Tanner, thinner, and a more aerodynamic haircut, courtesy of Slim's razor. Still need to lose a lot more weight, though.

Separately: my latest piece for Class Action Watch.

At some point, the webcast for the Supreme Court Briefing will be posted in the next few days, and I am told that I largely avoided filler syllables.

I'm speaking in Chicago Thursday evening.

Start: Thursday, September 20, 2007 5:00 PM
End: Thursday, September 20, 2007 7:00 PM

Location:
The Tower Club
Chicago Lyric Opera House
20 North Wacker Drive, 39th Floor
Chicago, Illinois

Speakers:

Theodore H. Frank, Resident Fellow and Director of the AEI Liability Project , American Enterprise Institute
Paul Bland, Trial Lawyers for Public Justice

Class action litigation has increased in recent years, and the courts are increasingly being flooded with such cases. The vast majority of cases reach settlement upon agreement by the parties before the case goes to a jury for deliberation. In recent years, there has developed the phenomenon that after the parties have agreed on the terms of a settlement, the trial judge, or an appellate court, has nonetheless vacated the agreement on the grounds that it fails to adequately compensate the plaintiffs.

Our panel will discuss the role and ethical considerations of counsel in negotiating such agreements, and of the courts in presiding over and reviewing such agreements.

Registration details:
There is no charge for this event. Please RSVP as seating is limited.
RSVP TO chicagofederalistsociety@yahoo.com.

Dinner will be served.

I think this is the first time I made this paper; a lengthy piece by Ameet Sachdev in yesterday's Chicago Tribune grants me a soundbite:

"This is a very inefficient way to get Pfizer to donate money to charity," said Ted Frank, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "The lawyers got $20 million to give $20 million to charity. That's a pretty big commission."

I've written at greater length about the problems of cy pres.

Separately, I have an Overlawyered post on automobile warnings that I'm pleased with (it got an Instalanche), and it has safety tips, too!

Perhaps ironic, given there are those who complain that I am biased against the ABA, but I am one of three panel participants in an ABA CLE teleconference course taking place October 17. I'm also interviewed in the related ABA Journal article appearing in the October issue.

AEI and National Legal Center for the Public Interest Establish New Research Center on Legal and Constitutional Issues

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, September 4, 2007

American Enterprise Institute president Christopher DeMuth announced today that the National Legal Center for the Public Interest (NLCPI) has been merged into AEI, forming a new research division named the AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest (AEILC).

The National Legal Center for the Public Interest was founded in 1975 to foster knowledge about law and the administration of justice, especially with respect to individual rights, free enterprise, property ownership, limited government, and a fair and efficient judiciary. It has pursued its educational and intellectual missions through publications, conferences, and the annual Gauer Distinguished Lecture in Law and Public Policy, which will continue at AEI. Further information on the NLCPI is available at its website, www.nlcpi.org.

The American Enterprise Institute has conducted similar work for many decades as part of its domestic policy research program. AEI’s research staff has included such eminent legal scholars as Robert H. Bork, Robert A. Goldwin, and Antonin Scalia. It currently sponsors work on legal and constitutional issues by resident and visiting scholars such as Walter Berns, John R. Bolton, Theodore (Ted) Frank, Jack Landman Goldsmith, Michael S. Greve, Peter J. Wallison and John Yoo as well as adjunct scholars including Richard A. Epstein and Jeremy Rabkin.

The new AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest will pursue an expanded program of research, publications, and conferences drawing on the traditions, interests, and people of both institutions. The AEILC will be directed by AEI resident fellow Ted Frank (www.aei.org/frank), who has been director of the AEI Liability Project for the past two years. Mr. Frank clerked for Judge (now Chief Judge) Frank H. Easterbrook of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and, prior to joining AEI, practiced law with Kirkland & Ellis and O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C. He writes AEI’s Liability Outlook and is a frequent contributor to several national publications and websites, including The Wall Street Journal and PointofLaw.com.

The AEI Legal Center’s website, www.AEILegalCenter.org, part of AEI’s constellation of more than a dozen websites, will feature publications, event notices, and conference and lecture videos and will incorporate the archives of both the NLCPI and AEI’s legal research programs. The NLCPI is being fully merged into AEI and will discontinue separate operations. Several of its directors and legal advisers will join a new AEILC Legal Advisory Council.

The AEI Legal Center has already planned several conferences, seminars, and publications for the coming fall. On September 28, it will host a Supreme Court Briefing, to be held annually at the beginning of the Court’s October Term; the September 28 session will focus on longstanding interests of AEI and the NLCPI that are attracting increasing attention from the justices—corporate law, antitrust, administrative law and regulation, intellectual property, and preemption and other federalism issues. Two additional AEILC seminars will concern cases of particular importance on the High Court docket: a September 27 session on Medellin v. Texas and an October 5 session on Stoneridge v. Scientific-Atlanta. The Center’s first seminar, on September 25, “Patent Reform, Biotechnology, and Other High-Technology Industries,” will concern important aspects of the Patent Reform Act currently pending in the Congress. Further information on these sessions is posted at www.AEILegalCenter.org. ...