Thanks for your comment.

I personally don’t care if Walter Olson is a lawyer or not.

I only even thought to ask becasue some people, (and I’m not saying you although I should double check) were condescedning to TortDeform.com’s Justinian Lane (the topic of this entire blog post) because he is not a lawyer.

I am not asking you to do “homework.” I believe that he is not a lawyer and am asking you to correct me if I am wrong.

I am asking you a straightforward question to which you know the answer as he is a tort “reform” peer of yours.

It’s really weird that you won’t say either way, but as I said, I don’t care, I will listen to his views (as many already do) either way.

Cyrus

Dugger says my arguments aren’t convincing because… well, because Dugger says so. Ipse dixit. If anything’s convincing, that sure is.

I’m not sure why Dugger finds it significant that I commented on his blog before he commented on mine. (I fully admit: I waste too much time in comments sections. It’s a bad habit.) He linked to our blog before we linked to his, and links are surely more important than comments. What do we win for that?

Dugger again exhibits a great deal of chutzpah by criticizing the tone of others when his bloggers regularly post ad hominem attacks. If he wishes to advocate civility, let’s see him dress down Lane for incivility far worse than anything ever published on Overlawyered. Again, motes and beams.

Like I said before, and as you say above, I think non-lawyers can be great commentators on legal issues.

But I just want to confirm whether Walter Olson is or is not a lawyer.

I specifically asked above, but you don’t specifically answer in your post.

Please do.

Thanks for your comments.

You just wrote a lot. But I will focus on our disagreements about legal issues.

Given that the Supreme Court of the US often makes 5-4 decisions, I think that your belief that your legal analysis is assumptively correct, simply because it is yours is slightly short-sighted.

In response to your post on Tort Deform I already agreed that it’s not fair to portray the case as a finding (although I also state he reasons why I did in that particular case)

Like you, not every argument rings true. In researching the McDonald’s post, I did read overlawyered posts, but found them unconvincing.

The fact that I linked to it might indicate this, but I always read as much of both sides of an issue as is possible.

I this were not the case, I would ignore your posts.

Please keep them coming!

I am sure since Tort Deform is so off-base. You have no reason to even come over to it and comment.

I think that fact that you do, speaks volumes.

Don’t get me wrong I think that it is great, but everybody should note that you guys came over to Tort Deform, before we ever came over and made comments over here.

Just an FYI.

But back to the tone…..

I am simply advocating for more civility than seems to be the norm amongst bloggers and commentators on http://www.tortdeform.com/ you are welcome to run your blog anyway you wish.

I never claimed that one needed to be an experienced legal practitioner to comment on the legal system. But Dugger is confusing criticism of the legal errors he and his co-writers make regarding basic principles of civil procedure (such as confusing a judge’s 12(b)(6) ruling with findings of fact) and contract law (such as ignoring the plain language of a contract’s self-defined terms to argue that a Wikipedia definition is the relevant grounds of decision). It’s true that experienced legal practitioners wouldn’t make those fundamental mistakes that discredit everything else one writes on the subject, but neither would Walter Olson. As a matter of basic logic, “if a writer makes errors of basic law then the writer is not an experienced legal practitioner” does not imply “if the writer is not an experienced legal practitioner then the writer will make errors of basic law.” I’ve restricted my criticism of Dugger to his poorly-reasoned posts and poor public-policy proposals, rather than to his biography, which is irrelevant to me. His argument is weak enough without any need to resort to ad hominems.

An example of this problem of Dugger’s argumentation is his second comment above. Why precisely is Dugger upset at my mention of the coffee post? I can’t tell. I noted that his post gives no indication of having actually read anything Overlawyered wrote on the issue despite the fact he linked to Overlawyered. This is demonstrated by the fact that he simply repeats arguments that Overlawyered demonstrated to be false without so much as an acknowledgment that he was misrepresenting the facts or defense of that misrepresentation. In response, he notes that he did precisely what I said he did, which is link to Overlawyered.

For the record, I didn’t “characterize” Dugger’s blog. I made an empirical statement of fact that its posts are riddled with basic legal errors and failure to address opposing arguments on their terms. Or does Dugger wish to persist in his claim that the Whitman case’s 12(b)(6) ruling made findings of fact?

other think this [insert link]

I’m amazed you would use an attempt to give your side’s perspective some time as a way to take a distorted angle on attacking the points made on tortdeform.com

seriously.

I also honestly wish that you would engage with the issues raised and not the biographies of those who make them.

Some tort “reform” supportive comments have attacked the fact that some of our contributors are not practicing attorneys.

I quick google check of Walter Olson, finds many accolades and citations to him by publications like the WSJ and NYTimes, but does not show attendance of any law school, let alone the status of a practicing lawyer.

(please correct me if i am wrong but the attacks on my peer caused me to look)

http://www.legalreforminthenews.com/ROL/Olson_bio.html

I still respect Walter’s view of things as do the many sources which he lists in his bios, and as such, those who agree with his views should not attack the biographies – but instead the ideas – of those who disagree with them.

Engage with the ideas and stop the personal attack mode of interaction between tortdeform.com and overlawyered.com – we could have a great discussion and may find areas in which we actually agree.

Guthrie’s abstract model also ignores (1) the transactions costs of trials; and (2) the issue of modern-day mass-tort litigation, where the “plaintiff” is really a well-funded group of law firms with a portfolio of litigation opportunities that doesn’t mind losing the majority of their cases.

Actually, this doesn’t even matter – for the sake of argument, I will grant you that such locations exist.

That doesn’t change the situation in any appreciable way, as the PLAINTIFF is the one who files the suit and who thereby (essentially) chooses the venue. Notice how all kinds of odd cases end up in Madison county, for instance.

The plaintiff (in any case that involves significant claims at all) will simply not fil their suit in the defense-biased court.

Of course, as Ted pointed out, people often claim such places exist, but I have yet to see an actual example of an actual place given.