Wherein I’m supposedly worth three electoral votes is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The magazine also has a short interview with Andrew Frey, the Mayer Brown litigator who has argued several Supreme Court punitive damages cases.

Inside Counsel magazine on punitive damages is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

• William E. Thomson & Kahn A. Scolnick on the Exxon Shipping case;
• Jimmy Cline on Arkansas’s disregard for class action certification standards;
• Jim Copland on the “Colossus” class action;
• Laurel Harbour on the New Jersey Supreme Court decision on medical monitoring class actions;
• Lyle Roberts on lead-counsel selection in securities class actions;
• Mark A. Behrens & Frank Cruz-Alvarez on the lead paint public nuisance decision by the Rhode Island Supreme Court; and
• Andrew Grossman, extensively citing to Overlawyered and my brief in discussing the Grand Theft Auto class action settlement rejection.

Latest issue of Class Action Watch is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“The Era of Big Punitive Damage Awards Is Not Over” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Exxon Shipping v. Baker podcast is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Update: Here’s the story.

Interviewed on KTUU-2, Anchorage is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Dana Milbank’s Feb. 28 column on Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker operates on the premise that the winner of any Supreme Court argument should be whoever can best appeal to the justices’ sympathies regardless of the merits of the case. Such an approach is more appropriate for coverage of television game shows than the law.

The Post would do better to treat its readers like grownups and have its Supreme Court reporting done by journalists who don’t “yawn” at questions about the appropriateness of jury instructions.

— Theodore H. Frank

Washington

The writer is director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Legal Center for the Public Interest.

Letter to the editor is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

March 1 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

How do Faegre & Benson lawyers feel about the prospect of sharing in perhaps one-third of $2.5 billion? “It’s great,” said partner Brian O’Neill to the WSJ. Any grief due to the $2 billion reduction is probably tempered by the amazing $2 billion in post-judgment interest that will be tacked onto the final bill. (Actually, maybe that’s not amazing in itself, since the case has been pending since 1989. Still, the interest “is not chicken s___,” as O’Neill put it.) O’Neill said of the titanic fee that is coming their way, “This is one of the few chances a bill-by-the-hour guy and a bill-by-the-hour firm has to get ahead.” I for one have been worried for some time about how the partners in these little “bill-by-the-hour firms” were managing to get by, so it’s good to know that for once they may have been able to afford that second can of beans for the family at Christmas dinner.

Damages in the case were estimated at about $500 million. The Ninth Circuit basically held that the evidence did not warrant a punitive award that went to the limit of what is permitted under State Farm v. Campbell, a 9:1 or “single-digit” ratio, and reduced the ratio to 5:1.

Plaintiffs’ counsel in Exxon Valdez case will try to survive on share of lowered verdict is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system