“Hayman & Kirshenbaum are the sort who make personal injury lawyers seem no better than common crooks and scoundrels.” Why did Mister Thorne write that? (And how fast did that law firm just kill its Google reputation by its conduct?) Update: Mister Thorne finds more in Part II)

Defense counsel conducts interviews of plaintiff’s treating physicians without permission, and a defense verdict results. Matt Lerner at New York Civil Practice tells you why the verdict was then tossed out by an appellate court;

Blawg Review #196 comes up from Down Under (for the 4th time) on Australia Day;

TortsProf has this week’s Personal Injury Law Round-Up;

When robbing banks, be careful about which paper you write showmethemoney (NY Mag, Intel);

Scott Greenfield sees changing comment policies at BigBlawgs (Above the Law, Balkanization, Concurring Opinions, Volokh, SecularRight), sees a drop in comments at his blog, sees migration to Twitter for some commenters, and wraps it all together in The Lifecycle of Comments. My comment policy remains as it has been for a long time: moderated. While it means less immediacy in seeing comments, it also keeps out the spammers and nuts.

And it was 25 years ago on Super Bowl Sunday that the single greatest ad ever created ran during the game. It was the one and only time 1984 ran on national television. But it lives on in YouTube.

Links to this post:

standing up for your legal rights
unless they’re your copyrights, in which case chicago’s personal injury firm of hayman & kirshenbaum doesn’t seem to be quite so particular (via turkewitz). more: mister thorne reports that h&k has now removed the cited material, …

posted by Walter Olson @ February 04, 2009 12:06 AM

“Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over,” proclaimed The Onion on January 17, 2001 (via Crime and Federalism) How well did they do in their predictions?

Blawg Review #195 was hosted by On Being a Black Lawyer on MLK Day with a theme of Dream Realized;

Carolyn Elefant at her solo practice site My Shingle just gave away a computer. Do you want to know why?

The Second Circuit hears argument on New York’s attorney anti-solicitation rules, and shows skepticism (Law.com). Previously, my analysis as to how some lawyers walk around the ethics rules (New York’s Anti-Solicitation Rule Allows For Ethics Laundering and Must Be Modified);

New York Gov. David Paterson ignores my suggestion to pick recently-retired Chief Judge Judith Kaye as Clinton’s Senate replacement, and picks Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand after a ridiculously long review process that seemed designed to keep Paterson in the news;

And Steve Jobs is being investigated by the SEC regarding disclosures over his health. Will the SEC want his medical records? (Medical Quack) Can they get the medical records if Jobs doesn’t want to cough them up, given HIPAA? And did Jobs open the door to those records being released to the SEC by giving some information (but not all) about his health? Stay tuned, as you can bet we will hear more about that…

We have a new blog in town, John Hochfelder’s New York Injury Cases Blog. John clearly understands the first errors so many personal injury bloggers make; he doesn’t treat his blog as an island unto itself to be used solely for self-promotion, and is joining the blawgospheric conversation. He’ll be digging into the meat of those big verdicts you sometimes hear about, and will let us know what they really mean;

A Phoenix rises in Blawg Review # 194 with Susan Cartier Liebel at her Build a Solo Practice;

Anne Reed let’s us know at Deliberations how Clarence Darrow picked juries. Some things are timeless:

Every knowing lawyer seeks for a jury of the same sort of men as his client; men who will be able to imagine themselves in the same situation and realize what verdict the client wants

…but his stereotypes of Irishmen, Englishmen, Germans, Jews and others needs to be seen to be believed;

“Tomorrow at midnight, New York will joins the ranks of other jurisdictions in which liability insurers must prove prejudice from delayed reporting of liability claims.” Roy Mura at Coverage Counsel has the details;

Ron Miller takes an historical look at the efficiency of the justice system; he starts with a Time Magazine article from 45 years ago that seems to have some familiar complaints;

And TortsProf has their 21st edition of the Personal Injury Law Round-Up.

In the news is not just one courthouse brawl, but two.

First, in New York: A defendant goes bonkers, and a New York Times reporter happens to be in the jury pool:

“Obviously, things didn‘t go as I planned this afternoon,” the judge began, with dry understatement.

Next up, from New Orleans, two lawyers go at in the courtroom in a civil case. They are rivals in a class action suit (h/t Ron Miller);

Dennis Quaid settles against Cedars-Sinai Hospital for $750,000 for the Heparin overdose of his twins. (The Quaids had previously sued Baxter for crappy labelling, but not the hospital.) Doesn’t that exceed the arbitrary 250K California pain and suffering cap?

TortsProf has the 12/12/08 edition of the Personal Injury Law Round-Up, in case you missed it.

And Eliot Spitzer has his coming out at a party hosted by Slate. Where? At the Happy Ending Lounge, site of a former massage parlor. I kid you not. (ft.com/gapperblog)

Jeffrey Toobin has an article in the New Yorker on retiring Chief Judge Judith “Don’t call me Judge Judy” Kaye. Among the nuggets in the article, missing from my own piece on her retirement, was this gem on getting jurors to work together:

The jury room, with its dozing strangers awaiting the call to dispense justice, never fails to stir her soul. (Kaye always says “jury service,” not “jury duty.”) No detail is too small for her attention … the in-house magazine for jurors has a crossword puzzle but, per her directive, no answers. “I want the jurors to learn to work together by figuring it out,” she said

Coverage Counsel with a link to an up-dated FAQ from the NYS Department of Insurance on all the latest insurance issues;

David Giacalone of f/k/a fame on the History of Snowmen;

David Hyman has been doing a series of posts on medical malpractice caps at the Volokh Conspiracy. This is the first, with links to all others at the bottom of it;

Eric Dinnocenzo takes on a WSJ editorial on medical malpractice damage caps;

The ABA has a holiday card. With Claus Enterprises, Ltd. having a somewhat unique disclaimer;

TortsProf has the Personal Injury Law Round-Up, once again chock full of the latest stories of the week;

Blawg Review #189 is up by Colin Samuels at Infamy and Praise. If you were expecting a populist theme, say of the Alice’s Restaurant variety, forget it. Three-time Blawg Review of the Year winner Samuels takes to the high seas with the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.