Vet Your Lawyer

Well, the move has begun. VYL is now on a new host with much greater capabilities than before. But there is still a lot of old content to move and new content to add, so it will be a while before everything is where it should be.

But the truth is, we will never really ever be “finished”, because we’ll be adding new material all the time. It is really exciting but also a little taxing – for us, hopefully not for you.

Americans are treated, and overtreated, to death – Yahoo! News.

This is directly analogous to lawyers with a no stone unturned policy in litigation.

As you know if you have been through my posts before, I have a policy of not taking ads from lawyers, and I mention that a lot to promote my lack of bias. However, my host has now started running their own ads on my site, and to stop that I have to pay for an upgrade. I have decided, for the time being, to not invest in the upgrade because sooner or later (hopefully sooner) I am going to need to change hosts anyway in order to upgrade the site, ad features, etc. So if you see ads from lawyers here, please know I have nothing to do with them, and will continue to give my unbiased and objective reports to my customers.

Thank you.

First the Spill, Then the Lawsuits – NYTimes.com.

How Best Buy got duped | StarTribune.com.

In jail for being in debt | StarTribune.com.

Wells Fargo ordered to pay $30 million for fraud | StarTribune.com.

The fall out from the financial crisis is only beginning. Note that one of the plaintiffs is a foundation set up by the plaintiffs law firm. Query if this case would have gone to trial (the newspapers say this is the first to go to trial because the others settled) but for that relationship?

Editorial – A New Standard of Decency for Juvenile Criminals – NYTimes.com.

And, braving the catcalls of nativists, Justice Kennedy also looked to international law to bolster his argument, noting that this form of sentencing had been rejected by countries the world over. Until Monday, the United States was the only country to impose such sentences on its teenagers; thanks to five justices on the court, the world now stands in unanimous agreement.

Earlier this month Judge Lippman delivered a Law Day speech in Albany arguing for an even broader vision of justice, one that includes guaranteeing a lawyer for poor people in civil disputes where basic needs are at stake, like evictions and foreclosures. He plans to hold hearings around the state before unveiling a detailed plan next year. We applaud Judge Lippman’s new initiative. Equal justice demands adequate legal representation for all. That is especially important in tough times.

via Editorial – The Right to, and Need for, Counsel – NYTimes.com.

Fake Immigration Lawyer Guilty of Bilking Clients – NYTimes.com.