Steve Berman – Overlawyered

Climate change suit roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 10:59:15 +0000

Biggest recruit yet for climate recoupment suits: NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio sues blaming five oil companies for Superstorm Sandy [Seth Barron/City Journal, John Timmer/ArsTechnica, WSJ; Stephen Bainbridge on parallel divestment effort]
California cities/counties suing oil companies: climate change will be our ruin. Same cities/counties selling bonds to investors: risk? what risk? [Andrew Scurria/WSJ; John O’Brien/Forbes] Santa Cruz joins several other Bay Area counties in action [Nicholas Ibarra, Santa Cruz Sentinel]
Can’t spell “Oedipal” without “O-i-l”: Rockefeller heirs bankroll #ExxonKnew crusade against great-granddad’s company [Reeves Wiedeman, New York mag]
Same article takes disbelieving tone about possibility that state AGs’ campaign might trample anyone’s First Amendment rights [memory refresher] More about that in this Margaret (Peggy) Little and Andrew Grossman 2016 Federalist Society podcast and my Twitter thread about it;
National Association of Manufacturers launches legal initiative to push back against industrywide and attorney-general tort, nuisance, and public-recoupment suits, notably on climate and lead paint [John Siciliano, Washington Examiner; Linda Kelly, The Hill; NAM’s Manufacturing Accountability Project and its coverage of the art of “climate attribution,” the early failed Kivalina suit (more on which), origins of Global Warming Legal Action Project]
Pssst, Vice — in profiling Steve Berman you might want to be aware that a few other attorneys claim some minor role in also having “won a $200 billion settlement from tobacco companies in the 90s” [compare claims of lawyers organizing opioid suits]

Tags: Bill de Blasio, climate change, Exxon, First Amendment, opioids, Steve Berman

Climate change suit roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Steve Berman takes on pharmaceutical pricing

Walter Olson — Sat, 22 Apr 2017 13:56:55 +0000

Profile of veteran class action and mass action lawyer Steve Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro quotes me [Damien Garde, STAT]:

“You will search with some difficulty for people who successfully do what he does and do not have a big personality,” said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies. “As is the case with birds, it helps both to deter competitors and intimidate enemies when you have a large feather display.”

Tags: pharmaceuticals, Steve Berman

Steve Berman takes on pharmaceutical pricing is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Prosecutors: “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak got secret cut of Illinois tobacco fees

Walter Olson — Sun, 20 Nov 2016 15:57:50 +0000

The great tobacco settlement of the 1990s certainly is the scandal that keeps on giving, isn’t it? “On Tuesday, federal prosecutors…. charged that [influential former Chicago alderman Edward] Vrdolyak worked out a secret deal with other attorneys to collect as much as $65 million even though he’d done no work on the tobacco case [for the state of Illinois]. The indictment did not make clear just how much the former alderman actually pocketed. … The [Seattle-based Hagens Berman] firm has denied any attempt to conceal payments.” [Chicago Tribune]

By the time my book The Rule of Lawyers came out in its 2004 softcover edition, enough was known about the multistate tobacco settlement for me to call it a “gigantic heist.” More stories have emerged since then. How many more still haven’t come to light?

Tags: Chicago, Illinois, scandals, Steve Berman, tobacco settlement

Prosecutors: “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak got secret cut of Illinois tobacco fees is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Environmental roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 04:05:47 +0000

Plaintiffs in Michigan v. EPA, now before U.S. Supreme Court, argue that cost-no-object regulation oversteps EPA’s authority [The Economist, Ilya Shapiro on Cato’s amicus brief]
Apex predator? Class action firm and perennial Overlawyered favorite Hagens Berman sues Sea World demanding consumer refunds over animal handling [Orlando Sentinel, San Antonio Business Journal]
Privately designed and operated cities can provide answers to tough growth questions [Alex Tabarrok and Shruti Rajagopolan]
Following pile-on of publicity and lawsuits over formaldehyde levels in flooring, Lumber Liquidators distributes free test kits to consumers, gets sued over that too [Bloomberg, related]
Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission won’t charge men who posted Facebook video of their hang-out with an apparently injured Great Horned Owl, but feds might [Lowering the Bar]
Urban markets often blocked from providing supply of affordable housing [Adam Hengels, Market Urbanism] “Minimum parking requirements in the planning profession are closely analogous to bloodletting in the medical profession.” [Donald Shoup via Tabarrok]
In Louisiana, legacy lawsuits over past oil and gas drilling roil Plaquemines Parish [WWL]

Tags: animal rights, land use and zoning, Louisiana, oil industry, Steve Berman

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

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 03 Apr 2015 04:04:22 +0000

“Embattled Broward Health paid law firm $10.2 million; tab included a lawyer’s M&Ms” [Miami Herald]
“Journalists were not very interested in the areas of vaccine policy that are actually debatable. They just wanted to find fools and laugh at them.” [Matt Welch]
Wider access to pharmaceutically based drug rehabilitation may be sound policy. But is it compelled by the ADA? [Huffington Post via @sbagen]
Kamala Harris carries water for the SEIU in a hospital deal, and Californians are the losers [John Cochrane]
Drug case: “Hagens Berman argument ‘gives new meaning to frivolous,’ judge says; sanctions imposed” [ABA Journal]
California: Kaiser Permanente “ordered to pay woman more than $28 million” [L.A. Times]
“Bacteria can evolve. So can McDonald’s. Maybe federal policymakers can as well, before it’s too late.” [Steve Chapman]

Tags: hospitals, illegal drugs, Kamala Harris, pharmaceuticals, Steve Berman, vaccines

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

Apple: “Betrayed by its own law firm?”

Walter Olson — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 18:52:24 +0000

Lawyer in Apple’s law firm turns out to have been secretly advising and investing in patent-holding entity (repped by Hagens Berman) preparing a legal onslaught against Apple. “Why didn’t Morgan Lewis … see an ethical problem in letting one of its partners invest in a patent troll, especially one specially designed to target one of the firm’s big clients? And how many other big-firm lawyers are entwined with ‘start-ups’ that are actually holding companies, created to attack the very corporations they are supposed to be defending?” [Joe Mullin, Ars Technica via @tedfrank]

Tags: Apple, cellphones, ethics, patent trolls, Steve Berman

Apple: “Betrayed by its own law firm?” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

August 11 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 05:25:02 +0000

Seattle’s best? Class action lawyer suing Apple, e-publishers has represented Microsoft [Seattle Times, earlier]
“Disabled” NYC firefighter/martial arts enthusiast can go on getting checks for life [NYPost; compare]
After the FDA enforcement action on drug manufacturing lapses come the tagalong liability claims by uninjured plaintiffs [Beck]
“What If Lower Court Judges Weren’t Bound by Supreme Court Precedent?” [Orin Kerr]
Fark.com settles a patent suit for $0 (rough language);
Canadian law society to pay $100K for asking prospective lawyers about mental illness [ABA Journal]
Self-help eviction? “Chinese Developers Accused Of Putting Scorpions In Apartments To Force Out Residents” [Business Insider]

Tags: Apple, China, disabled rights, FDA, firefighters, Microsoft, patent trolls, Steve Berman, Supreme Court, workers' compensation

August 11 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

iPod nano scratch settlement

Walter Olson — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:43:23 +0000

Class action lawyers and Apple have reached a deal to settle claims that early versions of the pocket-sized device have an exterior that scratches too easily. Apple will offer $25 each to some users and the lawyers will cart away more than $9 million. (Ars Technica; settlement site; earlier here and here).

Tags: Apple, class action settlements, Steve Berman

iPod nano scratch settlement is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

October 6 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:41:25 +0000

All-blog edition:

Judges overheard chatting in coffee shop about sweetheart class settlement [WageLaw via Paul Karlsgodt’s weekly class action blog roundup]
More attempts to sue/uncover anonymous blog commenters: “I was subpoenaed for a discovery deposition about one of my posts on this blog.” [Medblogger Dr. Wes]
Thoughts prompted by the latest (NYC) round of litigation over “ladies’ nights” at drinking establishments [David Giacalone, f/k/a]
Head of state (Bolivia’s Morales) to his lawyer: “If it’s illegal, go ahead and make it legal. That’s what you went to school for.'” [Cato at Liberty]
Everybody run! Perennial Overlawyered mentionee Steve Berman has a blog [Class Action Law Today via his P.R. guy in Kevin O’Keefe comments]
When infamous NYC lawyer Burt Pugach calls, hang up [Greenfield]
Colleague described as “a soap opera doctor” elects to spend more time in the courtroom than in the operating room [Throckmorton]
Dear Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee: “Please resist the efforts of vaccine-injury plaintiffs’ advocates to define themselves as representatives of ‘the autism community.'” [Kathleen Seidel, Neurodiversity]

Tags: autism, bloggers and the law, class action settlements, expert witnesses, ladies' nights, NYC, on other blogs, Steve Berman, vaccines

October 6 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Using Twitter to scare up class action plaintiffs

Walter Olson — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:07:36 +0000

Perennial Overlawyered favorite Hagens Berman seems to be doing that to promote a Verizon late fee suit (Kevin O’Keefe, Sept. 16, via @kevinokeefe — yes, our first Twitter-derived post). Update: Tweet retracted.

Tags: cellphones, chasing clients, Steve Berman, Twitter

Using Twitter to scare up class action plaintiffs is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system