In the wake of my exercises in plunder and mockery, David Harlow of HealthBlawg is doing his part to restore the institutional respectability of Blawg Review in the most effective manner possible: by hosting a thorough and informative (and yes, entertaining) new edition: Blawg Review #154.
Well worth a visit -- and Good For You, too!
Avast! ye law-lubbing swab!
Passed the Bar-nacle Exam, have ye?
Familiarized yerself wi' Davey Jones' Res Ipsa Loquitur, ye say?
Sailed the Chapter Seven Bankrupt Seas, even?
Schooled y'are in yer directions, an' knows the diff'rence between yer Tort and yer Starbucks?
Ye've got yer compass, and ye habeas yer corpus, an' ye carry yer non compos mentis in a waterproof Shelley's case, ye tell me?
And are ye prepared to sign the ship's Articles an' sail wi' the likes of us . . . in Perpetuity? Well, ye can't: thar's a Rule against it, ain't there? [Har har]
But tell me true now: It be Blawg Review ye've really come seekin', eh? Thought as much.
Well, yer appeal's been heard and ye've come to the proper place. And properly warned ye be, sez I.
But here ye'll find no more o' yer namby-pamby "Blawg Review," savvy?
No, matey, that be fer the lace and waistcoat gentry, an' the lords o' the Admiralty an' such-like luckless landlocked lumpers, wi' their clerks an' their cubicles an' their quills an' their copiers.
No, me hearty: for the likes o' us -- bold 'n' dangerous sorts that we be, don'cha know -- hencefor'rd this be . . .
But enough of these Saturday matinée accents.
Welcome, readers, to Blawg Review #153, the 153rd Edition of the traveling 
"blog carnival for everyone interested in law."
This marks the third year that it has been my pleasure to host Blawg Review at Decs&Excs, and I welcome new and returning readers aboard my humble vessel as we set a random course through the inlets and archipelagos of recent posts relating to the law or originating with lawyers.
And now, let us be about the piratical business at hand -- or "at hook", as the case may be.
Our theme and the breadth of coverage for which Blawg Review stands compel us to begin with a topic otherwise rarely seen on this weblog: criminal law. We have no posts to link actually involving pirates, in the traditional non-intellectual property sense, but we can present a selection of items dealing with more shorebound offenses.
The major development of the week was the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Medellin v. Texas, which has been portrayed as a significant rebuff to the Bush administration and the administration's strange bedfellow, the International Court of Justice. Ken Lammers' CrimLaw post provides one of the most compact summaries of the decision that I have seen:
The International Court of Justice can demand new trials for foreign citizens in the US who weren't told they could contact their embassy or consulate. President Bush can order that States will comply with the ICJ.
However, the States don't have to pay any attention to either of them. The part of the Vienna Convention which the ICJ and President tried to enforce is not self enforcing. In other words, when the treaty was approved by the Senate and signed by the President it did not state that it would become law within the signatory countries. Therefore, in order for the treaty to have force of law within the U.S. the Congress had to pass a law enforcing it.
Posts on the case number in the hundreds. Here is a random selection:
Kent Scheidegger of Crime and Consequences writes, "Despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth . . ., the holding is not all that remarkable."
SCOTUSBlog reported the decision, then offered commentary here, and here.
Howard Bashman's How Appealing also provided a lengthy compilation of reactions.
Volokh Conspiracy member Ilya Somin was another who offered Reflections on Medellin -- "yet another nail in the coffin of the Bush Administration's claims that the executive has virtually unlimited power over foreign affairs" -- concluding that the Court is probably correct to have ruled in favor of the State of Texas, but that Texas still behaved rather badly in the whole affair.
Other criminal posts of note:
On the South Carolina Appellate Law Blog, Bill Watkins is concerned that the Supreme Court "has made trial practice for the ordinary lawyer much more difficult" by restricting trial judges' discretion in ruling on the race-neutrality of challenges to potential jurors.
And from the Innocence Project blog, a central question: "How many innocent behind bars? Nobody knows."
Now, favorable winds drive us on to the sort of insurance, tort and liability issues that most commonly concern this site.
Wind and water are constant concerns of the buccaneer -- and of insurance companies, as Ted Frank pointed out at Point of Law.com: "Are Insurance Companies Getting Hosed in the Wind vs. Water Controversy?".
The Drug and Device Law blog reports a troubling collision of product liability and employment law-- Big Pharma vs. Big Labor? -- in which it is apparently not a firing offense to manipulate drug testing results.
Adam Liptak's NY Times piece on foreign countries' view of the American fondness for punitive damages -- in a nutshell, it adds to the impression that we are a scary and unstable nation -- drew links and comment from many blawgs, including Dan Hull at What About Clients?, Erik Turkewitz on his New York Personal Injury Law Blog, and Dan Markel of the collective PrawfsBlawg.
Extra points for synergy: Carolyn Elefant manages to combine the Medellin and punitive damage threads in a single post at Legal Blog Watch as examples of Globalization of Law Practice, In Ways We Don't Expect.
Curt Cutting of the exemplary California Punitive Damages blog posts a link to Video Clips from Hearings on a Bill to Cap Punitive Damages, for one simple reason:
Yes, this is somewhat old news, but hey, it isn't often that we can link to a video about punitive damages.
So stipulated.
Earlier in the week and also on the CalPuniBlog, which is covering all the bases on its topic of choice, Lisa Perrochet reported on a potential punitive damage award against "celebrity" Kid Rock -- who in some ways resembles a pirate, I suppose. Some lawyers will post anything to increase their blog traffic.
Cal Biz Lit's Bruce Nye yearns for the Bad Old (Pre-Prop 64) Days. Well, not really. Click through to read the story of a most terrible misrepresentation, which the plaintiff never actually heard, which did him no harm, and which he nonetheless chose to use as the basis for a "deceptive practices" claim anyway. This was not a successful gambit on his part. Bruce's post includes bonus mambo content, should you care for that sort of thing.
The Constitution is the unquestioned law of the land and the Captain is the unquestioned Authority on his ship, and for advocates of the "unitary executive" theory the President of the United States ("the Decider") holds comparable Constitutional authority to command, well, just about everything. So why is it, asks Marty Lederman at Balkinization, that when it comes to the awesome powers of the Federal Reserve even the present administration is suddenly awash with "Fair-Weather Unitarians?"
While we are on the trail of "fixing" the investment and capital markets, Professor Bainbridge adopted a cool-eyed and skeptical view of Senator Obama's big financial regulation speech.
Senator Obama has been taking some heat recently for associating with his controversial pastor of choice, but Presidential candidates have overcome far worse companions in the past. Below is an eyewitness portrait of future President Andrew Jackson (at right) consorting most amiably with Jean Lafitte (left), the notorious Pirate of the Gulf:
In other Constitutional posts we return to Howard Bashman, who noted yet again that "free speech" is still an evolving concept and that, at least in the State of Vermont, the right of privacy is in the air.
Pirates are not, as a rule, the most reasonable of men. Victoria Pynchon's Settle It Now Negotiation Blog poses a serious -- sometimes deadly serious -- question of related interest: How Do You Negotiate with a Sociopath? The simple answer is "don't," but there is much more to her post. The post includes bonus Sopranos content, should you care for that sort of thing.
Speaking of settlement, Scott Greenfield's Simple Justice advised that Settlement Demands Have Their Risks -- specifically the risk of a conviction for misdemeanor extortion, as happened to an overzealous young lawyer in New Hampshire. Scott's follow-up, with reflections on the non-lawyer public's frequentand vocal distaste for we legal professionals, is here.
If only from watching too much television, we are all familiar with the institution of the "teaching hospital," an institution devoted as much to the hands-on education of upcoming physicians as it is to healing the sick. At Concurring Opinions, Deven Desai proposes a thought experiment and asks: "Why Not A Teaching Law Firm?"
Pirates are wary of authority, and solo and small-firm lawyers (such as your host) often carry an innate suspicion of or distaste for BigLaw institutions. But even those unfortunate enough to have to man the oars of a large law firm can benefit from blogging, as Kevin O'Keefe [Real Lawyers Have Blogs] reports in his latest survey of the State of the AmLaw 200 blogosphere.
At Law21, Jordan Furlong suspects some large firms of manipulation of "Best Employers to Work For" lists as they seek an edge in misleading to their doom hiring the most promising young lawyers.
And there we have it: the piratical Blawg Review #153. But you know and I know that it is a truth universally acknowledged that No Pirate Story Ends With Just One Episode! So there must be more, must there not? And indeed there will be, albeit without the pirates, because tomorrow is April 1, which can only mean the appearance of a differently-themed Bonus Edition of Blawg Review at my other bloggy establishment, the freely associating and culture-oriented a fool in the forest.
[UPDATE (040108): Here is a link to the April Fool's Blawg Review Appendix 2008.]
Until tomorrow, here's wishing you fair winds, safe harbors and ample booty. It has been a pleasure doing justice with you.
~~~
Blawg Review has information about next week's host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.
~~~
Illustrations from divers public domain works (i.e., not themselves pirated) via Project Gutenberg, in particular:
Shirley Temple:
Golly gee, Mr. Disney! What are all these little statues for?
Walt Disney:
Well first, Shirley, I need to ask you politely to take your dimpled mitts off of that large statue, because that one's mine. Heh, heh.
But as for those little ones: you and I have been asked to hand these out to the seven legal weblogs that Declarations & Exclusions is nominating for the prestigious title of 2007 Blawg Review of the Year.
As the Anonymous Editor of Blawg Review has explained in the Official Rules, this year's winner will be selected by the votes of all those weblogs that have hosted, or are scheduled to host, one or more editions of Blawg Review. Each host can nominate however many he or she chooses from Blawg Review editions 89 through 140, and the edition receiving the most nominations by January 14, 2008, will be declared the winner.
Shirley Temple:
Jeepers! It's sort of a Blawgers' Choice Award, isn't it, Mr. Disney?
But doesn't Colin Samuels always win in this category?
Walt Disney [nervously]:
Heh, heh. He certainly does, Shirley. But this year when he wins, it'll be the result of free and fair elections -- which, as we all know, makes everything okay.
So, shall we find out who the nominees are?
Shirley Temple:
Let's do it, Mr. Disney! And like I always say, everyone's already a winner when it comes to Blawg Review!
Walt Disney:
You bet, Shirley! So now, here's two-time Blawg Review host George Wallace, the non-anonymous editor of Declarations & Exclusions -- and of its sibling site, a fool in the forest, itself the home to two editions of the April Fool's Blawg Review Prequel -- to announce his nominations for 2007's Blawg Review of the Year.
[Muffled, courteous applause]
George Wallace:
Thank you, Miss Temple. Thank you, Mr. Disney. And thank you, Anonymous Editor of Blawg Review, wherever you are, for overseeing another terrific year of Blawg Review.
I have to admit I have sometimes been remiss this year in reading each edition as it was published, but the invitation to proffer nominations in this category gave me the impetus I needed to go back and visit or revisit every one of the eligible editions. And I must say, it really drove home to me what a profusion of talent, imagination and gumption the legal blogosphere contains. Miss Temple is right: they are all winners already.
[Wild applause]
All right then. The hour grows late and we all want to get to the big Blawg Review afterparty, and some of us probably need to be in court in the morning, so here we go.
[Portentous rumbling from the scary orchestra]
Declarations & Exclusions is proud to nominate, in reverse chronological order, these hosts and their editions of Blawg Review as the best of the best in 2007:
- Colin Samuels for Infamy or Praise: Blawg Review #137, completing his trilogy of editions inspired by Dante's Divina Commedia;
- Eric Turkewitz for New York Personal Injury Law Blog: Blawg Review #134, inspired by the New York Marathon;
- A dual nomination to Diane Levin for Online Guide to Mediation: Blawg Review #130 [northern hemisphere] and, in New Zealand, to Geoff Sharp for mediator blah...blah...: Blawg Review # 130 [southern hemisphere], spanning the globe to bring us the constant variety of legal weblogs;
- Anne Reed for Deliberations: Blawg Review #127, inspired by the jury system and all that it entails;
- George Lenard for George’s Employment Blawg: Blawg Review #124; Labor Day Special Historical Edition, truly a labor of love by a lover of Labor;
- David Gulbransen for his collegial and eleemosynary "Course Guide" edition of Blawg Review #122; and
- Kevin A. Thompson for Cyberlaw Central » Blawg Review #93, a product of the vast Illuminati conspiracy.
Let's congratulate them all, shall we? Thank you and good night!
[5 minute standing ovation, followed by effusive rioting in the streets as the scary orchestra plays on. . . .]
You run 26 miles, and what do you get?
You get Eric Turkewitz and his epic marathon-themed take on Blawg Review #134, at New York Personal Injury Law Blog.
Stock up on fluids, set aside the necessary time for training and recovery, and run wild and free through an astonishing range of legal webloggery.
Welcome to Blawg Review #102, the official 102nd Edition of Blawg Review, the traveling "blog carnival for everyone interested in law." This Edition follows hard on the heels of this year's April Fool's Blawg Review Prequel, which appeared yesterday at my more whimsical personal and cultural weblog, a fool in the forest.
This year both the Prequel and this official Blawg Review edition are constructed around illustrations from Stultifera Navis, the 1497 Latin translation of Sebastian Brant's 1494 satirical German text, Das Narrenschiff, or, The Ship of Fools. These woodcuts come courtesy of Sebastian Brant's Stultifera Navis, The Ship of Fools, maintained by the University of Houston, Copyright © 2000, University of Houston Libraries, and are reproduced pursuant to a Creative Commons license.
Now, please enjoy a rambling and unsystematic stroll through the labyrinths of the law as we look at a small sample of the legal weblogs posted this week:
When is it unethical for a lawyer to be helpful? Apparently, when the lawyer drafts a document for use by a pro se litigant, at least in the courtroom of one Federal Magistrate Judge in New Jersey. Mike Cernovich of Crime & Federalism jumped on the story this week, decrying it as a case of "Slamming the Courthouse Doors Shut." Mike links another report at Aaron Larson's The Stopped Clock: "Unbundled Legal Services And Ghastly Legal Opinions."
As one might expect, David Giacalone had wind of this story last week, and offered his own ghostwriter update at shlep. [He also announced the laudable shlep's dormancy, moving his principal online activities back to f/k/a/.]
In yesterday's Prequel, I noted several posts relating to dubious regulation of lawyer advertising. Here comes another, again courtesy of the overweening self-importance of the powers behind the New York Bar: Randy Braun of Juz the Fax asks, under New York's regulations,"Is A Business Card An Advertisement?" [Earn bonus points by answering Randy's follow-up question: "What IS it with those awful and ubiquitous 'scales of justice' logos anyway?"]
At Sui Generis, Nicole Black offers Tips for Teens: Have All The Sex You Want . . . but don't take pictures.
At Overlawyered, Walter Olson reported a case of "no good deed goes unpunished" ("California Good Samaritan out of luck") and David Nieporent pointed to an Ohio attorney whose profitable "creative" construction of a consumer protection statute finally wore out the patience of the appellate court ("Quitting while you're behind").
New horizons in government surveillance: Scott Greenfield of Simple Justice suggests you're never alone with a cellular phone because the FBI may be there, too.
Returned to active posting after an extended hiatus, Blawg Review #54 host Brandy Karl of bk! begs leave to explain why you need to use Zotero right now!. Zotero is a highly-useful reference manager plug-in for the Firefox browser, and Brandy is simply wild for it, so much so that she posted about it twice over this past week.
Denise Howell has been pondering the dynamics of group blogs, freedom of expression, and who should bear responsibility for despicable threats in "a big, scary world . . . populated in part by a tragically high proportion of psycho- and sociopaths" on Lawgarithms. Part 1 is here; Part 2 -- in which Denise is misquoted by the BBC (*sigh*) -- is here.
Des Moines patent lawyer Brett Trout of Blawg IT asks a good practical question: "Got Cyber Insurance?."
Doug Simpson's Unintended Consequences weblog focuses "on the collision of law, networks and disruptive technologies." In practical terms, that means that his focus over the last year or more has turned increasingly to issues surrounding climate change. This week he reported on congressional testimony by the chair of the Catastrophe Insurance Working Group of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners [NAIC] on National Disaster Insurance.
In traveling the highways and byways of the law, I learned early that there are two groups of people you really want to have on your side: court clerks and legal secretaries. Members of these groups who are on your side are indispensably useful; unhappy members of those same groups can throw stones in your passway till the proverbial cows come home, step on your toes and make a mess of the carpet. PT-LawMom, who is "constantly amazed at the hubris of young associates," offers tips on currying favor with the curmudgeonly legal secretary.
Freedom! Stephanie West Allen of idealawg advises lawyers to "take a close look at those stone cold habits" because "[t]he difference between conscious autonomy and groping enslavement is our power of choice." As a lifestyle choice, "groping enslavement" sounds pretty icky to me, but chacun a son gout, eh?
A fresh example of lawyers behaving badly comes from Prof. Shaun Martin's California Appellate Report: Here, the 9th Circuit sussed out that counsel had falsified a critical date by the simple expedient of photocopying the docket sheet so that part of the left side did not copy. Voila! Suddenly an entry dated "3/17/00" becomes an entry dated "7/00," elegantly solving counsel's timing problem until the court catches on. Professor Martin Predicts:
"I have little doubt that [lawyer] Roy's looking at a suspension from the practice of law -- if not disbarment -- up the road. We tend not to like deliberate efforts to defraud the court, dontchaknow."
Regular as clockwork and twice as likely to tick you off: it's Tax Time! April 15 [April 16 this year, actually] is nipping at all our heels, and the pseudonymous Taxgirl! is here to help, with posts on the tax consequences of home sales and advice on positions you really shouldn't oughta be trying to take in your dealings with the gentle souls at the Internal Revenue Service.
Taxes aren't pretty, but witnesses sometimes are. John Keats was such a sensitive soul he thought the crockery spoke to him: one Grecian Urn in particular advised "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty." But does the same principle apply in court? At Deliberations, Milwaukee-based attorney/jury consultant Anne Reed thinks it does, and offers her thoughts on Beauty and the Juror: Part I, Part II.
Finally, as we leave these fools behind for now, I recall to you this exchange between King Lear and his Fool,
Fool: If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I'ld have thee beaten for being old before thy time.
LEAR: How's that?
Fool: Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.
which I offer as an excuse to break with protocol and to link for a second time a post already linked in last week's fine and equine Blawg Review #101: I mean, of course, David Giacalone's very long, very thoughtful, very wise and very important discussion at f/k/a/ of The Graying Bar. It's a post for, you should pardon the expression, The Ages.
That said, I thank each of you for joining me for this week's double-dipped edition of Blawg Review.
It has been a pleasure doing justice with you.
~~~
Blawg Review has information about next week's host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.
Blawg Review # 95 is hosted this week by the estimable Ms. Eversman at the freshly reactivated AutoMuse. As you might expect of a site overseen by the chief counsel for Vehicle Information Services, Inc., the selection of posts is decidedly vehiculo-centric. So burn rubber on me and give AutoMuse a visit.
Blawg Review #52 finds a congenial home today at David Giacalone's f/k/a.... -- and I'm not just saying that because David kindly linked Decs&Excs' "beanball" post below, but because he offers so very very much more from lawyers real and imagined.
By all means, take the time or make the time to read it through and to follow the numerous top-quality links provided.
With the Dionysian outburst of the April Fool's Blawg Review Prequel behind us -- What? You didn't read it? Do it now! Do it now!! Ahem! -- the time has come to turn to the still, calm, centered and rational Apollonian sphere, where legal weblog posts shine with the cold and sparkling brilliance of autumn stars. West Virginia University College of Law Professor James Elkins reminds us of the god Apollo's close connection to the law:
W.K.C. Guthrie says of Apollo: 'Under his most important and influential aspect may be included everything that connects him with law and order.' [Cited in Jean Shinoda Bolen, Gods in Everyman: A New Psychology of Men's Lives and Loves 130 (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989)]. Bolen identifies the Apollo archetype with 'the aspect of the personality that wants clear definitions, is drawn to master a skill, value order and harmony, and prefers to look at the surface rather than at what underlies appearances.' [Id. at 135]. Those whose energy is directed by the Apollo archetype favor 'thinking over feeling, distance over closeness, objective assessment over subjective intuition.' [Id.]
Apollo is also commonly thought of in association with the Muses and thus with poetry and the arts. The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke was inspired to craft one of the most famous of his shorter poems by his encounter with the Louvre's headless "Archaic Torso of Apollo":
We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.Otherwise this stone could seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.
[Emphasis added. Rilke translation by Stephen Mitchell
The need, perhaps, to change one's life within the law emerged as a sub-theme in several posts this week, beginning with discussions of the perpetual problem of [some] lawyers' deep-seated unhappiness with their choice of profession.
The thing that struck me most about the comment is the bleak picture it paints of a lawyer's life. Even with its stylistic hyperbole, it doesn't strike me as being all that over the top. Or is it? I know plenty of lawyers who engage in some recreational self-medication. Some of them hate their careers. On the other hand, many of them don't. And if the self-medicators are any more idealistic than the other group--if they spend more time talking about justice, truth, fairness, and conscience--it's probably just a side effect of the alcohol.
Wanting less money and needing less prestige will go a long way toward nurturing healthy and happy attitudes.
Plenty of talk this week as well about the entry level salaries for associate attorneys at assorted Big Law firms, but the consensus seems to be that those young lawyers' pay packages are as much a problem in the long run as they are a solution -- and particularly for the young associates themselves.
If my practice experience a couple of decades ago and the stories I hear from former students hold true, S&C's associates will pay for that raise. The odds are that the number of billed hours associates are expected to work will go up ... again. When I was in practice, 2200 billed hours/year put you in the top echelon of associates. Today, at most firms of S&C's caliber, 2200 hours is the bare minimum expected. In addition, there'll probably be additional salary compression, since the salaries of more senior associates will not go up quite as fast.
But what's to be done when those ever-spiraling associate salaries and ever-ever-ever-spiraling partner draws [which in this humble small firm fellow's opinion are grossly ridiculous, representing compensation high above what the Best Lawyer in All Creation, Ever, is probably worth -- if you'll pardon the editorial intrusion] run up against the demands and expectations of Big Law's Even Bigger Clients, who are used to getting Everything Else by means that are not conducive to paying Top Dollar?
. . . the involvement of 'procurement professionals' — if not formally, then the toolkits and mind sets they advance — is not only here to stay, it will only grow.
It is all quite enough to make one happier to be a little guy in a Big Law world: the typical small to mid-size client (not to mention those clients who are Individual Human Beings) probably won't be calling in the procurement consultants any too soon.
Much more in the way of fine legal weblogging follows this 17th Century depiction of the Apollo Belvedere, one of the prizes of the Vatican collections. (For those who may be easily confused, Apollo would be the fellow on the left in this illustration.)
The Hamdan case -- in which Presidential prerogative comes smack up against the Constitution, the Common Law, and the Great Writ, all on account of Osama bin Laden's driver -- was the major agenda item for the Supreme Court this week, and coverage of the arguments includes:
and the various other links collected at
[Of related interest, Mr. Kierkegaard requests our notice of a major Symposium this coming Friday, April 7, in NYC on Judicial Selection and Independence.]
Elsewhere, many more Top Quality posts are to be found than time permits me to summarize, including without limitation these:
The court found that the commission of a series of individual, similar crimes does not mean that the resulting multiple convictions are combined for criminal history purposes. In his concurrence, however, Judge Martin argues that 'the inquiry in these cases has become so narrow that it now exists only as a nebulous concept.' He finds that about the only person who would benefit from the Guidelines’ definition of 'related cases' would be Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies. (See extensive dialogue quotation in footnote 1 of the concurrence.) What could drive an otherwise mild-mannered jurist to not only quote Michael Meyers [sic], but also beg the forgiveness of PETA for flogging a long-dead horse one more time? . . . .
Insurance lawyers face a dilemma in that we sometimes can be called as witnesses in bad-faith trials. As a result, policyholder counsel like me need to consider whether we should be the person who interacts with the insurance company’s representatives, for we risk being disqualified from serving as trial counsel for our clients. The potential for disqualification of the policyholder's lawyer stems in part from the fact that settlement discussions with the insurance company are admissible in bad-faith cases. Many lawyers and claims handlers seem surprised that settlement discussions to resolve an insurance claim constitute evidence in bad-faith cases and point to the settlement “privilege” as a shield.
But like the heffalump and the griffin, the settlement privilege is the stuff of myth . . . .
And by way of conclusion to this week's Blawg Review:
It's supposed to be fun. American law is extremely varied, elastic and constantly presenting new practice areas--especially in the larger cities. It has something for everyone. I am convinced of this. Please keep the faith and keep looking until you find it. Put another way, don't quit before the miracle occurs. It's there, and it's all inside you, in front of you. Simple--but still hard. It's a privilege and joy to do what lawyers do when they do it right.
I concur (notwithstanding that Dan's bonus Rule 13 has already passed its expiration date).
Fun is what I've had compiling these twinned Blawg Reviews, and fun, if nothing else, is what I hope we've provided to this week's Blawg Review readers. Thanks to the Editor, and to all those who submitted items for consideration.
Next week, Blawg Review #52 will be hosted beginning April 10, 2006, by the exhausted-yet-inexhaustible one-breathed ethicist of Schenectady, David Giacalone, at f/k/a . . . .. For information on future hosts, and to learn how you might host, submit, or otherwise contribute to the incredibly happenin' phenomenon that is Blawg Review, please visit Blawg Review HQ.
