Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘Harvard’

Harvard B-school prof wages war against Chinese restaurant

Ben Edelman has a law degree from Harvard Law School, a teaching position at Harvard Business School, and an economics and business background that has brought him such consulting clients as Microsoft, the NFL, the New York Times. He also seems to think he knows how to make life sheer hell if you’re the owner of a Chinese restaurant in Woburn and Brookline, Mass., that charged him $4 more than your website said because you don’t update your website as often as you ought.

Hilary Sargent at Boston.com has the whole story, including the email trail. (“It strikes me that merely providing a refund to a single customer would be an exceptionally light sanction for the violation that has occurred…. I have already referred this matter to applicable authorities in order to attempt to compel your restaurant to identify all consumers affected and to provide refunds to all of them, or in any event to assure that an appropriate sanction is applied as provided by law.”) Is Prof. Edelman trying to get us to consider him as the new poster guy for Overlawyered?

P.S. Edelman defends himself here. Before the Sichuan affair, the professor was already known for taking an entrepreneurial approach to online complaint [Bloomberg Business Week] “If you think this is bad, you should see his antitrust analysis.” [reader W.R.] And from New York, relevant to a question that may have occurred to some readers: “Can A Business Ban An Attorney Who Has Filed A Lawsuit Against It?” [James Lemonedes, Above the Law]

P.P.S. He’s pulled this before, it seems. More reading: Lowering the Bar; Jordan Weissmann, Slate.

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Harvard law professors: stand up to feds on campus-sex courts

This is big:

As members of the faculty of Harvard Law School, we write to voice our strong objections to the Sexual Harassment Policy and Procedures imposed by the central university administration…

Amid the clamor to provide fuller remedies to complainants who file sexual assault and harassment charges, the university is preparing to trample the interests of others:

Harvard has adopted procedures for deciding cases of alleged sexual misconduct which lack the most basic elements of fairness and due process, are overwhelmingly stacked against the accused, and are in no way required by Title IX law or regulation.

Among the problems: overly broad definitions of misconduct in situations like that of mutual incapacitation by alcohol, and procedures that deny “any adequate opportunity to discover the facts charged and to confront witnesses and present a defense at an adversary hearing.”

Had Harvard arrived at these rules as a result of purely internal deliberations, it would be one thing. But in practice it’s yielding to strong-arm pressure from the combined efforts of the Obama Department of Justice and Education Department Office for Civil Rights (for more details, see my article for Commentary last year.)  Like hundreds of other colleges and universities over the past year, Harvard responded to this pressure by meekly folding its hand:

The university’s sexual harassment policy departs dramatically from [existing] legal principles, jettisoning balance and fairness in the rush to appease certain federal administrative officials.

We recognize that large amounts of federal funding may ultimately be at stake. But Harvard University is positioned as well as any academic institution in the country to stand up for principle in the face of funding threats.

It’s especially gratifying to see that the letter’s 28 signers include prominent scholars associated over the years variously with feminist, liberal, and left-leaning causes, such as Nancy Gertner, Charles Ogletree, Charles Nesson, Janet Halley, and Elizabeth Bartholet, along with perhaps more expected names like longtime contrarian Alan Dershowitz. A turning point? Let’s hope so. The letter is here (h/t Eugene Volokh; & further Boston Globe coverage). [cross-posted from Cato at Liberty]

Also: “the danger of holding an innocent person responsible is real.” [Judith Shulevitz, New Republic, quoting Prof. Halley]

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Banking and finance roundup

  • J.P. Morgan and the Dodd-Frank system: “With Wall Street’s capable assistance, government has managed to institutionalize and monetize the perp walk.” [Michael Greve, related from Greve on the self-financing regulatory state]
  • Harvard needs to worry about being seen as endorsing its affiliated Shareholder Rights Project [Richard Painter]
  • Under regulatory pressure, J.P. Morgan “looking to pull back from lending to politically incorrect operations like pawn shops, payday lenders, check cashers” [Seeking Alpha]
  • Rare securities class action goes to trial against Household lending firm, HSBC; $2.46 billion judgment [Reuters]
  • Car dealers only thought they were winning a Dodd-Frank exemption from CFPB. Surprise! [Carter Dougherty/Bloomberg, Funnell]
  • “Memo to the Swiss: Capping CEO Pay is not an Intelligent Way of dealing with Income Inequality” [Bainbridge]
  • American Bankers Association vs. blogger who compiled online list of banks’ routing numbers [Popehat]

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Free speech roundup

  • Arizona water utility sues customer over criticism [Popehat, which also has a free-speech-themed Blawg Review tribute and the year in blasphemy law]
  • Harvey Silverglate, “The Slow Death of Free Speech at Harvard” [Minding the Campus] Cato’s Free Speech Week coverage includes video of recent Jonathan Rauch panel [Tim Lynch]
  • Arrest warrant issued after Connecticut man tells Facebook readers he plans to take toy guns into school to prove point [Volokh]
  • In Florida, it’s illegal for two or more people to join together and spend more than $500 on a state ballot issue [Ilya Shapiro; Jacob Sullum on other grassroots-activist chill effects] Brad Smith on the fight at the Supreme Court between Shaun McCutcheon and the FEC [WSJ]
  • “Florida Condo Developer Sues Residents Over Website” [IJ]
  • Lawmaker to introduce anti-SLAPP bill to curb vexatious plaintiffs in Pennsylvania, and no state needs it more [Philly Law Blog; cf. Michigan which also could use a hand]
  • Will measures to criminalize revenge porn erode Section 230, the provision that shelters online media operators from liability for user-added content? [Mark Bennett, Scott Greenfield] At European Court for Human Rights, notice-and-takedown policy not enough to insulate Estonian website from liability for racist user comments [Stanford CIS]

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Schools roundup

  • Chilling one side of a debate? American Federation of Teachers arm-twists board members to quit groups critical of union contracts (including the Manhattan Institute, with which I used to be affiliated) [New York Post, Bloomberg, Ira Stoll]
  • “Third Circuit Finds Schools Aren’t Liable for Bullies” [Fed Soc Blog]
  • Case dismissed in Marshall University student’s suit over exceedingly undignified bottle-rocket stunt [West Virginia Record]
  • Free pass for harming students? Realistic policy call? Both? Courts frown on “educational malpractice” claims vs. schools, teachers [Illinois State Bar Association; Beck]
  • Brookings has very poor reviews for Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s student loan plan [Matthew Chingos and Beth Akers; Megan McArdle]
  • 1,200 sign Harvard petition assailing academic freedom in Jason Richwine case [Boston Globe]
  • College selection of commencement speakers: political spectrum’s so skewed that even moderate GOPer Bob Zoellick’s a no-go [Bainbridge]
  • The Common Good online forum on risk and legal fear in schools, in which I’m a participant, continues for another day or two.

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Law schools roundup

  • Leaked editorial discussions at Harvard Human Rights Journal furnish potential pocket part for my book Schools For Misrule [Above the Law]
  • ABA accreditation standards stand in way of law school reform [McEntee/Caron; see also pp. 38-39 of Schools for Misrule] Brian Tamanaha interview on that and other subjects [IHE; reviews of his book]
  • More from Tamanaha on topics including broken law school rankings [Bloomberg Law video] Tamanaha v. Erwin Chemerinsky on public service and prestige-chasing at Irvine Law [Caron, Balkinization]
  • Paul Horwitz paper-in-progress uses books critical of law schools, including SfM, as jumping-off point [SSRN, Prawfs and big discussion]
  • “Arguing over answers in Scattergories is the closest thing on the planet to the experience of a law school class.” [Replevin for a Cow]
  • “A comment called it an ad hominem attack on @walterolson, but it was nothing personal. I am just everything he abhors.” [Raja Raghunath, background]
  • “Barrister’s Ball” results in dramshop action against law school [AtL]

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Back to school roundup

  • “Do The New School Food Regulations Actually Hinder Scratch-Cooking?” Looks like it [Bettina Elias Siegel]
  • What Gloria Romero saw in Sacramento: prison guards lobby for longer sentences, nurses lobby against first aid, but the teachers union was the most untouchable of all [WSJ] Media Matters and the NEA [David Martosko, Daily Caller]
  • To earn top ratings under new city evaluation scheme, Denver teachers must press students to “challenge… the dominant culture” and “take social action to change/improve society or work for social justice.” Gee, thanks, Gates Foundation [9NEWS, auto-plays; earlier on ideological tests for educators]
  • “School Tells Deaf Boy, ‘Hunter,’ to Change His Name — It’s Too Violent” [Skenazy/Agitator]
  • More on pressure for race quotas in school discipline [Casey Cheney, Heartlander, quotes me; earlier here, here, etc.]
  • Allegations of mass cheating in, too perfectly, Harvard “Introduction to Congress” course: “I say give the cheaters an A, fail the rest” [Alex Tabarrok] Suspended fraternity sues Miami University for $10 million [Cincinnati Enquirer]
  • On coach liability for player injuries [Matt Mitten, Marquette]
  • ACLU files novel suit alleging Michigan and its agencies failed legal, constitutional obligation to bring student reading up to grade level [WSJ Law Blog]

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“Abolish the Law Reviews!”

I’ve got a new essay up at The Atlantic, part of the “America the Fixable” series edited by Philip K. Howard. I have a bit of fun at the expense of the Harvard Law Review, raising the question of whether it should be held to lower standards than the Long Island tabloid Newsday, and cite such figures as Richard Posner, Elizabeth Warren, Ross Davies of George Mason, and the bloggers at Volokh Conspiracy and Balkinization.

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