- McCain hoist on his own campaign regulation petard [WSJ edit] #
- Conservatives should hold a retreat to talk about why they’re being sent to the wilderness [Friedersdorf/Culture11] #
- Disability activism and “anti-national sexual positions”: just another day in postmodern academia [Massie] #
- Unionism on steroids: Employee Free Choice Act would be Thatcherism in reverse [Claire Berlinski, City Journal] #
- Here’s a twist: a politician walking over his ambition to reach his grandmother #
Roy Pearson presses pants suit
After losing below, he’s now hauled the dry cleaning Chung family before an appeals court in his seemingly never-ending litigation over the pair of lost pants he said should be worth $54 million (WSJ law blog, Oct. 22).
Judge Joyce’s insurance-fraud trial begins
A year ago we reported on the indictment of Erie, Pa.-based state appellate judge Michael T. Joyce, whose $440,000 settlement after a rear-ending of his Mercedes-Benz was premised on his having suffered physically disabling injuries, but who in fact was found to have engaged in scuba diving and golf, among other pastimes, during the period in question. According to the indictment, the judge used the proceeds to buy a Harley-Davidson and a share in a Cessna, as well as for other purposes. Today his trial is set to begin. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Tribune-Review, Erie Times-News via Bashman).
October 22 roundup
- Bulgarians employ “decoy lawyers” to get around corruption in official bureaus [Cowen, MargRev]
- Forum-shopping vol. MMMCCXII: Taiwan company claims Apple broke California unfair-practices law so of course it sues in Texarkana [AppleInsider]
- “U.S. produces far too many lawyers for society to absorb” and one reason is that law schools want warm seats on chairs [Greenfield]
- Second Circuit: lawyers can’t buy their way out of sanctions for filing meritless lawsuit [Krauss, PoL]
- Some reasons furor over free speech in Canada is relevant this side of the border [Bernstein @ Volokh]
- We’re quoted on the subject of those websites that offer “point-and-click access to trial lawyers” [Business First of Columbus]
- Tight lid kept on study of disposable diapers’ environmental impact since findings were … inconvenient [Times Online (U.K.) via Stuttaford]
- Judge backs Kentucky’s bid to seize domains of online gambling sites, implications for everyone else [Balko, “Hit and Run”; earlier here and here]
“How Long Should a Disciplinary Finding Haunt a Lawyer?”
Phrased thus (at Legal Ethics Forum) it seems like a rather loaded question, doesn’t it? Who’s supposed to come down in favor of haunting? (The controversy arises from the suit filed by Greenwich attorney Barbara Shea to force a Connecticut grievance committee to remove online records of disciplinary run-ins she had between 1997 and 2002). A contrasting way of posing the same question might be: how far should we go in letting lawyers curtail the public availability of embarrassing information about events that 1) really did happen; 2) were a matter of public record at the time; and 3) are of natural and legitimate interest to at least some clients?
I’m not sure I have an entirely satisfactory answer to that question, but I’m pretty confident that it’s an unsatisfactory approach for grievance committees to have to fear getting beaten up in court actions if they don’t strike the balance as leniently as lawyers might like. (Douglas S. Malin, “Trying To Make The Past Disappear”, Connecticut Law Tribune, Sept. 29; Elefant/Legal Blog Watch, Oct. 3).
P.S. Many interesting reader comments of which my favorite was this one from z0l0ft:
The year is 2020 —
Hey Honey, I was checking the internet and I found all this great information about a true pioneer of the fight against the corruption of our youth by the videogame industry. His name was Jack Thompson. I could find nothing negative about him, so he must have been great.
Terry Erwin Stork
Disbarred Austin lawyer Terry Erwin Stork has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for a pattern of stealing from elderly clients after their deaths. Among Stork’s many and colorful misdeeds:
The records said Stork lived in the home of a deceased client from 1987 to 2002 and deposited money from the sale of the home into his own bank account.
In another case, he was accused of letting the home of a client sit empty, driving the woman’s Buick LeSabre to disrepair and using her money to add to his rare china collection. He was also accused of failing to pass along inheritances to people and organizations that were supposed to get them.
Prosecutors at a sentencing hearing cited evidence “that Stork has continued practicing law since his arrest by using the identity of his brother, who is also a lawyer”. (Tony Plohetski, Austin American-Statesman, Sept. 23; Estate of Denial (“Shining Light on the Dark Side of Estate Management”), Sept. 12; ABA Journal, Jun. 30). Earlier: Jul. 3.
October 21 roundup
- Hey, that Jon Bon Jovi baseball anthem sounds familiar, make the check out for $400 billion please [Boston Herald]
- Cyrus Sanai, known for dogged campaign against Judge Kozinski, is back with a new 80-page complaint which also names “10 other district court and 9th Circuit judges who have been assigned to his family’s case at one time or another.” [NLJ]
- More on English “no barbed wire on allotments” rules: “I am replacing the glass in the windows of my house with tissue paper, so that burglars — poor lambs — will not cut themselves while breaking and entering.” [Dalrymple, City Journal]
- Ethical alarms should go off when criminal defense lawyers’ marketing hints at insider pull or former-prosecutor clout [Greenfield]
- Annals of public employee tenure: firing a cop in Chicago sure isn’t easy [TalkLeft, FOI files on Gerald Callahan and William Cozzi cases at Chicago Justice Project]
- Gigantic government database of cellphone users planned for U.K. [Massie]
- Babies only, please: Nebraska backs off from its dump-a-teen “safe haven” parental abandonment law [Althouse, earlier]
- Some Israelis may be overly cheery in welcoming presumed benefits of consumer class actions [Karlsgodt citing Jerusalem Post editorial]
Microblog 2008-10-20
- Parents press states for autism insurance laws [AP] #
- Steve Chapman on right and wrong ways to legalize gay marriage [Reason] #
- Unsolicited “StoneZone” mailings say they’re from veteran GOP operative Roger Stone — and when you try to unsubscribe? [Greenfield] #
- “Lawyer Called ‘Poster Boy for Capital Litigation Abuse’ Appointed to New Case” [ABA Journal] #
- Before fingering credit default swaps (CDSs) as culprit in the crisis, better read this [Salmon; more, John Carney] #
- Twitter cookbook all recipes 140 chars. or less h/t VBalasubramani #
- Reminder: you can follow Twitter feeds of both Overlawyered and Point of Law #
Not Thought Police after all
Prof. Susan Kuo of the University of South Carolina School of Law was in touch today to say that her talk of Thought Police the other day was intended in a spirit of light raillery, not as anything insulting or dismissive of my earlier criticism. Had that been apparent to me, I probably would not have given her post the kind of full-length and unsmiling dissection I did. As I say in a P.S. that I’ve appended to the earlier post, I’m glad to take Prof. Kuo at her word when she says she meant no offense, and I hope commenters will do the same.
Intermittent wipers, on the silver screen
It’s not often that patent litigation furnishes the subject of a new Hollywood film; inventor-side attorneys must be hoping the David-and-Goliath theme of the Universal Pictures release Flash of Genius redounds to their benefit. (Brian Baxter, AmLaw Daily, Oct. 3). The original New Yorker article on which the film is based is by no means devoid of balance, and includes a discussion of the late Jerome Lemelson, a longtime Overlawyered favorite (John Seabrook, The New Yorker, Jan. 11, 1993). Unrelatedly, a patent attorney turns up as the lead character of a fiction thriller in Paul Goldstein’s “A Patent Lie” (Stephen Albainy-Jenei, Patent Baristas, Sept. 29).