Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Back from travel & award

I’m finally on web duty again following my trip to give a talk before the American Tort Reform Association gathering in Las Vegas. ATRA has two current projects that especially merit readers’ attention. One is its recent update of its “Judicial Hellholes” reports on local jurisdictions famed for unfairness to outsider defendants, such as Madison County, Ill., Jefferson County, Miss., St. Louis, Philadelphia, Miami and Los Angeles. Recent news coverage can be found here.

The other project is ATRA’s recent launch of what it calls the Legal Reform Champions List. The list is intended to address a widespread (and sometimes infuriating) phenomenon: many lawyers who make a career specialty of litigation defense quietly undermine their clients’ interests by working covertly or openly to block reforms that would curb the volume or cost of litigation, often mindful of their own self-interest in ensuring there are plenty of future lawsuits requiring their services to defend. ATRA’s new list takes a relatively positive approach to this problem: rather than denounce by name defense lawyers who operate as effective allies of the litigation lobby, it singles out for praise those who (often at a real cost to their strict monetary interest) work in the public policy process to combat excessive litigation. We wrote about this problem in The Rule of Lawyers (in a passage not online through conventional means, but available with registration through Amazon’s book-peek feature).

I am happy to report something I wasn’t expecting when I set off for the trip: at my Monday appearance ATRA was kind enough to give me its “Civil Justice Achievement Award” 2003. This seems to be the year for me to receive handsomely engraved awards (see Sept. 24). Thanks! (& welcome Ernie the Attorney readers)

Filed under: , , , , , ,

NYC cops nabbed on claims fraud rap

The urban accident racket, as we’ve had occasion to observe, has over the years corrupted any number of doctors (more), clinics, insurance adjusters and even parents, as well as (of course) lawyers. We are reminded to add “policemen” to the list by the latest report that more than a dozen persons, including several New York City police officers, have been indicted in a claims fraud scheme in which cops’ role was to write up fake accident reports for crashes that never occurred which were then used as the basis for filing personal-injury claims. (Michael Wilson, “City Officers Are Arrested in Bogus Claims of Accidents”, New York Times, Nov. 13; “Fraud Didn’t Enrich Officers, Authorities Say”, Nov. 14) (more, from 1996)

Suing incompetent peacekeepers

Blessed are those who just don’t get involved in the first place dept.: “Relatives of victims of Europe’s bloodiest post-war massacre are to sue the United Nations and the Dutch government for ?370 million.” Since no adequate recovery is to be had from Bosnian Serb war criminals for the Srebrenica massacre, reparations lawyers now wish to extract money from the well-meaning neutrals and noncombatants whose bungling efforts failed to prevent it. That should provide a good incentive for anyone to volunteer as peacekeepers in future, no? U.S. lawyers are said to be involved. (“Srebrenica relatives sue UN and Dutch for ?370m”, Daily Telegraph, Nov. 10).

Filed under: , ,

The judges’ friend and the $225,000 swivel chair

Well-reported New York Times piece on local attorney Ravi Batra, who “for much of the past decade … has been a particularly potent force in the clubby corridors of New York City courthouses. He played a role in picking State Supreme Court judges. Lawyers seeking an edge in the unfamiliar world of Brooklyn courts hired him as their guide. Judges who controlled court appointments — where lawyers typically manage the assets and welfare of the elderly, the young or of troubled companies — gave him 150 of these, worth more than $500,000 in fees.” In one case, involving “a wealthy 94-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease”, Batra nicked the woman’s estate for $84,753 in fees: “The investigators noted that he charged $100 for each of 80 short phone calls and never listed their subject matter.”

Keep reading and clicking through the fourth and last page of the story to reach what may be the most piquant Batra exploit of all, his lawsuit against the hapless owners of a Brooklyn furniture store after he fell out of a swivel chair they sold him. “He said the fall had left him with herniated disks, loss of height, worn-down teeth, heart damage and frustration and anger that ‘leaks out in certain relationships,’ according to court papers.” He wanted $80 million, not only for pain and suffering “but also for a patio bar and a game room with table-tennis and air-hockey tables ‘to permit activity without injury or waste of travel time,’ the papers said.” Eventually he settled for $225,000 on the claim. But lawyers for the furniture store weren’t told at the time that Batra was friendly with Manhattan judge Diane Lebedeff, who heard the case and who issued a number of rulings in Batra’s favor: for example, she gave him several court appointments, including the lucrative case of the woman with Alzheimer’s. Both Batra and Judge Lebedeff deny improper influence (Kevin Flynn & Andy Newman, “Friend of the Court: Cozying Up to Judges, and Reaping Opportunity”, New York Times, Nov. 11). More: for Batra’s side of the story, see the comments section on Legal Reader’s Nov. 11, 2003 post. Update Nov. 15, 2004: Batra sues TV’s popular “Law and Order” saying it defamed him by portraying him as a crooked attorney in a fictionalized but recognizable episode; Apr. 15, 2005: Judge Lebedeff censured.

Filed under: , ,

FBI probing top Hollywood lawyers

Law enforcement officials think they know why prominent private investigator Anthony Pellicano was so good at turning up dirt about targets of his investigations: they say he used illegal wiretaps. A lot of highly placed Hollywood lawyers purchased Pellicano’s investigative services, and now the FBI is asking: how much did they know about his methods? A grand jury in Los Angeles has been hearing testimony from witnesses. “‘There are many, many nervous people in town,’ said one white-collar defense lawyer familiar with parties involved in the investigation.” Yet another example of why our legal profession is so hard to cast in the role of tribunes of the right to privacy (Henry Weinstein, Greg Krikorian and James Bates, “FBI Probe Shakes Up Hollywood’s Top Lawyers”, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 8)(via TalkLeft). Plus: New York Times has more (Bernard Weinraub, “Talk of Wiretaps Rattles Hollywood”, Nov. 11) as do the New York Post (Nov. 12) and AP (Nov. 12). Update Feb. 7, 2006: Pellicano pleads not guilty in 110-count indictment.

Filed under: , ,

Spare $450 for a complaint?

The city of Chicago has agreed to pay up to $450 each to about 3,000 persons who had been arrested or ticketed for panhandling. “The panhandlers’ lawyers, from three firms, will split $375,000.” Panhandling advocates had reacted with indignation to a city proposal to issue the beggars warm clothing instead of cash. For a case from San Francisco in which many of the recipients of such a cash distribution spent their handouts on something other than warm clothing, see Feb. 3, 2000. (Curtis Lawrence, “Beggars can be choosers”, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 9).

Business Insurance “Best of the Web”

We’re happy to report that this site has been named a “Best of the Web 2003” pick by Business Insurance, a magazine we’ve been reading for many years to keep abreast of developments in the liability world. Columnist/reporter Mark Hofmann calls us “truly a treasure trove, so be sure you?ve allotted plenty of time when you visit this site — it merits more than a quick perusal”. He lauds our “impressive cache of archival material dating back to 1999”, says we provide a “valuable public service”, and — we especially like this part — recommends throwing a few coins in our Amazon Honor System donation box (see right column of front page) (overview / our write-up, scroll to second item)

Filed under:

New York Landlord-Tenant Court

One side effect of Manhattan rent control is that it creates a source of litigation that wouldn’t exist under a market-based system. When a tenant has a right to rent a 2800-sq. ft. SoHo loft for a few hundred dollars a month, it means that it’s worth holding a seventeen-day trial to determine whether the tenant is using the loft as her primary residence. If the tenant, who owns multiple pieces of real estate in New Hampshire, was paying market rents, then whether she was using the loft as a primary residence would be legally and economically irrelevant, and the trial would never have happened. Imagine how much is lost because New York City tenants and landlords litigate thousands of “holdover” cases every year. (Dennis Hevesi, “The Knottiest Cases of Landlord v. Tenant”, New York Times, Nov. 9; Henry Pollakowski, “Who Really Benefits from New York City?s Rent Regulation System?”, Manhattan Institute Civic Report, March 2003).

Filed under: ,

Mongo lawsuit

“Mongo the steer is now Mongo the steak, but his case lives on in a lawsuit against officials who took away the animal’s championship ribbon at the Illinois State Fair.” Mongo was disqualified, and his ribbon given to Scooby, when urine tests showed he’d been given banned medicine, perhaps to keep him from limping in front of the judges. The family complains that they weren’t able to get the rulebook off of the Internet because their dial-up connection was too slow to obtain the file, and ask for the rules to be struck — is a lawsuit against the ISP next? (“Champion disqualified; family sues”, AP, Nov. 8; “Steer scandal stirs state fair”, AP, Aug. 13).

Filed under: