How to design a mass-disaster compensation fund

Law prof Linda Mullenix addresses that issue in Designing Compensatory Funds: In Search of First Principles. Here is the abstract: The World Trade Center Victims’ Compensation Fund of 2001 ushered in a new age of fund approaches to resolving claims for mass disasters in the United States. Since then, numerous funds have been created following […]

The relationship between the concept of the lawyer as economic parasite and access to justice

Teresa Schmid has written The Lawyer-Rent Seeker Myth and Public Policy. Here is the abstract: Two enduring fallacies in public policy are that lawyers are rent seekers who impair rather than stimulate the economy, and that there are too many of them. While lawyers may disagree with the first premise, they tacitly accept the second. […]

The CIA did, in fact, hack the Senate committee overseeing it

Remember in March, when Senate Intelligence Committe Chair Dianne Feinstein took to the floor of the Senate to accuse the CIA of having hacked the computers of the committee, which was at the time investigating CIA abuses in the war on terror? At the time, CIA director John Brennan vehemently denied the charge. But this […]

Bounceback, Inc. Sued for Using Seal and Letterhead of Prosecutors to Collect Debts

by Deepak Gupta When Roz Terrill wrote a $41 check at the local Goodwill store to buy clothes for her two special-needs children, she had no idea it would lead to threats of criminal prosecution against her. Because of a banking mix-up, Roz’s check did not clear. Months later, she received a letter that looked […]

Consumerist on candy-filled pill bottle for kids

Check out this troubling idea for an ad campaign: giving kids fake pill bottles filled with candy. Probably not encouraging the right associations. When confronted with this observation, the company, to its credit, agreed and stopped distributing the bottles. Consumerist has the story. A testament to the power of consumer speech to change minds and […]