Broadcast appearances
I’m scheduled to join a reporter and anchor in the studios of New York’s WCBS-Channel 2 this afternoon to discuss the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; look for me sometime in the 5-to-6 p.m....
View ArticleChamperty and maintenance watch
The law firm of Cellino & Barnes bills itself as the largest personal injury firm in western New York, and the “faces of [name partners Ross M.] Cellino and [Stephen E.] Barnes grace a reported 150...
View ArticleTeacher’s pet barracuda
Via Lyle Roberts at 10b-5 Daily (Aug. 29), we learn of the latest advance in methods guaranteed to bring us a more ruthless legal profession: “Christopher Waddell, general counsel of the California...
View ArticleFirst WTC bombing: terrorists 32% to blame, building owners 68%
Twelve years after the event, a jury finds someone to blame for the Islamist van-bomb attack that killed six, injured nearly 1,000, and caused costly business dislocation (Sept. 21, 2005, Dec. 5, 2004,...
View ArticleBlawg Review #33
Welcome to Blawg Review #33, the latest installment of the weekly carnival assembling some of the best recent weblog posts about law. If this is your first visit to Overlawyered, we’re among the oldest...
View ArticleRoger Scruton interview
An excerpt from the interview (pt. II) with the British philosopher at Right Reason: My advice to President Bush would be to look at the ways in which the power of the state might be needed in order to...
View ArticleContingency fee-o-rama
Anyone interested in the ethical, practical and philosophical case for and against the lawyers’ contingency fee (or contingent fee; usage varies) should be sure to check out two new resources: * At...
View ArticleAuthor: Penguin tagged my book as “black interest”
Many large bookstores carry sections devoted to works of African-American interest, and a number of book clubs and other specialized selling channels do a thriving business by specializing in black...
View ArticleSelling an item on eBay…
…is not enough contact with the buyer’s state to subject you to the jurisdiction of its courts, according to a judge on Staten Island who ruled that even New York’s “long arm” law has its limits. (Mark...
View ArticleJuly 26 roundup
Emerging newspaper business model: copyright lawsuits against bloggers? [Kravets, Wired, Ron Coleman, TechDirt, PoL] Five NYC hospitals to use “health courts” to seek agreements before medical...
View ArticleHouse passes Goodlatte patent troll bill
The vote was 325 to 91, with Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Mel Watt (D-N.C.) leading the opposition. Timothy Lee discusses in the Washington Post. While I haven’t tried to get into the details, the...
View ArticleHopes of taming discovery at last?
Following widespread complaints, led by the business community, that the high cost of the discovery phase of litigation is enough to deprive parties of substantive justice, the Advisory Committee on...
View ArticleWelcome Rod Dreher readers
I once wrote that a highly litigious society is like a civil war in very, very slow motion. Rod Dreher has similar thoughts here about how the structure of mutual trust erodes when people learn (and...
View ArticleCharles Murray’s recommendations for books on the U.S. legal system
Honored that two of mine, The Litigation Explosion and The Rule of Lawyers, are among seven that author Charles Murray (most recently of By the People) has recommended if you’d like to understand the...
View Article“I myself escaped by a bare whisker from attending law school…”
My tell-all interview at Fault Lines gets into why I don’t hate lawyers (really), my various books, my views on Cato and other think tanks, law and economics, the lack of any real reckoning for the...
View ArticleInternational free speech roundup
Tonight in New York City, Cato presents its Milton Friedman Award to Danish journalist Flemming Rose, a key figure in the [still-ongoing] Mohammed cartoons episode, and author of The Tyranny of...
View ArticleGordon Crovitz on “Peter Thiel’s Legal Smackdown”
The discovery that systematic lawsuit campaigns can be aimed at the press, and not just against every other institution, might be reason to rethink litigation-as-weapon [Gordon Crovitz, Wall Street...
View ArticleFear of Thiel and the case for litigation reform
“Angry about Peter Thiel’s pursuit of Gawker? Tort reform is the best solution.” Sonny Bunch of the Free Beacon is kind enough to quote me at length (and quote my debut book, The Litigation Explosion,...
View Article“Meet the Author — Frivolous Lawsuits, America’s Victim Culture”
It’s a cartoon — and not to be confused with an actual scene from one of my book signings [Dan Piraro] Tags: humor, The Litigation Explosion “Meet the Author — Frivolous Lawsuits, America’s Victim...
View ArticleMedical roundup
Radiologist Saurabh Jha had me on his popular podcast a while back to discuss the history of malpractice law. Now he’s written a substantial piece (link to article, gated) on my book The Litigation...
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