Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

But Was He Properly Mirandized?

It’s not just the U.S. civil-justice system that often winds up serving counterproductive ends, but also our criminal and national security legal systems. And just like with, e.g., our tort system, it sometimes seems like everyone knows this except us Americans.

Consider this, from the Times‘ detailed account of the interrogation of 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:

Mohammed met his captors at first with cocky defiance, telling one veteran CIA officer, a former Pakistan station chief, that he would talk only when he got to New York and was assigned a lawyer–the experience of his nephew and partner in terrorism, Ramzi Yousef, after Yousef’s arrest in 1995.

Apparently, KSM was somehow privy to an advance copy of Boumediene. . .

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Creatively Challenged

For something like two decades, your computer firm has been known for the cult-like devotion of its followers and its single-button mice, so when it comes time to introduce a two-button mouse, how to placate the hurt feelings of those who’ve spent 20 years arguing that the One Way is One Button? First, it helps if the new device doesn’t actually appear to have two buttons—maybe they won’t notice?—and second, you give it a slightly-deprecating-yet-somehow-still-smug name: “Mighty Mouse” is the all-too-obvious choice and the one that Apple inc., in fact, made.

Don’t assume, just because this is Overlawyered, that Apple is being sued by CBS, which owns the rights to the cartoon superhero—too obvious.

Read On…

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Guestbloggers on deck

I’ll be mostly absent for the next week because of a deadline, and I believe Ted may be tied up for the next couple of days as well. Fortunately, we’ve got two excellent guestblogger prospects on deck, so you’ll be well provided for in the mean time.

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Settlement first, plaintiff afterward?

Objections might slow down the approval of a class action settlement on behalf of black retail brokers against Morgan Stanley: “Linda Friedman, an attorney for about 30 brokers, claimed that James Finberg and other class counsel fished for a lead plaintiff after they already negotiated the settlement with defense lawyers at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.” (Dan Levine, “Objections Interrupt Morgan Stanley Settlement”, The Recorder, Jun. 17).

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Muscling into her clients’ wedding pictures

Virginia Postrel wonders why publicity-hound attorney Gloria Allred wouldn’t let her clients have the spotlight for once last week. “This is not just rude. It’s bad politics. If you want to get Californians to vote against a state-constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, you should keep the obnoxious leftist lawyers out of sight and highlight the happy families.” (Jun. 18).

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June 21 roundup

  • Sure enough, former Milberg lawyers sue the convicted ex-Milberg lawyers for breach of fiduciary duty. I was wondering when that was going to happen. [WSJ Law Blog; NYLJ/law.com; earlier]
  • Why file grievance against a fellow attorney who’s only stolen $200,000 from clients? Colleagues wonder [Las Vegas Review-Journal via ABA]
  • Judge: No evidence of wrongdoing by Kenneth Pasternak. Too bad he can’t get his three years back. Meanwhile SEC keeps bringing enforcement cases on same repeatedly rejected theory of liability. [WSJ; Law Blog]
  • “What the AP and The New York Times’ Hansell don’t seem to realize is how hostile an act it is to send lawyer letters to individuals.” [Jarvis via Patterico]
  • “When judges act like politicians, the judicial selection process – elected or appointed – becomes increasingly political. Action and reaction. The politicization of the court led to the politicization of the elections for justices. … When justices arrogate political policymaking to themselves, they should not be surprised when they are held to the same standards as politicians.” [Wisconsin Policy Research Institute via American Courthouse; I said that, too]
  • Even Susan Estrich finds the Alex Kozinski web site mini-to-do as evidence of media bias. [Estrich; Patterico link roundup]
  • Senator McCaskill shows her ignorance on the Anheuser-Busch merger and corporate officer duties. [Hodak]
  • A clever attorney will already have a fill-in-the-blanks product liability complaint drafted against Lego. [Childs]
  • Hugo Chavez expropriates wealth to consolidate dictatorship. American lawyer helps. Somehow I don’t think we’ll see an Alien Tort Claims Act suit against his law firm. [AmLaw Daily]

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Studios: we shouldn’t have to prove anyone used shared movie files

The act of making available movies for P2P copying should itself give rise to damage liability, with no need for a showing that anyone actually came along and availed themselves of the illicit property, Hollywood moviemakers are arguing. “It is technologically infeasible to determine whether the public is copying an open share folder, although the RIAA makes its own downloads from defendants’ share folders, produces screen shots and, among other things, captures an IP address. An Arizona judge ruled last month in a different case that those downloads count against a defendant, a one-of-a-kind decision being appealed on grounds that the RIAA was authorized to download its own music.” Infringement penalties can run to $150,000 per copyright violation. (David Kravets, “MPAA Says No Proof Needed in P2P Copyright Infringement Lawsuits”, “Threat Level” blog, Wired.com, Jun. 20). More: Ars Technica.

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The Rezko mess: a (tangential?) Madison County link

Illinois state Rep. Jay Hoffman of Madison County, who doubles as an attorney with the Lakin Law Firm, is also said to be a big-time political fundraiser and a key link between the county’s far-famed class-action culture and the world of Illinois politics. Hoffman has long been a close and loyal advisor to now-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, something that’s no longer such a big political advantage what with the Rezko trial having badly sullied the governor’s reputation. Things got worse last month when Hoffman’s name came up during some of the most explosive testimony at that trial, though he’s been charged with no wrongdoing. And now he’s at odds with a fellow Democrat, state house Speaker Michael Madigan — himself a longtime guardian of trial lawyer interests in Springfield — following what the St. Louis Post-Dispatch describes as “the airing of a secret memo from [Madigan’s] staff directing legislative candidates to call for Blagojevich’s impeachment — complete with instructions to deny that they’re getting instructions.” (AP’s version). Ed Murnane of the Illinois Civil Justice League has more at Illinois Review, as do the editorialists of the Chamber-backed Madison County Record, while Eric Zorn of the Tribune and ArchPundit speculate that Blagojevich might appoint Hoffman to Barack Obama’s seat in the U.S. Senate should his election as President leave it vacant.

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June 20 roundup

  • Federal judge: asking employee to get coffee not an intrinsically sexist act [Legal Intelligencer]

  • Kilt-clad Montgomery Blair Sibley, at press conference, adds certain je ne sais quoi to tawdry Larry Sinclair sideshow [Sydney Morning Herald]

  • Remind us why Florida Gov. Crist is supposed to be an acceptable veep pick? [PoL]. Also at Point of Law: Hill’s FISA compromise may end pending telecom-privacy suits; interesting Second Circuit reverse-preference case on New Haven firefighters.

  • Virginia bar authorities shaken by charges that Woodbridge attorney Stephen T. Conrad pocketed $3.4 million in injury settlements at clients’ expense [Va. Lawyers Weekly; case of Christiansburg, Va. lawyer Gerard Marks ties in with first links here]

  • U.K.: Local government instructs staff that term “brainstorming” might be insensitive to persons with epilepsy, use “thought showers” instead [Telegraph; Tunbridge Wells, Kent]

  • Big personal injury law firm in Australia, Keddies Lawyers, denies accusations of client overcharging and document falsification [SMH]

  • Will this be on the bar exam? Massachusetts law school dean eyes war crime trials culminating in hanging for high officials of Bush Administration [Ambrogi and more, Michael Krauss and I at PoL]

  • “Just another cash grab”? New Kabateck Brown Kellner “click-fraud” class actions against Google AdWords, CitySearch [Kincaid, TechCrunch/WaPo]

  • Former Rep. Bob Barr, this year’s Libertarian presidential candidate, is no stranger to the role of plaintiff in politically fraught litigation [six years ago on Overlawyered, and represented by Larry Klayman to boot]

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