Nov. 12).

More from Dan Pero: “Was it just bad timing or some sort of cosmic justice that Mr. Spence made this preposterous claim on Veterans Day?”

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Banned for “dirty dancing”, wins $275,000 settlement

North Carolina: “The town of Marshall agreed to pay $275,000 for banning [Rebecca] Willis from a community dance hall on allegations her moves were too risqué.” (Jon Ostendorff, “Woman walks with $275k in dance hall case”, Asheville Citizen-Times, Nov. 14 and Nov. 13; Jonathan Austin, “Lawyer says ‘dirty dancing’ case finally settled”, News-Record and Sentinel, Nov. 13).

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November 14 roundup

  • Pajamas TV interviews me on Obama cabinet prospects (RFK Jr., Caroline Kennedy, Schwarzenegger, Gorelick, etc.) (Nov. 13, subscription-only)
  • Federal court in New Orleans hits attorney with five-year practice suspension after “intentionally contemptuous” filing and other misconduct [Times-Picayune, Ashton O’Dwyer]
  • Lawyer sues his straying wife for giving him herpes, but her lawyer says a test proves she doesn’t have the malady in the first place [Above the Law]
  • Doctors (e.g.) being put through hostile depositions are often tempted to talk back sharply to the lawyer. Bad move, says Ronald Miller [Maryland Injury]
  • It’s a shame most of the press remains incurious about that episode a few days ago in which talk of compulsory national service appeared, then vanished from the Obama site [K. Ryan James]
  • Batting cage pitching machine without prompting hits customer in most sensitive part of male anatomy, he collects $1.2 million [The Big Lead]
  • ACLU will defend preacher sent to prison on parole violation charge after writing “God will smite this judge” newspaper article (having earlier been convicted of election misconduct)[AP/FoxNews, western Michigan]
  • On appeal, Long Island attorney beats charges of coaching clients to fake injury and using “steerers” to gain business [NYLJ]

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