Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Author Archive

Homeschooling ban in California?

“Parents who lack teaching credentials cannot educate their children at home, according to a state appellate court ruling that is sending waves of fear through California’s home schooling families.” (Seema Mehta and Mitchell Landsberg, “Ruling seen as a threat to many home-schooling families”, Los Angeles Times, Mar. 6)(via Malkin). More: Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason “Hit and Run”.

More: Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades writes that this is a false alarm and that the L.A. Times account misses crucial elements of the case which distinguish the family under review from homeschoolers generally. But the normally well-informed Bob Egelko of the San Francisco Chronicle sums up the case in terms much like those of the L.A. Times, as imperiling the legality of all arrangements in which children are not taught by credentialed tutors or at accredited or public schools. More: Betsy Newmark, Protein Wisdom, Eugene Volokh, Hans Bader @ CEI, Time.

And an update from Egelko, “Homeschoolers’ setback sends shock waves through state“: “A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution. The homeschooling movement never saw the case coming. …The ruling was applauded by a director for the state’s largest teachers union.”

Update Aug. 9: appeals court reverses itself.

Filed under: ,

Fourth graders told: don’t “spill” to the cops

Kwitcher snitchin’, and your confessin’ too: The Southwest Juvenile Defender Center runs a visit-the-schools program called “Why a Lawyer” which is “one of several such programs taught in schools and detention facilities throughout the country by groups worried that children don’t know their basic rights — including the right to remain silent.” At the private Shlenker School in Houston, fourth graders were asked to answer questions from a “police officer” (played by a University of Houston law student) about a prank call to a neighbor’s house. The student who said least was then singled out for praise for not “spill[ing] her guts”. When questioned by cops who are responding to reports of mischief, it seems, the recommended approach for preteens is “Give your name, your age and then ask for an attorney and ask for your parent.” Malikah Marrus, a researcher for the U-of-H-based Defender Center, complains that it’s an uphill battle getting kids to clam up when questioned by the authorities: “Their impulsive behavior gets them to spill their guts right away.” (Sarah Viren, “Programs teach legal rights to elementary school pupils”, Houston Chronicle, Feb. 14).

Filed under: , ,

Scruggs scandal update: sweet potatoes by the acre

Some developments of the past ten days or so:

* In major blow to defense, Judge Biggers denies motions to suppress wiretap evidence and evidence of similar bad acts [Rossmiller]

* Balducci says he and Patterson got $500K from Scruggs to influence AG Hood to drop indictment of State Farm, motive being to advance civil settlement [Folo]

* WSJ gets into the act with some highlights of wiretap transcripts [edit page; earlier here]

* Sen. Trent Lott says he’s a witness, not a target, of federal investigation [Anita Lee, Biloxi Sun-Herald]

* Scruggs off the hook on Alabama criminal contempt charge [WSJ law blog, Rossmiller, Folo]

* “Mr. Blake has served for many years as a conduit and a layer of separation, if you will, between Mr. Scruggs and other people on sensitive issues.” (Balducci transcript highlights, Folo; more)

* In effort to get Zack Scruggs indictment dismissed, his lawyers dwell on switch from “y’all” to “you” as implying shift in persons addressed from plural to singular [Folo first, second; Rossmiller first, second; on a “sweet potatoes” point, NMC @ Folo and sequel; also]

* DeLaughter/Peters branch of scandal reaches deep into Jackson legal community [Adam Lynch, Jackson Free Press]

* Article in new American Lawyer notes that Scruggs’s ambitious suits have lately hit a big losing streak, notably those against HMOs, nonprofit hospitals and Lehman Brothers [Susan Beck]. And Lotus catches an interestingly lawyerly wording on John Keker’s part [Folo]

* I’m quoted and this site is discussed in an article on blog coverage of the case; my lack of clarity as an interviewee probably accounts for Scruggs being said to have addressed audiences at the Manhattan Institute “a few” times, when if memory serves the correct reference is “twice”. [Patsy Brumfield, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (Tupelo) @ Folo]

* For more background see our Scandals page; also YallPolitics.

Filed under: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Escalator mishap: federal judge wanted $21 million

A jury, however, sent away U.S. District Judge George P. Schiavelli away with nothing at all, ruling that the firm responsible for maintaining the escalators at the Encino Shopping Center was not to blame for the injuries the judge suffered in a 2005 mishap. After the verdict the plaintiff’s lawyer in the case, Browne Greene, charged the jury with partiality: “The bias against judges in today’s world is just palpable,” he said. (Robert J. Lopez, “Encino judge gets no award in escalator fall”, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 26; “Jury Unanimously Rejects Judge’s $21 Million Personal Injury Suit”, PRNewswire/Fox Business, from defense firm Murchison & Cumming, Feb. 25; Greene’s press release)(via Perlmutter/Schuelke). More on escalator suits at this link.

Filed under: ,

U.K.: Injures finger dropping junk mail in letterbox

Paul O’Brien of Leeds, Great Britain, says the Royal Mail letterbox in his house is just like every other one in the development and that mail carriers have had no problem using it. Still, he’s being sued by cake decorator Joy Goodman, who says her finger was badly hurt when the thing snapped as she was pushing a leaflet, less charitably termed junk mail, through it; she can no longer pursue her trade. Says O’Brien: “I just cannot believe someone who came on to my property uninvited, to put junk mail through my door that I didn’t want, can now sue me because she hurt herself. … It seems like we’re becoming more and more like America. Everyone wants compensation.” (“Homeowner sued after woman delivering junk mail claims she injured her hand in letterbox”, Daily Mail, Feb. 21).

Filed under: ,

Special master: Coughlin Stoia paid for “stolen” Coke documents

Do they often do business this way? The law firm of Coughlin Stoia, known as Lerach Coughlin before the departure of now-disgraced Bill Lerach, has been vying for lead counsel status in a shareholder class action against Coca-Cola. Now Roger Parloff at Fortune “Legal Pad” (Feb. 28) reports that a special master on the case has recommended that the firm be disqualified for “extremely troubling” conduct which it then defended after exposure using “pretextual” arguments. It seems two former Coke executives approached the law firm of Milberg Weiss (predecessor before its split of Coughlin Stoia), one of them in possession of more than 3,000 company documents he’d taken on departure, many stamped “confidential”. The law firm then agreed to pay the execs at least $75,000 to serve as “consultants”, part of the deal consisting of access to the documents, which it then used in its complaint.

When the consulting agreement came to light more than a year ago, Coughlin Stoia lawyers backed [Greg] Petro’s claim that neither he nor they had thought he was taking Coke documents without authority because, among other things, Petro had been ordered, when terminated, to “clean out his office.” Special Master [Hunter] Hughes found that such a command could not “rationally be construed to authorize Petro to walk off with company documents, any more than it authorized him to take the company’s desk, chairs, and computer.”

Hughes also rejected arguments that the firm was not really buying the documents, just entering into a consulting agreement, and a public-policy style argument that Petro’s conduct should be condoned because he was a whistleblower trying to expose corporate wrongdoing.

In a footnote, Hughes found that public policy arguments weighed in the other direction: “On a very practical level, for the Court to give Plaintiffs’ counsel a pass on this conduct, would simply invite terminated employees, particularly of public companies, to on a wholesale basis remove company documents following their termination in hopes they can sell them should the company be sued.”

More: San Diego Union-Tribune, ABA Journal, WSJ law blog (where several comments defend the law firm’s conduct).

Filed under: , , , , , ,

March 4 roundup

  • Judge allows lawsuit to go forward as class action claiming consumers defrauded because gasoline expands in summer heat and so there’s less in a “gallon” [KC Star, TodaysTrucking.com; earlier at PoL]

  • Online speech: when a lawprof says it silences someone not to let them sue for defamation, it’s time to check definitions [Reynolds, Bainbridge, Volokh]

  • Should a law school invite Lerach of all people to teach legal ethics? [Massey/Faculty Lounge; earlier] Plus: Congress should investigate how widespread Lerach-style abuses were at other law firms [Columbus Dispatch editorial]

  • Usually no one gets hurt when a physician dodges having to deal with a litigious patient, but then there are those emergencies [Brain Blogger]

  • A lesson for Canada: judged by results in places like Kansas, the American approach to hate speech (i.e., not banning it) seems to work pretty well [Gardner/Ottawa Citizen]

  • “Way way too egocentric”: a marketing expert’s critique of injury law firm websites [Rotbart/LFOMA via ABA Journal]

  • More students are winding up in court after parodying their teachers on the Internet [Christian Science Monitor]

  • Money in the air? It happens the quiet little Alaskan Native village suing over global warming is being represented by some lawyers involved in the great tobacco heist [NY Times]

  • Ninth Circuit panel hands Navy partial defeat in enviro whale sonar suit; ditto federal court in Hawaii [Examiner; earlier]

  • Le Canard Noir “Quackometer” flays pseudo-science, some of its targets complain to ISP which then yanks the site: “We do not wish to be in a position where we could be taken to court” [Orac; earlier]

  • Hans Bader guestblogged at Point of Law last week, on such subjects as: courts that decide punishment before damages; presumed guilty of child abuse? inconsistent straight/gay treatment in sexual harassment law; and signs that today’s Supreme Court doesn’t exactly show a pro-business bias in discrimination cases.

Filed under: , , , , , , , , ,

Milberg expert Torkelsen pleads guilty to perjury

This looks pretty major, pattern-and-practice-wise:

John B. Torkelsen, a former expert witness for Milberg Weiss, has agreed to plead guilty to perjury, admitting he lied to a federal court judge in a securities class action case about how he was getting paid.

Prosecutors in the Milberg Weiss case have been eyeing Torkelsen for years.

I wonder whether this will put a crimp in the image rehabilitation op-ed stylings of Bill “My Only Sin Was To Love the People Too Much” Lerach. The implications could ripple out to other class-action firms as well: “In an announcement about the plea agreement on Thursday, prosecutors claim that Torkelsen was retained by several firms” and that the other firms engaged in misbehavior akin to that of Torkelsen’s handlers at Milberg. (Amanda Bronstad, “Former Milberg Weiss Expert Witness Agrees to Plead Guilty to Perjury”, National Law Journal, Feb. 29). Our earlier coverage of Torkelsen is here.

Filed under: , , , ,