March 15 roundup

A workplace hazard? Push in Britain to “make it illegal for a company to require women to wear high heels at work.” [Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Reason]
Service dogs on planes: “a ‘credible verbal assurance’ books Fido a trip to San Francisco for the weekend” [David Post, Volokh Conspiracy] Australia, too, sees trend toward exotic service and emotional-support animals [Workplace Prof; earlier]
Trial lawyers would like Supreme Court to squash the arbitration alternative, but few signs Judge Gorsuch is on board with that plan [Edith Roberts, SCOTUSBlog]
New York radical lawyer Lynne Stewart, not a favorite in these columns, dead at 77 [Scott Johnson, PowerLine, earlier]
Baltimore police scandal, “yes means yes” bill for MoCo schools, homicide rap for overdose suppliers?, school wi-fi scare, Tom Perez, and more in my Maryland policy roundup [Free State Notes]
Suing so soon over White House regulatory reform, Public Citizen, and with so little show of injury? [Brian Mannix, Law and Liberty]

Lynne Stewart speaks at Hofstra Law

I’ve got more coverage at Point of Law here and here.

In Scotland, car repair shop faces music royalty suit because its employees listen to radios on the job [BBC]

Pediatricians grill kids about their parents’ drinking, gun ownership and antisocial habits — what, weren’t the hairdressers reporting back enough dirt for the authorities to work with? [Malkin, Szwarc]

Watch out for the new ADA Restoration Act of 2007, which would reverse several Supreme Court precedents with the aim of making it easier to file and win suits [Bader]

Don’t confuse Hollywood’s idea of lawyering, as in Clooney’s “Michael Clayton”, with the real kind [Lundegaard, MSNBC]

“It costs millions of dollars in litigation fees to show that a patent should not have been granted, and most big corporations have learned that the hard way.” [Chachkes @ CNet]

Banning all uses of lead from metal assemblies can result in “tin whiskers” leading to catastrophic failures in electronic devices — lucky those aren’t dangerous or anything [AP]

Armenian-American writer Garin Hovannisian isn’t an admirer of the Congressional genocide resolution [Boaz @ Cato-at-Liberty; see also Jul. 27]

Lynchburg, Va. woman: hey, I invented those pre-moistened cleaning wipes [News Advance via VLW]

Another round of coverage on libel tourism, SLAPPs and terror-support research [Broyde & Lipstadt @ NYT; Miller @ City Journal, Levitt @ The New Republic]

New at Point of Law: Ted on yet another iPhone suit, this time demanding a billion plus; further coverage of the Hofstra/Lynne Stewart affair; after many failures, lawyers score a $143 million verdict against Wyeth over hormone replacement drug Prempro/Premarin; more on the U.S. Navy, WWII and asbestos disease; new Irvine law school’s in the money; and much more.

I’m scheduled to join Glenn Beck today on his CNN Headline News show, on the 2:30-3:00 p.m. Eastern segment, to discuss the Lynne Stewart/Hofstra affair. P.S. Turned out it was a taping rather than live show, so air times will vary from the above.

I’m scheduled to join Fox News tomorrow (Tues.) morning around 9:40 a.m. Eastern to discuss the Lynne Stewart/Hofstra affair.

The DC Examiner quotes both Walter and me in their series on corruption in the trial bar.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t: privacy laws interfere with college mental-health treatment, which of course doesn’t keep them from being sued when the treatment doesn’t work. [LA Times; earlier in April; and May 2006]
Charlie Weis didn’t just lose his first several games of the season at Notre Dame; he also lost his silly medical malpractice case retrial. [Childs; February in Overlawyered]

Ninth Circuit revives one claim in deep-vein thrombosis litigation against airlines. [Montalvo v. Spirit Airlines; San Francisco Chronicle; earlier on Overlawyered]

Hugh Hewitt discusses tort reform with Overlawyered bloggers. [Ted on Hugh Hewitt; Walter on Hugh Hewitt]

Overlawyered and Public Citizen agree: it’s silly for law firms to try to copyright their nastygrams. [CL&P Blog]

More on the Target website disability suit. [Open Market; Oct. 3 and links therein]

Utah Supreme Court adopts common-sense product liability rule. [Products Liability Law Prof]

DC City Council objects to recovering millions spent by city on medical care of patient who sued city after gouging out his own eyes. [DC Examiner; Washington Post; BLT]
The most embarrassing thing Joe Stiglitz ever wrote? [Manne via Boudreaux; Cowen; Frum]

Are Overlawyered readers “fringe element” “sycophants”? From the same blogger who says no one can criticize Lynne Stewart unless they personally know her, but I presume that’s “For thee, but not for me”-style hypocrisy. [Scott Greenfield]

I’ve got a new piece up at City Journal (a slightly different version appears in today’s New York Post) on the controversy over the disbarred lawyer’s role as designated faculty at the upcoming Hofstra legal ethics conference. Thanks for links to Instapundit, NRO “The Corner”, Brothers Judd (cross-posted from Point of Law).