Has its power peaked? If so, there might be less lobbying pressure “for ‘three strikes, your out’ and other senseless sentencing policies that provide jobs for [its] members.” [Rick Hills, Prawfsblawg, The Economist, earlier]
“Legal secretary claims firm fired her for failure to meet unrealistic workload”
Legal secretary Nancy Topolski acknowledges that she couldn’t handle the workload assigned to her by law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, and that she suffered panic attacks as a result that prevented her from doing the work. But, she says, this just means that the law firm violated discrimination laws when it fired her. (Karen Sloan, National Law Journal, Mar. 24).
Canada’s Coulter climate
“I was hoping for a fruit basket, not a threat to prosecute,” says controversialist Ann Coulter about the menacing letter she got from the provost of the University of Ottawa. [Big Government, Popehat, Legal Blog Watch, WSJ Law Blog] Part of Coulter’s Canadian tour was subsequently called off after security officials said they could not guarantee her safety from protesters. [Moynihan/Reason “Hit and Run”] More: Mark Steyn, Binks. The somewhat attenuated nature of Canada’s rights of free speech is a topic familiar to our readers.
When defendants resist
A company takes the counteroffensive, verbally at least, against a class action suit [Karlsgodt] Unfortunately, the blog post is now down, apparently on advice of counsel.
Diversity training’s triumph
It’s swept corporate America. Too bad it doesn’t seem to work [Drake Bennett, Boston Globe via Arts and Letters Daily] More: The Briefcase (Ohio) is reminded of continuing legal education (CLE).
March 24 roundup
- Jury orders Dutchess County, N.Y. school district to pay $1.25 million for not adequately addressing classmate harassment of “very dark skinned” half-Latino student; district protests that it had extensively pursued diversity/sensitivity programs [Poughkeepsie Journal]
- More unwisdom: “Oklahoma House of Representatives Proposes Ban on Use of Foreign Law in Oklahoma Courts” [Volokh, earlier on Arizona bill]
- Update: California environment czars won’t ban black cars, but watch out for what reflective-layer window mandates might do to cellphones and tollgate transponders [ShopFloor, earlier]
- “Firm Sanctioned for ‘Perfect Storm’ of Improper Practices in Debt Collection” [NYLJ]
- Critic of lie detector technology says U.K. libel law has silenced him [Times Online] Science journalist Simon Singh says fighting chiropractors’ libel suit is so draining that he’s quitting his column for the Guardian [Guardian, Citizen Media Law]
- Florida: father who lost wife, son in murder/suicide at gun range drops lawsuit against the store [Orlando Sentinel]
- Appeals court declines to overturn Mary Roberts sextortion conviction [MySanAntonio.com, opinion, related, earlier]
- Corporation for Public Newspapering? Stimulus bucks go to “public-interest investigative journalism” [SFWeekly]
Health bill requires vending, restaurant-chain calorie counts
Why, wonders Joe Weisenthal, are we only finding out about this now? The National Restaurant Association sought the measure — which constricts the freedom of its own membership — in hopes of gaining uniformity instead of “a potential patchwork of conflicting requirements adopted by states and cities,” to quote the Times. It can be reliably predicted, though, that the ever-growing battalions of “food policy advocates” will 
not feel constrained by any supposed national deal to refrain from pushing for further piecemeal extension of state and local requirements, thus rendering any seeming uniformity but temporary.
The requirement kicks in when a restaurant chain reaches ten units, and will foreseeably make it harder for 15-unit local chains to compete with the 1,500-unit behemoths who can spread the nontrivial costs of compliance over a much larger base. Like earlier calorie-labeling laws, it will also encourage standardization by making it hazardous for owners not to prescribe and control, e.g., precisely how much topping local employees are to spread on each sandwich or pizza. Earlier here. More: Richard Goldfarb at Food Liability Law Blog has more details, and reports that the threshold for number of outlets is 20 rather than 15. There also some pre-emption of state and local regulation, although localities can still impose added requirements in the name of food safety.
“Goodwin Liu’s America”
I have an op-ed about the pending Ninth Circuit nomination, which the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider tomorrow. If some of the language sounds vaguely familiar, it stems from an earlier Ted, and it especially amused me how much more appropriate Senator Kennedy’s words were for Professor Liu than for Judge Bork.
See also The Heritage Foundation’s discussion.
Update: and Ed Whelan’s NRO piece. And Ilya Shapiro and Evan Turgeon in the Daily Caller.
Criminal liability for aiding and abetting IP infringement?
Andrew Moshirnia wonders whether an EU scheme might wind up kind of outlawing the Internet. [Citizen Media Law]
Defining “children’s product”
The CPSC spends 52 pages doing that [document, PDF, via AmendTheCPSIA.com]