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, [...]
Can Hizook Sue Google For Arbitrarily Disabling Their AdSense Account?
Hizook.com, "the robotics news portal," relates an unfortunate incident: Hizook.com has received an amazing flurry of activity in the last 10 days. We made it to the front page of Slashdot (twice!), Reddit (twice!), Engadget, Makezine, Hacker News (etc, etc) -- amassing well over 100,000 pageviews! During the height of the activity, we received an email indicating that Hizook's Google Adsense account was being disabled. There was no further explanation, no warning, no attempt made to resolve the situation -- in fact, our only recourse was to fill out a web form and hope for a prompt response. Apparently that ... Continue Reading
Court Re-Rejects Bank of America & Merrill Lynch’s SEC Settlement For Failure To Waive Attorney-Client Privilege
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported: The finger-pointing in Merrill Lynch’s bonus troubles shifted to a new target on Monday in two court documents that essentially said: blame the lawyers. Responding to questions posed by a federal judge, Bank of America and the Securities and Exchange Commission said the bank had relied on its outside lawyers to fill in the fine print in that firm’s controversial marriage with Bank of America. That meant that lawyers at two firms — Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as well as Shearman & Sterling — handled a decision to keep Merrill’s $3.6 billion ... Continue Reading
A Simple Productivity Trick: Think In The Morning, Talk In The Afternoon
I don't update the "productivity" topic you see to the right as often as I thought I would. As I wrote three months ago, in my most recent "productivity" post (about "batch processing"): [L]ike Merlin Mann, after an extensive time following the productivity genre/industry in details, I have generally soured on the relentless gadgetry, listmaking, fickleness and obsessiveness of most productivity websites and communities ... That's not to say studying productivity is a waste of time. Far from it; Benjamin Franklin did it, and look how productive he was. Maira Kalman, who authors a whimsical biography blog at the New York Times, ... Continue Reading
“The Boy Who Heard Too Much” – An Incredible Social Engineering Story
At Rolling Stone: Weigman's auditory skills had always been central to his exploits, the means by which he manipulated the phone system. Now he gave Lynd a first-hand display of his powers. At one point during the visit, Lynd's cellphone rang. "I can't talk to you right now," the agent told the caller. "I'm out doing something." When he hung up, Weigman turned to him from across the room. "Oh," the kid asked, "is that Billy Smith from Verizon?" Lynd was stunned. William Smith was a fraud investigator with Verizon who had been working with him on the swatting case. ... Continue Reading
Lawyers: Create A Paper Trail To Protect Yourself (A Philadelphia Inquirer Bankruptcy Story)
The Inquirer reports on a hearing I attended on Tuesday in The Inquirer's bankruptcy: In a scathing rebuke, the judge overseeing the bankruptcy of Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C. yesterday described the investigation of an unauthorized taping of a meeting between the company and its senior lenders as a "fine mess." The investigation of the taping, done by one of the officers of the largest creditor, was directed by a committee of the unsecured lenders, or second-tier creditors. By failing to take sworn depositions and seek key e-mails, the committee left its interim report on the taping open to questions and criticism, ... Continue Reading
For Settlement, Court Vacates Opinions and Removes Them From Lexis and Westlaw — You Can Find Them Here
[UPDATE: The Volokh Conspiracy, Concurring Opinions and TechDirt picked up on the case and this post as well. Volokh has substantial discussion in the comments, including links to law review articles on the issues of vacated and unpublished opinions, and a comment by the author of The Legal Intelligencer article, Shannon Duffy, noting that you can find the opinions themselves on the Eastern District of Pennsylvania's own website. I have also edited a line (the one quoted by Co-Op) for clarity.] The Legal Intelligencer reports: Ordinarily, the decision to settle a case while an appeal is pending means giving up the ... Continue Reading
“Why No New Einstein?” and “What’s Wrong With E=MC^2?”
Time for a change of pace, some outside ideas to keep our minds limber. First, "What's Wrong With E=MC^2?" So what is the problem with Einstein's mass-energy relation? Well, to put it bluntly, there is no such thing as a mass-energy relation. What does exist is a mass-energy-momentum relation. The equation Einstein came up with more than a century ago can be considered a degenerate form of the mass-energy-momentum relation for vanishing momentum. Einstein was very well aware of this, and in later papers repetitively stressed that his mass-energy equation is strictly limited to observers co-moving with the object under ... Continue Reading
Former General Counsel Sues Company For Defamation: Another Reminder Of The Value Of Independent Investigations
The Recorder reports: Michael Ross was fired and blamed for two corporate scandals at Atmel Corp. -- but now the former general counsel is fighting back. Ross has filed a lawsuit, claiming the San Jose, Calif., semiconductor company ruined his reputation when it pointed the finger at him and others for the company's stock option backdating problems, which led to a $125 million financial restatement. Having been fired along with other Atmel executives in 2006 after an investigation into the misuse of travel funds, Ross became an easy scapegoat when the company faced a mounting backdating mess a year later, ... Continue Reading
Merck Asks Supreme Court To Order It Be Sued Every Time Its Shareholders Lose Money
AmLawDaily catches Merck passing the reins from Cravath, Swaine & Moore to Williams & Connolly for its petition to the Supreme Court regarding the consolidated Vioxx securities litigation. In a moment, we'll look at Merck's (likely very, very expensive) brief, and marvel at the Catch-22 it proposes. But first, some background, courtesy of the Third Circuit's opinion: Appellants, purchasers of Merck & Co., Inc. stock, filed the first of several class action securities fraud complaints on November 6, 2003, alleging that the company and certain of its officers and directors (collectively, “Merck”) misrepresented the safety profile and commercial viability of Vioxx, a ... Continue Reading
Posner and Easterbrook Put the Brakes on Ashcroft v. Iqbal
Not too long ago, I argued that Ashcroft v. Iqbal was not nearly as important as commentators thought, and that the sky had not fallen on plaintiffs. Instead, Iqbal merely put into words the standard that numerous courts had already applied to large-scale litigation without saying as much. I also argued that Iqbal in particular involved a very unique circumstance -- a Bivens suit against top-level official -- and so was easily distinguishable from the vast majority of civil litigation. For a while, it seemed no one agreed with me. Every week there was another "[pharmaceutical manufacturing defect / establishment clause ... Continue Reading
