Well, if you have, it is gone.
You fellow bloggers know how it works and the rest of you probably have guessed what happens.
The spammners attempt to post comments on blogs. Maybe I should appreciate all the wonderful people telling me where I can buy Viagra, how I can lose weight, and where I can gamble on-line but I do not need the advice of any of them now or in the foreseeable future (ok, maybe the weight loss, but nothing more).
I just learned that David Shrager, a fine gentleman and lawyer from Philadelphia, has died. David is a former President of ATLA and a man I greatly admired. He always took the time to talk to young lawyers and remind them of their responsibility to their clients and the public. He was a giant of the trial bar.
Ken Suggs, the current ATLA President, has sent out a email about David’s death. It is set out fully below.
“ATLA, the legal profession and the vulnerable families we represent have lost an outstanding leader and friend.
Well, I just said that I wasn’t going to post anything and then came upon this interesting article about the events leading up to the war in Iraq. This article does as fine a job as I have seen compiling the facts about the representations made by the Bush administration leading up to the war.
Please don’t write to me and tell me that I don’t support our troops. That is ridiculous.
I am taking a few days off to enjoy the holidays. I be back with you on Monday a.m.
Next week is the last seminar of the year offered by Justice Programs, a creation of former Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Penny White, former Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Joy Riley and yours truly. We will be in downtown Memphis at the Doubletree Hotel on December 1 and 2.
We offer a complete year’s worth of CLE is 2 days. The program is designed for civil trial practioners.
We have had a great time with the seminar this year and, if I do say so myself, have had great reviews. We have almost doubled our attendance from last year and have been very fortunate to have a good number of repeat attendees.
It’s toy time in Tennessee – and all around the nation. This report is the 20th Annual Toy Survey that advises us about toys that present a risk to children. Here is the Executive Summary. And here is summary list of the toys that present a potential hazard.
Here is what purports to be talking points concerning tort reform for Republicans.
A sampling: “America has far too many frivolous lawsuits, absurd jury awards and outrageous plaintiffs’ lawyers. They wreck small businesses, damage the economy, punish consumers, deprive Americans of essential healthcare and cost all of us a lot of money. Republicans can never go wrong criticizing lawsuit abuse. For statistical purposes, you start with a potential pool of 81% of the electorate that believes ‘laws should be enacted to make it tougher for lawyers to file frivolous lawsuits.’ That’s pretty darn good.
So you start out with the American public on your side. But to keep them there, you need to talk about this issue using the right tone, context and language.”
It goes on and on, page after page.
I was speaking at a seminar in Knoxville Friday and someone asked me that question. I was a little taken aback, and then remembered that Evan Schaeffer of Legal Underground faced the same issue recently.
The answer is an unambigious “Yes” but I guess some explanation is necessary. I have spent a good amount of time over the years during professional association activities, particularly with the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association and, in the last decade, the National Board of Trial Advocacy. I also founded and am a co-author of the Tennessee Tort Law Letter, a monthly newsletter on tort law developments in Tennessee and serve, from time to time, on various committees, boards, and commissions. Then, last February, I started playing with this blog. I guess that could cause some people to wonder if I still practice law.
Well, I do, and I believe that the folks in my office will tell you that it is still a full-time practice. How do I work it all in? I typically blog between 4:30 and 5:30 in the morning, although I occasionally prepare a post at night before I go to bed and actually post it the next morning. I do my other writing at nights or on the weekends and squeeze in the professional activities just like the rest of you do. The writing and speaking I do on substantive law actually keeps me very current on the case law in the state and developments in the law around the nation, which I believe helps me better represent our clients.
Some of you read a recent article in the Tennessee Bar Journal about a project that I am working on concerning board certification for lawyers. Unfortunately, the title of the article, “Changes would allow litigators with fewer jury trials to be certified ‘civil trial specialist,” has caused concern for those who are already certified.
Let me put those folks at ease.
The headline is wrong. There is no effort underway and I see no effort on the horizon to reduce the requirements for becoming board-certified. What the National Board of Trial Advocacy is doing is looking at the establishment of another speciality that would allow certification for those lawyers who had demonstrated competence and experience in civil trial work but did not have enough jury trial days to become a certified civil trial specialist. Any person would not be certified as a “civil trial specialist” but instead would be certified in a new, yet-to-be-named field.
Washington voters this week rejected two competing measures related to medical malpractice. The first, supported by doctors, hospitals, insurance and pharmaceutical companies, would have capped awards for pain and suffering in medical malpractice cases, and also would have stated that doctors can refuse to serve patients if they do not agree to arbitrate any malpractice claims. The second, supported by the state trial lawyers association, would have revoked the license of physicians who lost three malpractice verdicts in ten years, and would have required public hearings on rate increases for malpractice insurance. Neither measure passed, and now the state legislature is apparently thinking of weighing in.
Day on Torts