July 28th, 2008

Personal Injury Law Round-Ups Go Kaput. Again. (Updated! It’s Alive!!)

And so it ends. The Personal Injury Law round-up now appears to be dead. Again.

I started doing the round-ups on February 28, 2007. The first one didn’t have a number, since I didn’t know if I would continue it. But I enjoyed the challenge of scouring the personal injury blawgosphere to see what was out there. And I learned two valuable things:

  • When you do round-ups, people on the web find you since you are busy throwing about links left and right;
  • Doing round-ups makes you a better blogger, since you read the posts of others with a far more critical eye. It’s an excellent way to learn good blogging technique.

But I stopped the round-ups on November 16th on my first year blawgoversary, because the round-ups meant less time for other posts. There are, after all, only so many hours in a day. I wrote at that time,

The Personal Injury Round-Up that I have been doing is now kaput. It was fun while it lasted, but very time consuming to do on a regular basis…I hope to spend more time on individual stories and, hopefully, occasionally write stories that are not yet in the press.

But lo and behold Brooks Schuelke, stepped into the void, picked up the ball and ran with it. Until today. Brooks has also realized that, while these may be fun to do on an occasional basis, it’s tough to do week in and week out. He wrote today:

…the Round-Up has taken on a life of its own. Even with the help of a law clerk, I spent most of my blogging time looking for Round-Up stories at the expense of the more in-depth posts that I previously enjoyed. So after much thought, I’m not going to return to the Round-Up. I have really enjoyed the Round-Up, but I think it’s time to move on.

And so there it is. Unless, of course, someone else sees an opportunity to create value on their blog while at the same time making themselves known in this niche. Maybe, perhaps, the round-up is only on life support? Perhaps someone else will step out of the shadows to embrace the project for a few weeks time, ’til it passes to yet another? Only time will tell…

(And I never did figure out if it should be round-up, roundup or round up. I’ve probably been screwing that up for a year and a half.)
—————————————
Updated! And just like that, new life is breathed into the almost-still body of the round-up by TortsProf Bill Childs and his merry band of professorial bloggers! Click here for the official audio annoucement.

 

July 25th, 2008

Banned by Ben & Jerry’s! — They Refuse to Accept Our Birthday Greeting

I hate to do this. I like Ben & Jerry’s. The whole family does. We consider the boys extra brothers to the clan. If you cut us, we bleed Chocolate Fudge Brownie. Those are my folks to the right on one of our visits to the factory on a Vermont family vacation.

So when we made a little 30 second video for their 30th Birthday Video Contest, we expected it would be received with a sense of gratification, as it clearly demonstrates what the ice cream means to us. Not shock and awe, mind you, but at least a smile.

But alas, it was rejected. Rejected! Why? Due to “inappropriate material.” Apparently, we shocked.

First, it’s hard to believe they would refuse to post a video on their site that has inappropriate material given that about half the videos are already inappropriate, since they have kids in them and kids aren’t allowed by the rules. (Hey, Turkewitz, take off your damn lawyer’s hat and get back to your video!)

Second, is this what happens when a happy-go-lucky little ice cream company gets swallowed up by a giant conglomerate? It tries to show it has a sense of humor with a send-us-your-video gig, and then falls on its face? What would Ben say? What would Jerry say? They’d be rolling over in their graves at what has become of their beloved company, were either of them dead. Brothers, can you help us out here?

We coulda been stars. We coulda been somebody. That should be plural, but now I’m on a roll. We coulda been stars of the internet, instead of being woefully off-topic on this crummy little law blog where no one will ever find us.

As I was saying, and I know by now you are wondering where the hell the video is already, there doesn’t seem to be anything inappropriate about a little BJ. That’s Ben and Jerry, for the acronym challenged. But you can decide for yourself the appropriateness of the 30 second video that follows, for its Karamel Sutra flavor I should note, that has been:
BANNED BY BEN & JERRY’S!


Film and editing credit goes to my screenwriting brother Dan (whose own operatic Ben & Jerry’s birthday wish was accepted) and script credit goes to my co-star and roommate.

Wait! There’s more!!! What would a couple of movies be without their outtakes? First from my brother’s film where I try hard to knock the ice cream off the cone, and then from our own video. Here they are:

Update: Ben & Jerry’s Fear of Lawyers Kills Video Submission (7/30/08)

 

July 23rd, 2008

Linkworthy


A medical liability round-up, from the other side of the courtroom well (Walter Olson @ Overlawyered);

A study of doctor blogs shows that many of them are revealing patient information (Ed Silverman @ Pharmalot)

Psssst….Blawg Review #169 is up at Whisper, and marketing is the theme.

And next week’s Blawg Review will be hosted by none other than Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice. To say the blawgosphere is expecting great things from Greenfield is a significant understatement. An extraordinarily prolific blogger (120 posts in June, none of them short), Greenfield hasn’t met a challenge yet in the blawgosphere that he’s backed down from. Despite the bar being set so high for him, there is little doubt he will exceed it.

 

July 21st, 2008

Al Pirro Settles NY Car “Accident” Suit Involving Jeanine For 200K

Al Pirro Jr. last week quietly settled a lawsuit for $200,000 that involved Jeanine Pirro and her failed political campaign for Attorney General. Jeanine — also a former judge, District Attorney, failed Senate candidate against Hillary Clinton and now a talk show host — was in the backseat of her husband’s SUV on October 18, 2006 when it sideswiped a motorcyclist as they approached a light. The collision knocked him down, broke his ankle and sent him skidding along the pavement. The SUV was driven by a campaign staffer just weeks before the election.

The crash out on Long Island raised eyebrows when the police were accused of giving preferential treatment to the Pirros. While the officer on the scene first reported a collision between Pirro’s SUV and Scott Lieberman riding his Harley, that report was subsequently deep-sixed after the officer saw Jeanine Pirro in the back and saw that the SUV was owned by her husband. The second accident report didn’t have the Pirro vehicle in the accident. According to this New York Post story at the time:

Lieberman said that after talking to [Pirro driver] Horgan, cops stopped writing a two-vehicle accident report and started one saying he skidded off the road on his own.
“Investigation reveals no other veh. involved in accident,” the final report reads.

According to an interview I conducted with Lieberman’s counsel, Harlan Wittenstein, a copy of the original police report indicating a collision was given to Lieberman’s ex-girlfriend who had been riding ahead and saw the accident in her rear-view mirror as she pulled up to a stop light. The original report clearly has Al Pirro’s name on it as the vehicle owner. The subsequent police report only claimed a motorcyclist down with no contact and no Pirro name. The two reports are here: Lieberman.pdf

After learning the Pirros were involved, the police accused Lieberman of being a fraud as he was writhing in agony. Lieberman, who was taken to the hospital and needed surgery to fix his broken ankle, didn’t take kindly to the accusation.

After leaving the hospital, an angered Lieberman posted signs at the intersection where the collision occurred, whichwere seen by a pretzel delivery man on his regular route. The pretzel man had been directly behind the vehicles, saw the contact between the Pirro SUV as it changed lanes, contacted Lieberman, and his deposition taken.

The combination of the pretzel man’s testimony and the second copy of the accident report with the Pirro name on it, according to Wittenstein, helped to seal a settlement for a case that had originally been marked “no pay.” The police officer has apparently never been disciplined.

Al Pirro — a disbarred real estate attorney who was convicted of 66 counts of tax fraud, whose license has been suspended (and reinstated), has been embroiled in head-line grabbing extramarital affairs, and generally been a burden to his wife’s ambitions — is no doubt happy to get at least one legal problem behind him.

Photo credit: NY Magazine (story on the troubled marriage)

————————-
More:

  • What Happens When You’re Run Down by Former DA Pirro? (Greenfield @ Simple Justice)

 

July 20th, 2008

The Worst Supreme Court Decision Ever


Over at Concurring Opinions, Kaimipono Wenger asks the readership about what the worst “still-current” Supreme Court decision.

And the answer, to me, is a no-brainer. As I discussed back in January 2007, when I had a readership of three, the classic bombs were Plessy v. Furgeson, Dred Scott and Korematsu.

But Bush v. Gore stands in a league of its own, well above the others. For each of the others could be reversed by the voters either in Congress or by constitutional amendment. But since Bush v. Gore dealt with the actual disenfranchisement of voters, it could not. All legally cast ballots should have obviously been counted, since it is the people that hold actual power in a democracy.

One simply can’t compare a reversible decision with an irreversible one.