Should businesses making siting decisions seek out localities with a low per capita number of lawyers? Well, not really; lawyers do perform a great many functions besides filing lawsuits, and there’s far from a perfect correlation between the quantum of litigation risk in a locality and the number of attorneys in practice. The better course, if the objective is to avoid legal hassles, is to identify other indicators of a nonlitigious local business climate. That’s what I argued in a recent interview with Expansion Management magazine, said to be read by more than 45,000 site-selection executives. (Michael Keating, “Research Corner: The Cost of Litigation Comes Right Off the Bottom Line”, Oct.).

Daniel Frank, the Official Brother of the Overlawyered.com Backup Blogger, notes that remakes of “Miracle on 34th Street” have shifted the critical plot driver from the original’s act of faith to an act of lawyerly conniving. (Dec. 8).

When I was nine, a friend of my grandfather’s gave me a stack of ancient “Sad Sack” comics, where a running plotline was Sarge using various shenanigans to persuade the protagonist to re-enlist. It never occurred to me that Sad Sack might sue the Army: that was too outlandish, even for Harvey Comics. A federal court seems to agree: “U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said the Army recruiter may have stressed to David W. Qualls, 35, that he was enlisting for a one-year hitch, but the contract he signed spelled out that his duty could be extended against his wishes in time of national emergency or war.” (Carol D. Leonnig, Washington Post, Dec. 9). And, no, I don’t know whether Sad Sack and Beetle Bailey ever sued each other.