I’m a trial lawyer for injured people and businesses at The Beasley Firm. Founded in 1958, we have recovered over $2 billion for our clients through hundreds of verdicts and settlements in excess of $1 million. We’re listed in Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, U.S. News’s Top Lawyers, [...]
“”I didn’t bring it into the courts.”
Justice Scalia says: "Richard Nixon, when he lost to [John F.] Kennedy thought that the election had been stolen in Chicago, which was very likely true with the system at the time," Justice Antonin Scalia told The Telegraph. "But he did not even think about bringing a court challenge. That was his prerogative. So you know if you don't like it, don't blame it on me. "I didn't bring it into the courts. Mr Gore brought it into the courts. "So if you don't like the courts getting involved talk to Mr Gore." That's odd, I thought I remembered the ... Continue Reading
Collaborative vs Cooperative vs Being A Good Lawyer
Via Settle It Now, Gini Nelson of Engaging Conflicts ran a six-part series recently on "Adding Cooperative Practice to the ADR Toolkit." Her final part in this series -- linked supra -- is the final entry of Guest Blogger Law Professor John Lande’s posts. Linked here is his article The Promise and Perils of Collaborative Law -- which is also linked in Gini's blog with her comments here. Before you run over to Gini's site to read Lande's excellent post or his great article, I'd like to simply bullet-point some observations based upon my four-years of full-time mediation and arbitration practice. when I co-arbitrate with some ... Continue Reading
Shareholder Activism and the “Eclipse of the Public Corporation”
Martin Lipton, who knows a thing or two about corporations, presents: On June 25, I presented a paper entitled “Shareholder Activism and the “Eclipse of the Public Corporation”: Is the Current Wave of Activism Causing Another Tectonic Shift in the American Corporate World?” at the 2008 Directors Forum of The University of Minnesota Law School. The paper discusses the pressures that have been pervasively eroding the centrality of the board of directors and transforming its role in the governance structure of public companies, with the end game being a new conception of the corporate organization. Against the backdrop of the ... Continue Reading
“Stealth marketing of medical services on YouTube”
43(B)log refers us to a NYT feature on doctors who give consumers incentives to post doctor-created ads as their own contributions to YouTube: Trouble is, most marketing videos don’t announce that patients are compensated. Take Jiffy Reed, who posed for a video tribute on YouTube about Dr. Daniel Noor, a New York-based cosmetic dentist who straightened her smile with invisible braces. “I was so happy, I would have done anything,” Ms. Reed said. What the video doesn’t mention is that her physician whitened her teeth at no charge; it usually costs about $700. Exactly right. Although the article quotes a ... Continue Reading
Jurisdiction versus Venue in Federal Courts, A Reminder
Via an insurance / breach of contract case in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania: Although the Court has found that Hotaling's contacts [*18] with Pennsylvania are sufficient to support the Court's exercise of personal jurisdiction, it does not follow automatically that venue in this district is proper. As the language of Section 1331(a) makes clear, the focus in assessing venue is not on the "defendants' 'contacts' with a particular district, but [on] the location of those' 'events or omissions giving rise to the claim.'" Cottman Transmission Sys. v. Martino, 36 F.3d 291, 294 (3d ... Continue Reading
Civil Litigation Discovery Violation – Malpractice?
The WSJ Law Blog on a malpractice suit, alleging that discovery mistakes led to a $107 million settlement [to which] the company would not have otherwise agreed: According to the complaint, the North Carolina federal court in which the underlying litigation occurred, held that it was “under Kaye Scholer’s watch” that Celanese was sanctioned for “discovery abuse,” which the Court described as “egregious.” The North Carolina court, as quoted in the complaint filed against Kaye Scholer, wrote: “The court is not unmindful of the positions urged by [Celanese], but in the context of the trove of documents it held in ... Continue Reading
Perfect Is The Enemy Of Good
Legalwriting.net is unhappy with this advice: “Do not ever for the second time give your senior a piece of writing with a typo or a grammatical mistake,” says Berry. “I will take it once and I will tell the junior my set speech.” But if it happens again? Well, find out for yourself. We can all agree typos are bad and, in some circumstances, unprofessional. But Berry gives no advice whatsoever for how to accomplish that; he just threatens associates with their livelihoods and careers. Was the client the focus of that advice? Do they really want to pay lawyers ... Continue Reading
“Multitasking is dumbing us down and driving us crazy.”
At Concurring Opinions, The Truth about Multitasking: I've been of two minds about multitasking for some time. But growing evidence is suggesting that the very concept is a myth: Dr. Edward Hallowell, a Massachusetts-based psychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and has written a book with the self-explanatory title CrazyBusy, has been offering therapies to combat extreme multitasking for years; in his book he calls multitasking a “mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously.” In a 2005 article, he described a new condition, “Attention Deficit Trait,” which he claims ... Continue Reading
SCOTUS: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Standard of Review
SCOTUSBlog, of course, gets the jump on the first analysis of Heller v. DC, striking down the gun ban, noting: Second, what standard of review will apply [to future cases]? Scalia rejects rational basis (note 27 page 56, which the District did not urge) and says that the District law falls under any other standard, without exactly saying why. The SG offered a fairly relaxed standard (except as applied to the DC law), but the Court did not bite. Federal laws regulating guns, and perhaps those increasing sentences for gun use, are likely to be challenged, whatever the standard and ... Continue Reading
Privilege and Email – Who Bears The Burden?
At Electronic Discovery Blog, "Employee’s motion to quash granted where employer cannot establish that employee had no expectation of privacy in using employer’s computer system:" Requestor defendant employer subpoenaed third party producer to produce “all electronically stored information on all computers, laptops, PDA’s, portable media or other devices” between plaintiff employee’s husband and plaintiff regarding the litigation. Employee moved to quash on the grounds of overbreadth and that the records were protected by the spousal privilege. Employer responded that the records were not protected because of the employer state’s system use policy, which provides that “’no user should have any ... Continue Reading
