We’ve now launched a new letters page for Overlawyered.com based on a weblog format. We hope this will enable us to be more diligent in posting readers’ letters. We’ve started off with four letters, on the following topics: David Giacalone disagrees with Gene Healy on the fairness of using “imputed income” in computing child support obligations; Gulf War Syndrome and who, if anyone, should pay for it; how to succeed as a student with a little help from a disability designation; and why the liability crisis is now reaching NYC midwives.
Posts Tagged ‘about the site’
Latest newsletter
The latest edition of our email newsletter, summarizing items from Aug. 23 to Sept. 16, went out to subscribers earlier today. You can read the current or past issues of the newsletter — or sign up easily as a subscriber yourself — at this link.
Slightly off-topic general announcement
I’m just the second banana to Walter here, but blogging from me will be light-to-nonexistent over the next few days while I’m helping out on the appeal from today’s Ninth Circuit decision to enjoin the California recall election. Professor Glenn Reynolds (Sep. 15) has links in the meantime, and Professor Eugene Volokh (Sep. 15) asks an interesting question.
Welcome new contributor Ted Frank
We are delighted to welcome Ted Frank as an ongoing contributor to Overlawyered.com. As he put it when he dropped by for a guestblogging stint in July (scroll down to Jul. 8 and earlier dates), he’s a former clerk for Judge Frank Easterbrook of the Seventh Circuit who now practices law with a major firm (O’Melveny & Myers) in Washington, D.C. on behalf of clients dealing with some of the sorts of lawsuits chronicled in this space.
Needless to say, Ted and I will not always agree and should not be seen as speaking for each other. He’ll soon have his own email address at overlawyered.com perfect for readers who want to send him leads or react to posts. Please join in welcoming Ted aboard.
Welcome Kimberly Swygert readers
Her “Number Two Pencil” blog, one of the first places we turn for commentary on education, offers some kind comments about this website (Aug. 29). She also brings news of another cheerleader lawsuit (Sept. 2), this time involving one from Westmoreland County, Pa. who “is suing her school over her ‘demotion’ from the varsity squad”.
Welcome Phila., Denver, Okla., Jacksonville readers
We’re named among the weekly “Web Winners” picks of Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Reid Kanaley, who recommends us for “such class-action gems as the one in California demanding discounts for men on ‘ladies night.'” (Aug. 14). Vincent Carroll, writing in Denver’s Rocky Mountain News, predicts that the forthcoming Kobe Bryant trial is unlikely to resemble the atrocious O.J. Simpson trial, and quotes our editor on the question of jury selection and its abuse (“Spectacle of O.J. trial won’t repeat itself here”, Aug. 16).
Interview with our editor, and more publicity
Steven Martinovich at Enter Stage Right talks with our editor about what’s wrong with the legal system and how this site came to be (“The case against lawyers: An interview with Walter Olson”, Aug. 18). Doug Bandow’s review of our editor’s new book The Rule of Lawyers, which appeared in National Review this spring, is finally online now (“Shyster Heaven”, National Review Online, Apr. 21). More recent publicity: “Lawsuit lockdown” (editorial on malpractice crisis), Las Vegas Review-Journal, Aug. 7; Anne Marie Borrego, “Fairer Class Action” (on the Class Action Fairness Act), Inc. magazine, Aug.; “Shame on you Rush”, Cut on the Bias (Susanna Cornett’s blog), Aug. 9.
New guestblogger tomorrow; welcome USA Today readers
Our latest new guestblogger arrives tomorrow for a week of postings. And welcome to USA Today readers — we get mentioned today in connection with a story on strange eBay auctions, a specialty of recent guestblogger Dan Lewis’s site WhattheHeck.com (Karen Schubert, “Bazaar goes bizarre” , Jul. 28). For our original eBay item, see Jun. 21-23, 2002.
Newsletter; new topic categories
Rather belatedly, we’ve sent out our periodic newsletter with highlights from the site, the first since our format change last month. If you’d like to get on the mailing list (currently 2400 strong!) to receive this, it’s easy; go to this page and sign up via the Topica service.
We’ve also used the format change as an opportunity to introduce new topic pages collecting items with a single theme. There are now separate pages on Australia and the United Kingdom to go with our previous page on Canada. And there’s a new page on sports law (Dan Lewis is doing a great job of filling it up with content) as well as crime and punishment. One regret is that we’re not equipped to go back and index items published in the pre-June 2003 format that belong in these categories.
On the Beeb, etc.
Our editor was interviewed at some length, particularly on pending gun and asbestos legislation, on the BBC World Service’s weekly World Business Review. (Accuracy of transcript not guaranteed.) There’s an audio link, too. Both links may disappear on Saturday when the BBC site updates to the next week’s show.
While on the subject of publicity, our editor’s book The Rule of Lawyers came in for a lengthy review from Neil Hrab of Canada’s National Post in the July issue of Organization Trends, a publication of the Capital Research Center in Washington, D.C. (“More Than Good Friends: Trial Lawyers and Nonprofits“, PDF format, scroll to p. 7). Also, thanks for very kind mentions lately to a number of weblogs you should know about: Ernest Svenson’s Ernie the Attorney, MedRants, Steve Pilgrim’s Rodent Regatta and Aaron Haspel’s God of the Machine (the most philosophical spin on fast-food lawsuits you’ll read this month — it’s not easily paraphrased, just go read it).