Scott Greenfield has some questions following the conviction of a New York lawyer who impersonated a scholar online “in a heated academic debate over the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
Upcoming New Orleans speeches
I’ll be speaking at Tulane law school late in the afternoon of Mon., Oct. 18, and then at Loyola-New Orleans at lunchtime on Tues., Oct. 19. Both events are sponsored by student Federalist Society chapters; my topics will be legal ethics/lawyer unpopularity and employment law/ADA litigation, respectively. To bring me to your campus, convention or group, drop me a line at editor – at – thisdomainname – dot – com or, if you prefer, work through the Cato Institute’s speaker service (202-789-5226) or the national office of the Federalist Society. And don’t forget that early next year I’ll start touring to speak on my new book on law schools, Schools for Misrule.
High court lets stand Paul Minor conviction
Despite much speculation that the Court’s rollback of the law of “honest services fraud” might help his case, the justices yesterday “let stand without comment a ruling by a federal appeals court that upheld most convictions of the lawyer, Paul Minor, and the judges, John Whitfield and Wes Teel. The men were convicted for their roles in a complicated scheme involving loans for the judges and allegedly favorable rulings in civil cases involving Minor.” [AP/Biloxi Sun-Herald, YallPolitics]
“He said he had worked too long and too hard for a lousy $41 million”
Sorrows of a Texas fen-phen lawyer now accused (in a civil lawsuit) of getting creative with his clients’ expense allocations. [Houston Chronicle via Ted at PoL]
October 4 roundup
- O.J. Simpson trial 15 years after [Tim Lynch, Cato at Liberty; a couple of my reactions back then]
- Hackers expose internal documents of British copyright-mill law firm [Steele, LEF] Insult to injury: now that target law firm may be fined for privacy breach [same]
- BAR/BRI antitrust case: “Judge Cites ‘Egregious Breach’ of Ethics, Slashes Law Firm Fee from $12M to $500K” [ABA Journal]
- “Confessions of former debt collectors” [CNN Money via CL&P]
- Big investigative series on prosecutorial misconduct [USA Today]
- “Even with malpractice insurance, doctors opt for expensive, defensive medicine” [Jain/WaPo] “Medical malpractice suits drop but take a toll” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Paul Carpenter, of the Allentown Morning Call, on problem and possible solutions] A contrary view: Ron Miller.
- “Card check is dead … long live card check” [Hyman]
- “Canada: Deported Russian spy sues for readmittance” [four years ago on Overlawyered] A role model for some in the spy ring recently deported from the U.S.?
Food safety bill: the Big Business/Big Nanny alliance
Surprisingly or otherwise, some big business groups like the Grocery Manufacturers of America have allied with consistent Big Government advocacy groups like the Consumer Federation of America and Center for Science in the Public Interest to push S. 510, the food safety bill pending before the Senate (which might win consideration in the lame-duck session). In a post at Cato at Liberty recently, I cited writer Barry Estabrook, an ardent critic of the food industry (“Politics of the Plate“), writing at The Atlantic, who says the bill could “make things worse”:
You needn’t go along completely with Estabrook’s dim view of industrialized agriculture to realize he’s right in one of his central contentions: “the proposed rules would disproportionately impose costs upon” small producers, including traditional, low-tech and organic farmers and foodmakers selling to neighbors and local markets. Even those with flawless safety records or selling low-risk types of foodstuff could be capsized by new paperwork and regulatory burdens that larger operations will be able to absorb as a cost of doing business.
It’s true that S. 510 includes language not in earlier drafts that nods toward the idea of tiering regulatory burdens. But as the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance notes (background), most of the small-producer-friendly changes are left to FDA discretion, so it really depends on how much you trust that process. Note also these comments (background) by Peter Kennedy for the Farm-To-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, which focuses primarily on defending raw milk, and in particular Kennedy’s discussion (as things that may be particularly burdensome to small entities) of HARPC (“hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls”), traceability, penalties, expansion of federal jurisdiction, and produce standards, as well as the terms of S. 3767, the “Food Safety Accountability Act of 2010,” a new measure introduced by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. On the “pro” side, here is an advocacy sheet (anonymous on its face, but attributed in some quarters to Senate staffers) defending the measure as fair to small farmers (& welcome Professor Bainbridge readers).
“Boys deny fireworks fiasco, claim seat heaters caused car fire”
From the Blue-Ribbon Excuses file, via Obscure Store and a puckishly written account by Mark Morey in the Yakima Herald-Republic.
U.K.: “School ‘no touch’ rules to be scrapped”
“‘No touch’ rules discouraging teachers from restraining and comforting children are to be scrapped, Education Secretary Michael Gove has said.” [BBC] And the incoming Cameron government is proceeding with a previously signaled broad effort to roll back excessive health and safety rules that discourage harmless goings-on in schools, workplaces and the community [BBC, earlier] On the other hand, the Conservatives intend to go forward with most of a package of new measures devised by the previous Labour government that would expand discrimination and harassment law in the direction of wide-open U.S.-style rights to sue [Telegraph, Daily Mail]
“This American Life” on California ADA mills
It covers them in “Act 3” of a show on “Crybabies” (transcript).
CPSIA: Russian nesting dolls, paper clips, science kits
The website of the Golden Cockerel import firm includes a rather elaborate warning as to why its matryoshka are not meant for the under-12 set, at least not since the enactment of the calamitous Jan-Schakowsky–backed law:
the law requires each batch of toys be tested by a 3rd party laboratory to be sure they are “toy safe.” Such tests can cost well over $1000 per nesting doll set! And sometimes, as with our museum quality one-of-a-kind dolls, a “batch” consists entirely of one doll, or only a few, making it totally unfeasible to test.
CPSIA: reserving treasured toys for strictly adult use since 2008.
More: The CPSC has just sided with purported consumer groups and against pleas from the business community in adopting a broad definition of what constitute “children’s products” under the disastrous Barbara-Boxer–backed law: for example, ordinary paper clips must go through costly separate CPSIA testing when meant for kids’ use as part of a science kit with magnets and similar items [NY Times, AP/WaPo (“Kids’ science kits may take hit from safety ruling”), Commissioners Anne Northup and Nancy Nord]