The Mississippi Bar issued the results of its 2016 economic survey last week. You can review the complete survey results here. You can review results from surveys in 2014, 2012, and 2010 here. You can read my blog post on the 2014 survey here. It appears notable trends from 2014 continue. 419 attorneys responded to… Continue Reading
It was another win for the plaintiffs yesterday in the Mississippi-born Johnson & Johnson baby powder talc litigation. The latest verdict was $417 million a California jury awarded to a single plaintiff after a 4 week trial. The plaintiffs have now won something like 5 of the 6 trials with most verdicts being massive. That… Continue Reading
After the panel discussion on social media at the Bar Convention and talking to people about Twitter, I am going to experiment with using Twitter in connection with this blog. Here is my Twitter feed. I will still blog a couple of times a week. Twitter will allow me to do three things that may… Continue Reading
An interesting article recently hit the presses: The Curious Incident of the Falling Win Rate, by Alexander Lahav and Peter Siegleman. Here is the Article. The study is based on federal court results nationwide for 1980 to 2010. It opens: Between 1985 and 1995, the plaintiff win rate in civil cases adjudicated in federal district… Continue Reading
It’s Bar Convention week–probably the slowest non-Holidays week of the year for Mississippi lawyers. Even attorneys who don’t attend the Bar Convention often schedule vacations this week. On Friday morning, I will be speaking at the Litigation and Appellate Sections meeting on an otherwise all-star panel about social media. On the panel: Texas Supreme Court… Continue Reading
A lot’s happened in the legal world since I last had time to blog. The U.S. Supreme Court took a lesson from the Miss. Supreme Court’s playbook on joinder. Meanwhile, some non-Mississippi judges on the 5th Circuit locked Mississippi into 50th place upheld HB 1523. That’s like letting Bama homers decide whether Ole Miss committed… Continue Reading
The WSJ had an article [paywall] last week about the number of Americans working remotely rising to 20% as part of an inexorable trend. The legal world is in front of that trend. I recently saw a stat that 43% of attorneys work remotely. I would have guessed that the number is even higher. If… Continue Reading
I saw a report that an effort in the Florida legislature to amend the state’s workers compensation act failed in part because the House wanted to cap fees of claimants’ attorneys at $150 per hour. The Senate was more generous, only wanting to cap fees at $250 per hour. Florida has close to 30 million… Continue Reading
A couple of weeks ago Jackson personal injury attorney Rocky Wilkins announced that he will join the Jackson office of Morgan & Morgan on May 1. It’s my understanding that the plan is for Rocky to try all of the firm’s Mississippi cases. Wilkins’ late father was a well known criminal lawyer in Jackson. Before… Continue Reading
Note: I wrote most of this post week before last. In the interim, another local man in his early 20’s overdosed. Good kid. Good family. The opioid epidemic is real–and it’s in your neighborhood. This is kind of off topic, but it’s becoming more apparent by the day that maybe the number one threat facing… Continue Reading
Mississippi Power Co. and its corporate parent Southern Company’s Kemper power plant may be the biggest debacle in the history of Mississippi not related to the Civil War or its long aftermath. It makes the famed beef plant look like tiddlywinks. The Company spent $6.2 billion (and counting) to build a plant that would (maybe)… Continue Reading
This Medscape Article titled Poll: 43% of Doctors Say Lying For Colleague Could Be Justified confirms what lawyers already know. Doctors aren’t any more honest than the next guy. In the poll of 922 physicians, only 57% said it was never okay to lie to protect a colleague. Nurses have more scruples–82% of nurses said… Continue Reading
In February a federal district court in Virginia issued this opinion on a motion to disqualify counsel for using inadvertently produced documents. Here’s what happened factually: In an effort to share information electronically, Thomas Cesario, a Senior Investigator for Nationwide Insurance Company, (“Nationwide”), which owns Harleysville, uploaded video surveillance footage of the fire loss scene,… Continue Reading
As reported in the Daily Journal, former Circuit Judge Frank Russell died on Saturday. Judge Russell had a quick wit, as evidenced by this exchange that I was lucky enough to see in person: Defense lawyer: I’ve got 10 reasons for why you should grant our summary judgment motion. Judge Russell: Well, you better pick… Continue Reading
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday on the ‘epidemic issue’ of drivers distracted by their smartphones. In response, auto insurers are raising rates for everyone. And its not just texting. Insurer surveys show that in 2015, 29% of drivers admitted to accessing the internet while driving compared to only 13% in 2009. Among drivers aged… Continue Reading
I enjoy reading articles about lawyer email etiquette like this one by Stefan Savic on Above the Law. It always reminds me of how ill equipped I and many other lawyers were when we began using email in the mid-1990’s. Because trust me, if you think lawyers need lessons in email etiquette now, you have… Continue Reading
I recently came across this Above the Law post by Michael McDonald about the shrinking legal market. McDonald points out that there are 35% (3,500) fewer publicly traded companies in the U.S. than there were in 1997. This hurts the legal economy because there are fewer potential clients. All but the mega-firms suffer: The result… Continue Reading
The New York Times announced last night that the federal government is banning arbitration clauses in nursing homes that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding, which is pretty much all of them. It’s nice to see that the nursing home industry isn’t happy, since they are lying about arbitration: The nursing home industry has said that… Continue Reading
Don’t know how I missed this guy, but the NY Times announced today that Mike Davis, the world’s grumpiest boss has died. How grumpy you ask? Consider some of these gems contained in memos in the pre-email days: There will be no more birthday celebrations, birthday cakes, levity or celebrations of any kind within the… Continue Reading
I’m not an economist, but when I read articles like this one in the Northeast Daily Journal about Mississippi’s tax revenues being down I conclude that Mississippi is in a statewide economic recession. From the article: Mississippi’s July revenue report, released on Monday during the final days of August, reveals the state collected $11.5 million… Continue Reading
On Thursday a federal court jury in Gulfport acquitted Texas lawyer Mikal Watts and two other employees of his law firm on fraud charges related to BP oil spill claims. The jury convicted two defendants who made up fictitious claimants and turned the information over to Watts’ firm. Here is the Anita Lee’s Sun Herald’s… Continue Reading
I was stunned when this new Smart Asset study came out ranking Mississippi drivers as only the second worst in the country. The fact that Mississippi drivers are terrible is, obviously, unsurprising. But Florida’s are worse? I’m not buying it. Either the study is flawed or–more likely–Mississippi drivers on vacation in Florida drag down Florida’s… Continue Reading
The Onion has been on a roll lately in the presidential election cycle. My favorite recent article is this one on the Trump campaign pondering going negative. And if you don’t know what the Onion is, you are really missing out. The ‘article’ includes this gem: We’ve tried to run a clean campaign that we… Continue Reading
The bad news keeps pouring in for lawyers with these latest headlines: Equitized: A look at BigLaw’s Second-class Citizens (Law360) Law Firms discourage lateral departures with bonus clawbacks and other financial penalties (ABA Journal) An Expensive Law Degree, and No Place to Use it (NY Times). From the Times article: Mr. Acosta is just one… Continue Reading
