What good is sitting alone in your room without catching up on your video watching? This newly released panel discussion from the 1991 (!) Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention tackles the then-afoot trend to diminish the domain of traditional principles of contract in favor of prescribed duties under tort law, a trend I had discussed in my book The Litigation Explosion in that year. That particular trend, like some of the others I criticized, was to turn around in later years; contract did not die and in fact came back strong as it remains today.

It was quite a line-up that day:

Featuring:

Walter Olson, Manhattan Institute
Hon. Joseph R. Grodin, University of California Hastings College of Law and former Associate Justice, California Supreme Court
Prof. Randy E. Barnett, Chicago-Kent College of Law
Prof. E. Allan Farnsworth, Columbia Law School
Moderator: Hon. Robert Bork, American Enterprise Institute and former Supreme Court nominee

A direct YouTube link is here.

From the FedSoc archives: “The Death of Contract and the Rise of Tort” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

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

“Meet the Author — Frivolous Lawsuits, America’s Victim Culture” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

…members of the media are finally starting to realize something that conservatives have been arguing for quite some time with regard to our litigious culture, namely that the process itself is the punishment….

One of the causes that Olson argued most strenuously for in his book [The Litigation Explosion] was a more aggressive regime of fee shifting — that is, crafting and enforcing “loser-pays” laws common in other countries. Given that he literally wrote the book on the topic, I emailed him and asked how news outlets could work to avoid ruin at the hands of the vengeful wealthy….

If you wonder how loser-pays might have helped Gawker even though Hulk Hogan’s case was a winner, you need to read the link. More: Andrew Kloster and Jessica Higa, Daily Signal.

Fear of Thiel and the case for litigation reform is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Walter Olson, author of “The Litigation Explosion” (1991), explained in his Overlawyered.com blog that Mr. Thiel’s approach was predictable after maintenance “metamorphosed around the 1960s into what we now know as the public interest litigation model: foundation or wealthy individual A pays B to sue C. Since litigation during this period was being re-conceived as something socially productive and beneficial, what could be more philanthropic and public-spirited than to pay for there to be more of it?”

With maintenance decriminalized, Mr. Olson warns, “It will be used not just against the originally contemplated targets, such as large business or government defendants, but against a wide range of others—journalistic defendants included.”

Gordon Crovitz on “Peter Thiel’s Legal Smackdown” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

International free speech roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

There have been many flattering reactions already, scroll down from the interview to this comment from Margaret Little which made me particularly happy:

Overlawyered made an enormous contribution to understanding where lawyers were taking the legal system over the past several decades and it continues to fill a vacuum in the discourse about law. For too long that discourse was plaintiffs vs. defense lawyers, with both sides vulnerable to attack for self-interest. Worse, the defense bar, which has an economic interest in the expansion of liability, is often silent or even complicit in the game. While Overlawyered’s postings were made with much-appreciated wit and style, the sheer comprehensiveness of the empirical data, and the mind-boggling attention to detail in its analysis makes it a gold mine for research and a landmark accomplishment. Well done! Don’t quit!

Whole thing here.

“I myself escaped by a bare whisker from attending law school…” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Charles Murray’s recommendations for books on the U.S. legal system is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

…the USA system of justice is such an allure! It invites you to sue. One reason is that you can get money this way. The first thing I was taught in the USA (a lesson I did not learn) was to seek occasions for suing people. I was treated like trash couple of times, and I had the golden opportunity to cash in, but I decided it was totally unethical.

However, there are other reasons why litigation is so sexy in the USA. The system gives you a profoundly stupid idea about what is just and what is not, and about your entitlement to your rights.

Also mentions this site [The American Conservative]

Welcome Rod Dreher readers is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Some resources:

• Tony Rospert and Rob Ware (Thompson Hine), working paper for Washington Legal Foundation on e-discovery costs;
• Beck, Drug & Device Law (“While hardly perfect, these changes to Rule 37(a) are a welcome step in the right direction.);
• Alison Frankel, Reuters, on the politics (trial lawyers and legal academics resisting reform);
• Adapted excerpt in Reason from the chapter on discovery (“The Assault on Privacy”) from my book The Litigation Explosion, 1991.

Hopes of taming discovery at last? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system