What Lawyers Do

I was checking out the usual suspects of legal blogs that I visit and came across a few interesting posts that I thought I would share (hey, with the holiday approaching, let others do some of the heavy lifting, I say):

• WSJ Law Blog reports on how in a civil suit Judge Frederic Block of the EDNY ruled that race is not a valid justification for an arrest. The case came about in the wake of 9/11 when two Middle Eastern men aboard a flight to JFK caused suspicion because they switched seats, one looked repeatedly at his watch, and they were speaking Arabic. They were held at the airport after landing for about 4 hours. Interestingly, one of the men was a former NYC policeman and the other worked for GE. On a personal note, I once took a direct appeal from a magistrate’s decision only allowing partial discovery of other accidents in a products liability case to Judge Block. I was a little disappointed that he upheld the magistrate’s decision without much of a written analysis of the issue, but when it comes to this illegal detention matter, I say job well done! (My case was filed in state court and removed to federal court by the manufacturer-defendant, and let’s just say, federal courts are none-too-thrilled about having state tort cases on their dockets).
• Legal Times Blog has a post about how a justice of the Washington Supreme Court admits that he shouted “tyrant” during the recent speech by Attorney General Michael Mukasey in which he suffered a fainting spell. The shout and the fainting are reportedly unrelated.
• In Tort Deform, Kia Franklin has a nice piece about how Public Justice executive director Arthur Bryant in a recent article has zeroed in on three current threats to the civil justice system: mandatory arbitration, preemption, and class action bans. I saw Arthur speak at a Public Justice meeting that took place at the AAJ convention last summer. Being there gave me a charge. In fact, it reminded me of my former life as a civil legal aid lawyer - it was good to be around folks who showed a real concern for civil justice for poor people and minorities.