Conducting, um, outreach, to potential clients among survivors of the Glendale commuter train catastrophe (“In Bad Taste”, LAist, Feb. 1)(via Decs & Excs).
Author Archive
Welcome Wall Street Journal readers
Florida neurosurgeons
If a doctor has made three payouts in malpractice cases, there must be real grounds to worry that his care is substandard, right? In Florida, after all, voters last year approved a trial-lawyer-backed measure providing that physicians who lose three trials (as distinct from payouts short of that point) will have their license yanked. And yet if figures from one medical weblog are to be accepted, three payouts would not be considered anything special among members of one of the profession’s most elite specialties — neurosurgery — in one of the state’s most populous counties. According to a Nov. 21 item posted by Joseph F. Phillips, M.D., on wmed.com:
Bloggers as legal targets
Justin Levine at CalBlog takes a pessimistic view (Jan. 27).
Historic preservation laws
…can encourage midnight teardowns, as Ted explains on Point of Law (Jan. 27). See also Feb. 15-17, 2002.
Oz judge: let’s purge the web
Australia: “A Supreme Court judge has called for the internet to be purged of any material likely to prejudice a trial, to prevent jurors conducting their own investigations into cases they are sitting on. Justice Virginia Bell, of the [New South Wales] Supreme Court, told a conference in Darwin of Supreme and Federal court judges from across the country yesterday that the ready availability of archived press reports on the internet could jeopardise the trial of an accused person.” She recommended that prosecutors “carry out searches on the internet and, in the event that prejudicial material is identified … request any Australian-based website to remove it until the trial is completed”. The secretary of a journalists’ organization called her proposal “silly and unworkable”. (Kevin Meade and Cath Hart, “Judge demands trial web blackout”, The Australian, Jan. 26).
Fear of Linux adoption
Welcome Observer (UK) readers
London’s Observer quotes me today on the subject of litigation against schools and in particular the case of Peer Larson, the Wisconsin high school student who’s suing to challenge the right of his honors math teacher to assign homework over the summer (see Jan. 21). (Richard Luscombe, “Homework-hater takes his maths teacher to court”, Jan. 30). Follow the links for more on school litigation and on cheerleader suits (here and here and here.) (In case it isn’t clear from the context, by the way, my mention of large dollar settlements isn’t intended to refer to cheerleading-squad cases). And since overlegalization and the compensation culture are by no means limited to the U.S., we’ve also got a UK section.
Update: “Jokester to face grand jury”
“Prosecutors have dropped a disorderly conduct charge against legal reform advocate Carl Lanzisera, one of two men arrested for telling lawyer jokes outside District Court in Hempstead, N.Y. But his comedic and legal reform partner, Harvey Kash, must appear before a grand jury — and Lanzisera has been subpoenaed to testify in the case against him.” (Zachary R. Dowdy, Newsday/South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 27)(see Jan. 13, Jan. 14). Monica Bay (“Common Scold”) comments (Jan. 27).
Fee in Visa/MC class action, cont’d
David Giacalone has some apposite things to say (Jan. 26) about a court’s recent decision to allow a mere $220 million in fees, rather than the more than $600 million sought, to lawyers who’d represented the plaintiff class of merchants in an antitrust suit against Visa and MasterCard (see Jan. 24). In particular, he notes the claim of the class counsel (on its website) that its billing rates “are typically significantly less than those charged by larger firms”; the willingness of big-name legal academics like Arthur Miller and Jack Coffee to hire themselves out to class counsel to bless the fees; and the dubious impact on consumers of some of the injunctive relief obtained by the class (he notes that he can’t use his debit card at Wal-Mart any more).