WordPress – Overlawyered

Bogus DMCA takedown request watch

Walter Olson — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:38:54 +0000

WordPress is fighting back. [its blog via BoingBoing, Popehat] Will YouTube? [Popehat re: Colorado assembly hopeful]

Tags: Colorado, copyright, WordPress, YouTube

Bogus DMCA takedown request watch is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

January 18 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:10:30 +0000

What, no more monkeys or snakes? Starting March 15 new federal regulation will restrict definition of “service animals” to dogs alone [Central Kitsap Reporter, earlier, more]
“Appeals court: SD prosecutor’s conduct denied man a fair trial” [San Diego Union-Tribune]
A tale of local regulation: “A septic system at the crossroads” [Roland Toy, American Thinker]
Firm sues Fark, Reddit, Yahoo, etc. etc. over 2002 patent on “structured news release generation and distribution,” draws rude reply from defendant TechCrunch;
UK schools minister: “no touching pupils” policy keeps music teachers from doing their job [Telegraph]
Legal ethicist Stephen Gillers hired at $950/hour to approve ethics of Ken Feinberg’s BP compensation fund work [two views: Andrew Perlman and Monroe Freedman; earlier, Byron Stier]. Per Ted at PoL, trial lawyers criticizing the arrangement “complain that BP is using the same tactic plaintiffs’ lawyers regularly use to prove their own ethics.”
Is WordPress’s quirky “Hello Dolly” plugin a copyright infringement? [TechDirt]
Congrats, you’re eligible for a job with the D.C. public school system [ten years ago on Overlawyered; more on criminal records and hiring, subject of a current EEOC crusade]

Tags: copyright, ethics, patent quality, prosecution, San Diego, schools, service animals, United Kingdom, WordPress

January 18 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

March 26 roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:34:21 +0000

Woman “discreetly” leaning over to use cellphone during movie says armrest smacked her on head, sues theater [Chicago Breaking News, Sun-Times] Plus: more links at ChicagoNow;
For a really cogent analysis of the effects of lawsuits over independent contractor classification, ask someone whose livelihood is at stake, like this Massachusetts stripper [Daily Caller]
Menaced by lawsuit, WordPress.com yanks a blog attacking a cancer therapist, then restores it [MWW]
Baby slings, cont’d: a CPSC recall, and already Sokolove and Lieff Cabraser are advertising [Stoll, more, earlier]
Law student’s suit demanding pass/fail grading in legal writing class results in “fail” [ABA Journal]
More details on new federal mandate for restaurant and vending machine calorie counts [update to earlier post]
“As suits pile up, plaintiff labeled ‘vexatious litigant'” [Virginian-Pilot]
Tweet a summary of your favorite Supreme Court case (& cc in comments below if you like) [Daniel Schwartz, hashtag #cbftech, what others have done]

Tags: CPSC, law schools, Massachusetts, strippers and exotic dancers, Supreme Court, wage and hour suits, WordPress

March 26 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

WordPress upgrade

Walter Olson — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:21:45 +0000

I’ve upgraded the site to the latest version of WordPress in response to reports of a serious attack on older versions (if you’re running any version earlier than the new 2.8.4, go read about it immediately).

Every time I upgrade, there are user problems for a while, which for readers with some browsers take the form of a front page frozen in time at the last post just before upgrade (in this case, “NYC: tobacco shops can’t give away coffee“). I’ve tried to avert this problem with more careful attention to the cache file, but if you notice this problem (or any other) with the site, please email me at editor – at – thisdomainname – dot- com.

Tags: blog mechanics, WordPress

WordPress upgrade is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Are you seeing a July 5 version of our front page?

Walter Olson — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:51:20 +0000

This happened back in January last time we upgraded WordPress, and I’m afraid it’s happened again: some users of Internet Explorer and Safari are reporting that the front page of the site is stuck for them in its July 5 form, as of just before the update. I think I’ve fixed the problem now by restoring the missing cache file, but you may need to do a forced refresh (SHIFT button while clicking “reload”) to see the results.

If you’ve tried SHIFT + reload and still get the July 5 version, let me know via email (editor – at – thisdomainname.com) or post a comment.

Tags: blog mechanics, WordPress

Are you seeing a July 5 version of our front page? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

WordPress update

Walter Olson — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:42:34 +0000

If the site is temporarily unavailable, it’s because I’m updating to the latest version of WordPress. Back soon, I hope. Update 11 p.m. Eastern: Looks like it worked, if you see a problem let me know.

Spoke too soon: there was a caching problem which has prevented many readers with IE or Safari browsers from seeing newer posts (details here). I’ve put in what I hope is a fix.

Tags: blog mechanics, WordPress

WordPress update is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Site disruptions

Walter Olson — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:16:17 +0000

I upgraded last night to the latest version of WordPress, and whether relatedly or not, a couple of strange things went wrong this morning with recent entries: in particular, the short post from over the weekend on the Phoenix police blogger disappeared and was replaced by a draft post on a different subject. I’m working to fix and restore things. If you notice other aspects of the site that aren’t behaving as they should, drop me a line. P.S. Post restored with its comments; most broken links should be back working.

Tags: about the site, WordPress

Site disruptions is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Feeds working again?

Walter Olson — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:38:46 +0000

Many of our RSS feed subscribers lost their Overlawyered feeds when we switched platforms to WordPress this spring. I’ve just installed a plugin that should get things moving again, redirecting everyone to a single main feed for the site; those who want to follow comments can subscribe to this separate comments feed. If it doesn’t work for you, let me know.

Tags: about the site, feeds, WordPress

Feeds working again? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Added to the favorites column

Ted Frank — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:50:50 +0000

Added to the favorites sidebar on the right: our contemporaneous coverage of the case of the finger in the Wendy’s chili. Any other favorites you’d like to see there?

Tags: about the site, WordPress

Added to the favorites column is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

More tweaks to the site

Ted Frank — Wed, 28 May 2008 02:50:38 +0000

As we’ve begun filling in tags to the thousands of posts, the “tag cloud” became less and less interesting and more and more distracting on the front page. We’ve moved it to a back page and replaced it with three hand-made lists of tags:

Categories, with tags roughly corresponding to the categories from the old website;
Favorite topics, featuring tags corresponding to popular reader favorites from years past and today; and
Good copy, attorneys and law firms you want to read about.

Are we leaving anything out in those tag lists you’d like to see there?

Don’t hesitate to drop me an e-mail with a link if you see something that was improperly auto-tagged or is missing a tag that would be useful.

Tags: about the site, blog mechanics, WordPress

More tweaks to the site is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system