“Don’t purchase a domain entitled ‘firetheliarjudge dot com’ if you plan on continuing to practice law,” and most especially don’t … well, you’ll have to read the allegations yourself [Keith Lee, Associates Mind thread, on Illinois lawyer discipline case]
Posts Tagged ‘don’t’
They’re doing it wrong
Lawyers in suits and ties ransacked the Punjab Institute of Cardiology in Lahore, Pakistan, “beating up staff and smashing equipment…. The lawyers had been protesting over the alleged mistreatment of some of their colleagues by hospital staff last month. But the final trigger for the violence appears to have been a video posted on social media by a doctor on Tuesday night in which he poked fun at the lawyers.” Three patients died during the riot as medical staff could not care for them. [BBC]
“Roundup suit lawyer accused of $200 million extortion plot”
“Law enforcement officials have arrested a Virginia lawyer involved in litigation over the health risks of Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer product, with prosecutors accusing him of trying to extort an unnamed company into a $200 million consulting fee with his legal firm.” The lawyer in question represented a former school groundskeeper who won a $289 million lawsuit against Monsanto last year, despite grave scientific doubts about whether glyphosate causes the harms alleged [Khristopher J. Brooks, CBS News, earlier on these cases] Related: U.S. Department of Justice release; Alex Berezow, American Council on Science and Health.
December 11 roundup
- “Bad writing does not normally warrant sanctions, but we draw the line at gibberish.” And Judge Sykes had much more to say besides that [Kevin Underhill, Lowering the Bar]
- Man claiming to possess vast trove of secret Jeffrey Epstein data approaches two prominent lawyers. Episode sheds light on “extraordinary, at times deceitful measures” lawyers may employ “in an effort to get evidence that could be used to win lucrative settlements.” [Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Emily Steel, Jacob Bernstein and David Enrich, New York Times]
- “How Cloudflare Stood up to a Patent Troll – and Won” [Alex Krivit, CloudFlare]
- “By enacting government licensing of online speech, the Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act would risk increasing censorship instead of preventing it.” [Diane Katz, Heritage]
- New Charles Blahous paper on where next for gerrymandering reform coincides with many of my own views [Mercatus, Mitch Kokai/Carolina Journal; more to say in a future article] “Roundtable: 3 experts on SCOTUS’ gerrymandering ruling” [Jerrick Adams, Ballotpedia, thanks for including me]
- Changes in American law (torts especially) have trained us to blame those with money when we suffer a harm. Should it be a surprise that the resulting attitudes might spill over into the political system? [Robin Hanson]
Tort lawsuit named wrong state, described living complainant as dead
Details, always with the picky details: in an opinion written by Justice Jay Mitchell, the Supreme Court of Alabama has thrown out as untimely a tort suit filed against Janssen Biotech Inc. claiming injury from the side effects of a medication. [Charmaine Little, Chamber-backed Legal Newsline] Timeliness wasn’t the only problem with the suit, drafted by the complainant’s attorney wife:
Mitchell noted in the ruling that it was “apparent” from a review of the original complaint that it was copied from another complaint.
“The complaint included numerous factual and legal errors, including an assertion that Tim was dead even though he is alive and claims invoking the laws of Indiana even though that state has no apparent connection to this litigation,” Mitchell wrote.
October 16 roundup
- “Lawyer says it ‘would be an honor’ to be disbarred; disciplinary board aims to oblige” [ABA Journal, Lowering the Bar]
- In the mail: Jacob Grier’s new book The Rediscovery of Tobacco: Smoking, Vaping, and the Creative Destruction of the Cigarette [more from author, Mark Fogerson/Portland Monthly, John Locke Foundation podcast with Grier and Mitch Kokai] And: Cato video;
- Re: House subpoenas aimed at the Trump administration, colleague Ilya Shapiro wrote this comprehensive pre-game report [last December for the Washington Examiner]
- NBC might not have picked the ideal poster inmate to showcase the problem of long-term sentencing of nonviolent drug offenders [Kent Scheidegger via Volokh]
- Profile of police brutality/civil rights plaintiff’s lawyer Benjamin Crump [John H. Richardson, New York magazine]
- Conservative Tennessee lawmaker introduces bill to provide instructions for jury nullification in acquittal direction only [Scott Greenfield in February]
Downfall of the Excuseman
Dear lawyers: you might want to avoid portraying a superhero character in your advertising “if you actually do the thing your character purportedly fights against” such as injuring your clients and then making excuses [Kevin Underhill, Lowering the Bar; Cook County, Ill. judge sentences Jordan Margolis to three years]
July 10 roundup
- Hearse driver in HOV lane to highway patrol: you mean I can’t count the corpse as a passenger? [Michelle Lou, CNN]
- “Caterpillar Now Going After All The Cats For Trademark Cancellations” [Timothy Geigner, TechDirt, earlier]
- Before trying to open a storefront business in San Francisco you might look to this advice from commercial real estate brokers about the city’s zoning and permit hurdles, and please quit using words like “bonkers” or “flabbergasting” [Robert Fruchtman Twitter thread]
- “Lawyer engaged in ‘sustained campaign of unfounded litigation,’ disbarment recommendation says” [ABA Journal; Waukegan, Illinois]
- Breaking from two other federal appeals courts, Third Circuit rules that Amazon as a platform can be sued under strict liability principles over defective items sold by third-party vendors on its site [Brendan Pierson, Reuters] Should the ruling stand, implications for online marketplaces are dire [Eric Goldman]
- New challenges for Mathew Higbee, high volume copyright enforcement lawyer, and his clients [Paul Alan Levy, more, earlier]
May 29 roundup
- Lawyer don’ts: Don’t steal your client’s book advance [Rebecca R. Ruiz, New York Times on Michael Avenatti indictment]
- “This isn’t science, it’s witchcraft”: latest verdict against Bayer/Monsanto in Roundup weedkiller/non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma case rests on ultra-loose standards of causation [David Bernstein, related video, earlier]
- Blazing sunset: Idaho legislature fails to reauthorize state’s code of more than 8,000 regulations, which expire. Between now and July 1, Gov. Brad Little “gets to pick and choose which ones to reinstate as emergency regs until legislature meets again.” [James Broughel, Mercatus]
- News blackout on STEM Charter School shooting (Highlands Ranch, Colorado) has judicial origins: entire court file in murder case against older of the two shooters “is ‘suppressed’ from public inspection. This even over the express request of the prosecutor” to have the judge unseal most records [Eugene Volokh]
- Baltimore corruption and development, red flag law, Montgomery Countyites for private toll lanes, Yuripzy Morgan show and more in my latest Maryland policy roundup;
- A point I’ve been making for years about the Electoral College: one of its underrated benefits is in bolstering election integrity by much shortening the list of jurisdictions in which a material chance of fraud might throw overall result into doubt with consequences for legitimacy [Stephen Sachs and followup]
March 13 roundup
- “Near the end of her new proposal to break up Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple, Senator Warren asks, ‘So what would the Internet look like after all these reforms?’ It’s a good question.” [Geoffrey Manne and Alec Stapp, Truth on the Market/CNBC]
- Floral arrangements as constitutionally protected expression: Cato files amicus on behalf of First Amendment rights of Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman not to serve a wedding of which she disapproves [Ilya Shapiro and Patrick Moran, Washington Supreme Court]
- “Over several months, man repeatedly threatens his next-door neighbor with profanity, racial epithets. The police investigate, warn the man to stop, and then arrest him when he does not. Eventually, the man leaves the apartment complex after the landlord declines to renew his lease. Can the neighbor sue the landlord for failing to intervene sooner? The Second Circuit says yes, the neighbor’s Fair Housing Act claims should not have been dismissed. Dissent: The FHA doesn’t say landlords can be liable for tenant-on-tenant harassment; more likely it precludes such claims.” [IJ “Short Circuit” on Francis v. Kings Park Manor, Second Circuit; Scott Greenfield]
- Gender identity: R. Shep Melnick on where the momentum is headed among judges, regulators, and administrators [Liberty and Law]
- Comfort for lawmakers means discomfort for taxpayers? Study finds “growth in state government expenditures in warm states was higher after the introduction of air conditioning” [Thomas A. Garrett and Natalia A. Kolesnikova, Cato Journal]
- “Succubustic” is not a word you should probably use at all, certainly not to describe any real person, and most definitely not if you are a lawyer to describe a judge [Lowering the Bar]