Melvyn Weiss – Overlawyered

Banking and finance roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 11:07:35 +0000

D.C. Circuit’s en banc decision upholding constitutionality of CFPB disappointing but not surprising. On to SCOTUS [Ilya Shapiro, Aaron Nielson, Jonathan Adler]
Big thinking under way at the SEC could replace securities class action sector with free contract: “The SEC should authorize mandatory arbitration of shareholder class action lawsuits” [Bainbridge, Benjamin Bain/Bloomberg News (noting that broker dealers have long been free to use arbitration clauses)]
Milberg Weiss founder Melvyn Weiss dies at 82 [ABA Journal, our coverage over the years of Weiss and his firm, @PaulHorwitz (“Give generously, and to the right people, so that your NYT obit can be a glowing apologia despite a few inconvenient facts.”)]
Here come the shareholder derivative suits over sleazy-boss #MeToo scandals [Kevin LaCroix] “NERA: 2017 Securities Suits Filed at ‘Record Pace'” [same]
Rogoff rebuttals: “More Evidence of the High Collateral Damage of a War on Cash” [Lawrence White, Cato, earlier] “Money as coined liberty” [David R. Henderson]
Quotas/targets for percentages of women, disabled and indigenous persons on Canadian corporate boards? [Terence Corcoran/Financial Post, more]

Tags: arbitration, Canada, CFPB, corporate governance, harassment law, Melvyn Weiss, Milberg Weiss, Securities and Exchange Commission, securities litigation

Banking and finance roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

May 14 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:06:35 +0000

“Never forget all the people who in the aftermath of Benghazi were writing things like ‘When Censorship Makes Sense'” [Matt Welch on Twitter, referring to lawprof Tim Wu’s New Republic piece; BuzzFeed (blasphemous video was “non-event” in Libya and never seriously mistaken for cause of attack); Nick Gillespie]
Nevada: political contributions and federal judgeships [ATL]
In Louisiana, Orleans Parish pays its lawyers about $1.7 million a year. Are they worth it? [Lee Zurik, WVUE]
“I brought the big soda back to my desk, and then the terminal said ‘You really shouldn’t have so much sugar.'” [@ledbetreuters via @jackshafer] “I Know When You Logged In Last Summer: The Bloomberg Spying Scandal” [ChartGirl]
“How did progressive journalists get the Pigford scandal so wrong?” [Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic; earlier here, here, etc.]
Is the Roberts Court unusually “pro-business”? [Jonathan Adler, Michael Greve, Ted Frank, Jon Hyman (Court’s handling of substantive employment law doesn’t fit supposed pattern)]
Mel Weiss beats the rap on supervised-release DUI [Amanda Bronstad, NLJ; earlier]

Tags: John Roberts, Melvyn Weiss, Nevada, New Orleans

May 14 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Weiss: “Do you know who I am?”

Walter Olson — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 04:16:06 +0000

Thus do two old reliables intersect: our Mel Weiss tag and our do-you-know-who-I-am tag. The one-time class-action king is still on probation, which means the consequences of a Florida DUI offense could be especially serious for him. [Joe Patrice, Above the Law]

Tags: do you know who I am?, Melvyn Weiss

Weiss: “Do you know who I am?” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Class action law, for export?

Walter Olson — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 19:55:54 +0000

Better sort out the ethical issues first [Edward Siedle, Forbes]

Tags: class actions, ethics, Melvyn Weiss

Class action law, for export? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Melvyn Weiss’ Quest For Redemption”

Walter Olson — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:06:47 +0000

Now released from prison, the former class-action baron “declined to say whether he regretted his actions.” Weiss — once acclaimed as the plaintiff’s bar’s top spotter of financial fraud — also turns out to have lost a ton of money to Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. The report is balanced, and cites Michael Perino’s work finding evidence that Weiss’s lies to judges worked to his own benefit as opposed to that of class members. It also recalls the heated claims by Democratic U.S. Reps. Charles Rangel, Gary Ackerman, Carolyn Maloney and Robert Wexler that Weiss was being railroaded on political charges — before he admitted the scheme and pleaded guilty, that is. [Jewish Week]

Tags: Charles Rangel, Melvyn Weiss

“Melvyn Weiss’ Quest For Redemption” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The Milberg Weiss Four after prison

Ted Frank — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:40:08 +0000

All four have completed their sentences and don’t seem to have it so bad, judging by a March 19 Bloomberg story. William Lerach is going to teach at a law school and work for a “progressive think-tank.” And for the Milberg law firm itself? “Over the past couple of years, while everybody has been laying off lawyers and cutting pay, we’ve been giving lawyers raises and extra bonuses.”

Tags: Bill Lerach, Coughlin Stoia, crime and punishment, Melvyn Weiss, Milberg Weiss

The Milberg Weiss Four after prison is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

October 10 roundup

Walter Olson — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:47:37 +0000

Greenwich, Connecticut real estate board may discipline member whose blog (often linked in this space) regularly pokes fun at overpriced houses. Antitrust/First Amendment problem? [Chris Fountain, For What It’s Worth]
“Religious group sued for allegedly inciting harm through prayers” [USA Today]
Legally driven waste of water in parched California should reopen Endangered Species Act debate [Max Schulz, American Spectator] “More Unintended Consequences — Endangered Species Edition” [Ronald Bailey, Reason; related AEI panel]
“Apple v Woolworth re Apple Logos In Australia” [Trademark Blog]
Speaking of Australia, Consumers Union’s Consumerist site publishes fake “Aussie McDonald’s fraud plot” memo as real — revises post later, but without mentioning it was taken in by hoax [HardArticle]
Pennsylvania couple learns about squatter’s-rights law the hard way [Hazleton Standard Speaker]
Maybe Saratoga Springs, N.Y. will let middle schoolers bike — or even walk! — to school [Albany Times-Union, Lenore Skenazy/Free Range Kids, Patrick at Popehat, Doug Mataconis/Liberty Papers]
Milberg, the disgraced class action firm of Mel Weiss and Bill Lerach fame, is hot again [NLJ]

Tags: Apple, Australia, Bill Lerach, California, churches, Connecticut, endangered species, McDonald's, Melvyn Weiss, Milberg Weiss, Pennsylvania, real estate, schools, trademarks, urban legends about lawsuits

October 10 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Milberg hires judge who ruled in its favor

Walter Olson — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:47:54 +0000

Last year New York trial judge Herman Cahn ruled in favor of class-action giant Milberg in a high-profile dispute over whether it could share its winnings from past cases with disgraced felon and former name partner Melvyn Weiss, the firm’s former driving force. Judge Cahn stepped down from the New York bench in December, and now it develops has been hired by Milberg as its “distinguished” new attorney. And you — with the Wall Street Journal’s editorialists today — certainly have a suspicious mind. There probably won’t be any shortage of funds with which to pay the former jurist: an American Lawyer headline last month read “Milberg Among Plaintiffs Firms Awarded $120 Million in Xerox Class Action”.

Tags: judges, Melvyn Weiss, Milberg Weiss, New York

Milberg hires judge who ruled in its favor is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Mel Weiss invested with Madoff

Walter Olson — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:14:30 +0000

American Lawyer has the story (more: AmLaw Daily, ABA Journal). Because, if you asked why the former dean of the shareholder class-action plaintiff’s bar deserved those hundreds of millions in court-ordered fees, you would have been told that society needed to reward his unsurpassed skills at sniffing out securities fraud. Can you imagine how Weiss as a lawyer would have shredded some hapless middleman financial defendant who thought it wasn’t necessary to do due diligence on an investment manager in placing funds because, well, he seemed like a nice guy at the time?

Weiss is in jail now on unrelated charges, of course, but he might make a fun person to name as lead plaintiff in a suit against Madoff.

Tags: Bernard Madoff, Melvyn Weiss, Milberg Weiss

Mel Weiss invested with Madoff is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Microblog 2008-12-19

Walter Olson — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 02:58:17 +0000

Newest “Trial Lawyers Inc.” report is on Louisiana [Manhattan Institute, Point of Law]
Mel Weiss disbarred automatically w/strong language from judges [Matter of Weiss h/t @erwiest]
Pro se claimant: I wrote down cure for cancer and then the darn hospital stole it! [Above the Law]
“California Supreme Court Ruling May Deter Good Samaritans” [The Recorder; SF Chronicle with copious reader comments, GruntDoc, our coverage last year]
Due diligence on dodgy funds? Sometimes it seems everyone’s relying on someone else to do that [Bronte Capital] Madoff fraud may date to 1970s, maybe “recent laxity” angle has been overdone [Securities Docket] “Ponzi crawl” = pub crawl whereby new person is added at each location and has to buy a round [Re Risk]
Radley Balko on Julie Amero malware-prosecution story [Reason, earlier]
Join Paul Ehrlich in some of the world’s most famously refuted predictions, and you too may get to be Obama’s science adviser [John Tierney/NYT, John Holdren]
~~Wisconsin~~ Minnesota pig-sitter trial set for March, claim is that defendant let star porker overfeed and gain a hundred pounds [LaCrosse Tribune h/t @kevinokeefe]
More on the Patent and Trademark Office “acceptable error” employment case [Venture Chronicles, Jeff Nolan; earlier]
Procter & Gamble “Satanism” case finally settles, soap giant got $19 million verdict against four Amway distributors who spread rumor [OnPoint News]
Once filing of a suit severs the channels of communication, attorneys and clients alike begin to make up “what really happened” narratives [Settle It Now]
Sometimes lawyers need to be formal. Don’t IM “Court denied your appeal u will b executed saturday thx” [Beck & Herrmann]
Bangladesh hoping to build replica of Taj Mahal despite copyright claims [Times Online h/t @mglickman]
Midnight regulations? “OMB Watch” vigilant (and with reason) during this R-2-D transition but sang different tune in 2000’s D-2-R [Gillespie, Reason]

Tags: California, copyright, Good Samaritan, hospitals, Louisiana, Manhattan Institute, Melvyn Weiss, patent quality, pro se, Wisconsin

Microblog 2008-12-19 is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system