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, [...]
Univ. of Chicago Professors and Judges Debate “Ambiguity About Ambiguity”
The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog is hosting a debate over a new paper, Ambiguity About Ambiguity: An Empirical Inquiry Into Legal Interpretation written by Ward Farnsworth, Dustin F. Guzior, and Anup Malani. As the paper's abstract says: Most scholarship on statutory interpretation discusses what courts should do with ambiguous statutes. This paper investigates the crucial and analytically prior question of what ambiguity in law is. Does a claim that a text is ambiguous mean the reader is uncertain about its meaning? Or is it a claim that readers, as a group, would disagree about what the text means ... Continue Reading
Why Is Apple’s iPhone Prototype Entitled To More Justice Than Jessica Gonzales’ Daughters?
[Much later update for Jon Lebkowsky readers: the Aaron Swartz post is here.] [Update I: There's some additional discussion of this post in the comments at Hacker News.] [Update II: Making matters worse, the warrant itself was patently overbroad and may have lacked probable cause for many of the items seized. My trusty copy of Criminal Defense Tools and Techniques refers to US v. SDI Future Health, Inc., 568 F.3d 684, 702-704 (9th Cir. 2009), which talks about prohibitions on "exploratory rummaging in a person's belongings" and how "there must be probable cause to seize the particular things named in the ... Continue Reading
Paying For A Great Lawyer And Getting A Politician Instead
On Sunday, the Associated Press published a background piece on Bob Bauer, the White House counsel: White House counsel Bob Bauer, President Barack Obama's point man in the search for a new Supreme Court justice, manages to get credit both for an even temperament and his finesse with a sledge hammer. ... Now Bauer, 58, is plying his mix of legal reasoning and tough-guy determination from a West Wing corner office. The White House counsel is leading the search for a Supreme Court nominee and planning how to steer that choice safely through the shoals of Senate confirmation. It's a ... Continue Reading
Supreme Court Says Extraordinary Children’s Rights Lawyers Are Merely Ordinary
Marcia Lowry and Ira Lustbader are extraordinary lawyers. They are the public interest lawyers at Children's Rights who, with the assistance of Don Keenan (remember him?) and attorneys at Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, sued the State of Georgia: In June 2002, Children’s Rights filed a class action against state and county officials responsible for the foster care system in metropolitan Atlanta, on behalf of the approximately 3,000 children in foster care in Atlanta. The federal complaint cites numerous systemic problems with dangerous consequences for children, among them: Children languish for months in dangerous emergency shelters without necessary treatment and services, exposed ... Continue Reading
“Lost” iPhones and Goldman Sachs: Filtering Deception Through Middlemen
"Once the lawyers get involved..." There are a hundred ways to end that sentence. Once the lawyers get involved, everything falls apart. It takes ten times as long to finish a deal. A lawsuit is inevitable. The hysterics start. Few of the potential endings are favorable towards lawyers. Perhaps the most common sentiment is: once the lawyers get involved, the truth gets buried. To some extent, it's true. The first thing a criminal defense lawyer says to a new client? Remain silent. The first thing a litigator says to a new client? Let's get your story straight. The first thing ... Continue Reading
Investing In Lawsuits, Part II: New Law Review Article On Third-Party Litigation Funding
One of my most popular posts was "Investing in Lawsuits" - The Free Market Counterpart to Liability Insurance, which analyzed a New York Times article on Juridica, a company that finances business litigation on the plaintiff's side. The post drew a thoughtful comment from Richard Fields, CEO and Chairman of Juridica, about their business model. Via Legal Theory Blog, Dr. Maya Steinitz at Columbia Law School has posted a draft of Whose Claim is this Anyway? Third Party Litigation Funding: This article is among the first to address litigation finance by institutional investors in the U.S. It describes the empirical reality ... Continue Reading
Lower Merion Webcam Spying “Substantial” – Where Does The Lawsuit Go From Here?
The newspapers Friday were filled with disturbing revelations: The Lower Merion School District today acknowledged that investigators reviewing its controversial laptop tracking program have recovered "a substantial number of webcam photos" and that they expect to soon start notifying parents whose children were photographed. Responding to a motion filed Thursday as part of a lawsuit brought by the family of a Harriton High School sophomore, School Board President David Ebby said the district's lawyers have proposed enlisting Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter to supervise a system by which parents are to be notified and allowed to view the photos. ... Continue Reading
Why Contingent Fee Lawyers Don’t Charge Consultation Fees
Scott Greenfield isn't happy with people wasting his time: Marketers teach lawyers who turn to them because they need business ways to "sell" the client. We offer free consultations, which clients interpret as a free hour of a lawyer's time to provide free legal advice which they can then take away and use. I get many inquiries from people asking if I give free consultations. There's only one reason for them to ask. I don't. But they expect lawyers to do so, and will be happy to enjoy a free consultation when they need answers from a lawyer. This is ... Continue Reading
Sen. Specter: Supreme Court Needs More Transparency
In The National Law Journal: Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., took to the floor of the Senate on Monday to talk about the vacancy on the Supreme Court, and while he was at it, one of his favorite Supreme Court topics: camera access. "I believe Congress has the authority, should it choose to do so, to direct the Supreme Court to permit its proceedings to be televised," Specter said. ... "If the public had access to what was going on in the Supreme Court," Specter said, "it seems to me there would be a clamor to have more openness, more transparency, ... Continue Reading
Is Neuroscience The Next Big Thing For Trial Lawyers?
Trial lawyers — both defense-side and plaintiff's-side — are always looking for an edge. Every aspect of the trial has to be planned in advance, with multiple levels of contingency planning for when testimony, rulings or evidence goes awry. That's a given, but it's not enough. There's a whole cottage industry of jury consultants built upon trial lawyers' insecurities, some reputable, some not so much, all of it quite pricey. Most of it strikes me as pointless. Sure, a mock jury or consultant review can expose weaknesses in your case and reveal the importance of issues that you hardly considered ... Continue Reading
