Posts Tagged ‘Federalist Society’

November 16 roundup

  • German law firm demands that Wikipedia remove true information about now-paroled murderers [EFF] More: Eugene Volokh.
  • “Class Actions: Some Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Fed Up, Too?” [California Civil Justice]
  • Drop that Irish coffee and back away: “F.D.A. Says It May Ban Alcoholic Drinks With Caffeine” [NYT]
  • Profile of L.A. tort lawyers Walter Lack and Thomas Girardi, now in hot water following Nicaraguan banana-pesticide scandal [The Recorder; my earlier outing on “Erin Brockovich” case]
  • Federalist Society panel on federalism and preemption [BLT]
  • Confidence in the courts? PriceWaterhouseCoopers would rather face Satyam securities fraud lawsuits in India than in U.S. [Hartley]
  • Allegation: Scruggs continuing to wheel and deal behind bars [Freeland]
  • Not much that will be new to longtime readers here: “Ten ridiculous lawsuits against Big Business” [Biz Insider] P.S.: Legal Blog Watch had more lists back in June.

Speaking at Columbia Law tomorrow

The Federalist Society chapter at Columbia Law School is having me in for a lunchtime talk there tomorrow (Thursday, Oct. 29) on problems with the changing (and seemingly ever-more-aggressive) role of state attorneys general. James Tierney, former attorney general of the state of Maine and director of Columbia’s program on state AGs, will be on hand to offer a contrasting point of view. Hope to see a few readers there.

National Lawyers Convention, Nov. 12-14 in DC

Let me whole-heartedly recommend the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention coming up in November. The list of speakers–including Justice Alito, Judge Douglas Ginsburg, Judge Frank Easterbrook, former Judge McConnell, Judge Edith Jones, Richard Epstein, and on and on–is all you need to know, and the panels are designed to provide debate on the issues, including affirmative action, preemption, and bailouts. I learn something with every panel I attend. It’s not just for Federalists, and is perhaps the most entertaining source of CLE credit out there.

Federalist Society Western Conference this weekend

This Saturday at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, near L.A., the Federalist Society will be holding its all-day third annual Western Conference. This time the theme is the law of American Indians and Indian tribes, a topic of immense intellectual interest and also of much practical importance to non-Indians through much of the rural West, in localities nationwide where casino development rouses controversy, and even, as I have pointed out in a couple of articles, to complete bystanders in the East who have found their land title suddenly thrown into doubt by the revival of antiquated tribal land claims. I’m going to be a participant on one of the panels, which will feature a distinguished assemblage of law professors and others; another reason for my interest in the topic is that a chapter on Indian law figures in my book in progress on the influence of law schools on American law. More details here.

Latest issue of Class Action Watch

The latest issue of the Federalist Society’s Class Action Watch has many articles of interest to Overlawyered readers:

  • 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.