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, [...]
The Secret of Law Blogging: It’s A Pie-Eating Contest
Yesterday Adrian Dayton commented on the three most common reasons why people fail at blogging: In dozens of conversations with busy professional I hear time and time again similar excuses to the ones I made to my Father as a kid. “I’m too busy.” “I barely have time to respond to all my emails.” “I don’t want to commit to something I can’t stick with.” Most people who try to blog fail for three major reasons. 1. They aren’t sufficiently motivated to blog. 2. They aren’t organized enough to blog. 3. They don’t know what to say. I'm no fan ... Continue Reading
Bilski v. Kappos: SCOTUS Doesn’t Recognize Business Methods Patents But Doesn’t Prohibit Them Either
The Supreme Court released its opinion in Bilski v. Kappos this morning, which tested the sufficiency of a "business method" patent relating to the hedging of risk in investments. Four Justices wanted to scrap "business methods" patents altogether. Five wanted to scrap just the patent at issue here. Given the complexity of the issues involved, I'm pleasantly surprised to report that the actual holding of the case can be summarized with just a few quotes: Section 101 defines the subject matter that may be patented under the Patent Act: “Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or ... Continue Reading
The Boy Scouts’ Ironic, Pyrrhic Free Speech Victory Against The City of Philadelphia
As widely reported last week, the local Boy Scouts won a partial victory against the City of Philadelphia from a federal jury in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania: A federal jury on Wednesday declared that the city of Philadelphia had violated the First Amendment rights of the local chapter of the Boy Scouts of America by moving to evict it from its city-owned headquarters if it refused to repudiate the anti-gay policies of the Scouts' national parent group. In its verdict, the jury of six women and two men found that the city had imposed an "unconstitutional condition" on the ... Continue Reading
The Devil’s Advocate Argument In Favor Of Judge Feldman’s Deepwater Drilling Moratorium
Judicial supremacy made an unexpected comeback this week with Martin Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana, a "fair" and "terrifying" judge (who, for what it's worth, dismissed one of my cases a few months ago — no hard feelings), granting an injunction against the Secretary of the Interior from enforcing the Obama administration's moratorium on deepwater oil drilling because the moratorium was "arbitrary and capricious:" After reviewing the Secretary’s Report, the Moratorium Memorandum, and the Notice to Lessees, the Court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium. The ... Continue Reading
The Dunning-Kruger Effect And The Lawyer As Prognosticator
As part of a series on anosognosia (which was also one of the themes of Mike Rowe's TED Talk), the NYTimes' Opinionator has a new post on the Dunning-Kruger Effect, briefly stated as: Dunning wondered whether it was possible to measure one’s self-assessed level of competence against something a little more objective — say, actual competence. Within weeks, he and his graduate student, Justin Kruger, had organized a program of research. Their paper, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments,” was published in 1999. Dunning and Kruger argued in their paper, “When ... Continue Reading
Chief Justice Castille’s Golfing Habits and the Appearance of Impropriety
Yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer called on Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille to resign over his "sloppy - at best - handling of the process to build a new [Philadelphia] Family Court ..." The main reason: At issue is the relationship attorney Jeffrey B. Rotwitt had with Castille. Rotwitt was hired to represent the Supreme Court's effort to build a new $200 million Family Court in Philadelphia. Somewhere along the way, Rotwitt went from representing the court to codeveloper of the project. Rotwitt has been paid for his roles on both sides of the deal. He says there was ... Continue Reading
False Claims Act Lawsuit Against Oracle For Overcharging On GSA Contracts Unsealed
At Business Week, it seems Oracle isn't living up to its namesake: Oracle Corp., the world’s second- biggest software maker, faces a lawsuit brought by a whistleblower and the U.S. Justice Department claiming it overcharged the government by tens of millions of dollars. As the Complaint summarizes, This lawsuit is based on a scheme by Defendant Oracle Corporation ("Oracle") to defraud the United States by failing to disclose deep discounts Oracle offered to commercial customers when Oracle sold software products to federal government agencies through a General Services Administration Multiple Award Schedule. Oracle's failure to disclose the discounts it offered ... Continue Reading
Antitrust and The Univ. of California’s Proposed Boycott of Nature Publishing Group
Few enterprises generate as much frustration among their suppliers and consumers as the scientific publishing industry. The business model is so unfair it's comical: Governments, foundations, universities and private companies provide grants to researchers for scientific research; Researchers spend weeks, months, and sometimes years drafting papers based upon the results of their research; The papers are submitted to the publishers; The publishers send the papers out to other researchers, who peer review the papers free of charge; The publishers pick the best papers and publish them in their journals, without paying the authors; The publishers charge governments, foundations, universities, private ... Continue Reading
Does Your Writing Have Enough Structure?
Even Thomas Jefferson joked about lawyers being paid by the word; for hundreds of years, we've been paid to work in words yet terrible at doing so effectively. Sure, it's not necessarily our fault — a lot of our work is awfully complicated, and we're held to peculiar standards that often require we use specific archaic language or throw the kitchen sink into our arguments — but if you're not doing everything you can to make your argument clear and easy to understand, then you're not doing enough. Allow me to mash together two posts from Raymond Ward's the (new) ... Continue Reading
Judge John Kane And The Broken Social Contract Between Young Lawyers And Their Firms
Last week, Stephanie West Allen at Idealawg posted a speech given by United States District Court Judge John Kane at his law school's 50th reunion. Some folks jumped all over one paragraph near the beginning as a vindication of their personal grudges against young lawyers: I wish I had a better grasp of the issues, but this newest generation seems to possess an entirely different set of values. They are more concerned with lifestyle than clients or causes. We thought hard work and perseverance would eventually lead to a partnership in a firm and it was an unusual event when ... Continue Reading
