Analysis And Headlines

Singlepayerlegal.org: Humor or Insanity? Overlawyered linked today to a site called singlepayerlegal.org. And it's amusing. So I sure hope that Overlawyered's determination that it must be nothing more than parody/satire is correct. The premise is the flip side of the argument for a single-payer health care system. The article (PDF) linked to on the front page of the site, written by a Matthew S. Rice, M.D., and apparently published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, makes clear that the concept is: A little bit of "turnabout is fair play": With attorney-legislators scrutinizing and planning the reform of medicine and the health insurance industry, it is only fitting that physicians apply the most current progressive healthcare reform principles to the legal profession. The folks at singlepayerlegal do seem to have spent a fair amount of time and energy on this site though. They've set up a petition to Congress, calling for, among other things, the proposed legal system to be one "in which all attorneys are salaried, and are required to provide legal services to all-comers, regardless of income or disparity-group status, at fair and stable reimbursement rates determined by a Department of Legal Services (DLS)." I am willing to bet that the...

Drawing the Line Between Lawyering and Lobbying The recent hubbub about the "Al Qaeda 7" -- Department of Justice lawyers who, while in private practice, represented Guantanamo detainees -- spurred a massive debate, nominally about legal ethics and national security. The legal community seems to have come down largely on the side of the attorneys, ripping Liz Cheney and others who question the loyalty of these now-public servants. Lawyers, we're told, understand their ethical obligations, and should not be barred from government work simply because they previously represented clients who kind of hate the government. Walter Olson, at Point of Law, ponders the significance of this opinion vis-a-vis the hybrid firms that exist in Washington (and elsewhere). Josh Gerstein had a piece at Politico last week questioning the different treatment of lawyers and lobbyists. Lobbyists, under current federal rules, must observe a two-year "cooling off period" before the taint of their prior activities is considered to have abated. As Olson points out, though, the line between a firm's legal work and its lobbying work is often hazy at best. Well, he says it much more eloquently: Washington law firms have a great deal going: because their internal workings are necessarily somewhat opaque, their participants can inevitably engage...

Coming Soon to a Computer Near You: More Free PACER Documents Top o' the mornin' LBW readers. I thought it appropriate to start off St. Paddy's Day (no, it's not "St. Patty's Day") by bringing you all some news that might make you want to raise a glass. Or a coffee mug, whatever. Tony Mauro reports in The National Law Journal that the U.S. Judicial Conference voted yesterday to increase fourfold the number of free documents that members of the public will be able to retrieve from the federal courts' PACER system. Rather than a $10 per year limit on freebies (at $.08 per page), users will now be allowed to retrieve $10 worth of documents per quarter. While that change might not matter to many attorneys who are on PACER as often as a tween girl is on Facebook, the Conference estimates that 75 percent of users will now pay nothing for their yearly use. Sweet. The conference also voted to reduce the cost of digital recordings of proceedings, which are currently provided by certain district and bankruptcy courts under a pilot program, and to encourage additional courts to participate. While increasing free access is certainly a step in the right direction, Professor Mitchell H. Rubinstein of St. John's Law...

Tuesday's Three Burning Legal Questions Here are today's three burning legal questions, along with the answers provided by the blogosphere. 1) Question: I took my eyes off of my son for 2 seconds at this restaurant and now I see he has climbed into the "claw grabber" machine filled with lollipops. Doh!! He's stuck in there now. Do we have a claim for false imprisonment or something? What are our rights here? Answer: No. You have the right to be an attentive enough parent that your kid does not crawl into a claw grabber machine. If you're lucky, you might get a £30 voucher, but that is about it. (Telegraph, Toddler Trapped in Lolly Machine After Climbing in for Sweets) (via Jonathan Turley) 2) Question: I'm a female nurse. One of my male patients filed a complaint against me for my "failure" to provide sexual services as part of his care at home. He says I should be dismissed on the grounds that I am unfit to provide care. Huh? This was not covered in nursing school. Answer: No, of course you do not need to do that. And rest assured that Dutch union NU'91 has launched a national campaign against demands for sexual services...

LBW Follow-Up Edition: Giraffe Gaffes, Potent Perfumes and Baby Einstein Possibly spurred on by the looming threat of Judge Carton ruling in their cases, three matters recently discussed on Legal Blog Watch have come to interesting conclusions. 1. Fake Killer Giraffes: Earlier this month, a Louisiana judge issued a TRO requiring a publisher to take down a clearly satirical story about fictional killer giraffes. Yesterday, however, common sense was restored in the Pelican State when a district judge struck down the TRO and ordered the wildlife preserve that had obtained it to pay $500 in attorney fees and court costs. The court found that the story was satire and protected speech. 2. Allergy-Inducing Perfume: Last month, a Detroit civil servant reached a $100,000 settlement agreement with the city after her supervisor failed to address her complaints that her coworker's perfume bothered her allergies. This week, the city of Detroit announced that it will soon install placards in three city buildings instructing employees to refrain from "wearing scented products, including ... colognes, aftershave lotions, perfumes, deodorants, body/face lotions ... (and) the use of scented candles, perfume samples from magazines, spray or solid air fresheners ..." 3. Baby Einstein refunds: Back in October 2009, the Walt Disney Co. caved in to demands...

C-Span Gives Political Junkies 160,000 Hours of Video to Explore Via this post on Computational Legal Studies I learned today that C-Span has placed virtually every minute of its 23 years of video archives on the Internet. The New York Times reports that the "C-Span Video Library," which goes back to 1987, is now available to the public. The archive is fully searchable, and will be formally announced by C-Span on Wednesday. Political junkies now have more than 160,000 hours of C-Span footage to explore. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow told the Times that the library is “like being able to Google political history using the 'I Feel Lucky' button every time.” Although few cable networks would be willing to make their entire archive available for free on the Internet, C-Span founder Brian Lamb said doing so was an extension of the network's public service commitment. “That’s where the history will be,” he said. Blogger Ed Morrisey told the Times the archives were so vast that finding valuable material might be like looking for a "needle in a haystack.” C-Span executives say they hope the search filters on the archive will help with that issue. I'm no politico, but I gave the search engine a try to see if I could...