by Lee Gesmer | Oct 13, 2006 | Miscellaneous
Tim Wu and Stuart Sierra, a Columbia Law School professor and web designer respectively, have launched Project Posner, a web site offering unheard of access to Judge Richard A. Posner‘s legal opinions, in searchable format. And yes, the creators — who are certainly not alone in this view — pronounce that “Richard Posner is probably the greatest living American jurist.”
If, however, you still find yourself wondering: why should I care?, Project Posner has you covered. Project Posner offers the following explanation for its existence:
… While Posner’s books and popular writings are easily available to the public, his opinions are difficult or expensive for the public to access, let alone search. This site, for the first time, collects almost all of his opinions in a single searchable and easily readable database.
For lawyers and those interested in law, Posner’s opinions have a particular substantive value. One thing that distinguishes the opinions is the effort to try and get at why a given law actually exists, and an effort to try and make sense of the law. That can make them more useful than most case reports.
In addition, the opinions often develop the American general and state common law. Posner is among the judges who feels free to take the rule of Erie as more suggestion than injunction.
Finally, some of the opinions are funny.
If you’re still not satisfied (or you’d like to learn more about Judge Posner), take a look at his University of Chicago Law School faculty biography, his personal site, the Becker-Posner blog (maintained jointly with Gary S. Becker, American economist and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize) or see what Wikipedia has to say. Posner’s professional accomplishments are second to none and his writings are as diverse as they are prolific. Notwithstanding, the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. And this is why Project Posner is a gold mine where the digging is easy.
Update: all of the websites highlighted above have stopped publishing or faded into history
by Lee Gesmer | Oct 12, 2006 | Courts
We repeat this bumper sticker joke meaning no disrespect for U.S. District Court Judge Robert E. Keeton, who has retired at age 86 after 27 years on the federal bench. His retirement was effective September 8, 2006. You can find a link to the official announcement here.
Since being appointed to the bench in 1979, Judge Keeton presided over a number of significant cases, including a groundbreaking software copyright case involving Lotus 1-2-3 and the prosecution of political activist Lyndon LaRouche for conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion. He was also the trial judge who set aside the perjury conviction of Boston Police Officer Kenneth Conley – a decision that was upheld by the Federal Court of Appeals. Judge Keeton, a Harvard law professor, wrote extensively on various legal topics and was influential in the creation and adoption of the federal civil and criminal rules of procedure.
At age 86, Judge Keeton was the oldest member of the federal court in Massachusetts. Since 2003, he was a “senior” judge, meaning that he continued to take on cases but no longer worked on a full-time basis.
Of course, as we noted recently, some federal judges are only warming up at this age.
by Lee Gesmer | Oct 12, 2006 | Copyright, Trade Secrets
In Cambridge Literary Properties, Inc. v. W. Goebel Porzellanfabrik Magistrate Judith Dein issued an extensive Report and Recommendation (adopted by Judge Nancy Gertner) on issues relating to the statute of limitations as a bar to a claim of copyright infringement. The case involves facts going back as far as 1931 which involved the drawings of Berta Hummel, and is a valuable primer on the defense of statute of limitations in copyright actions.
District court Judge Gorton has issued a decision in Echomail, Inc. v. American Express denying IBM’s (a co-defendant) motion to dismiss claims of trade secret misappropriation, unfair competition and violation of M.G.L. c. 93A.
In T-Peg, Inc. v. Vermont Timber Works, Inc. the First Circuit applied the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act for the first time in this circuit. Reversing summary judgment for the defendant and remanding for trial, the court not only recapped the legal standard for substantial similarity (the test by which infringement is judged under copyright law), but clarified its position on expert testimony in copyright cases, making clear that there is no per se rule against expert testimony, and that whether or not it is appropriate depends on the complexity of the subject matter at issue.
by Lee Gesmer | Oct 4, 2006 | Miscellaneous
Laurence H. Reece, III, was a partner at our firm for two years at the end of the 1990s. Following that, he started his own firm in 2000. Larry died of cancer in August 2004.
Larry was the “Dean of the Bar” in Massachusetts when it came to the law of trade secrets and covenants not to compete. He was a nationally recognized expert in these practice areas and a prolific author, writing seminal articles on these topics.
Life moves on, and out of concern that these articles would turn to dust on the bookshelves and in the libraries of Massachusetts attorneys, I asked Larry’s wife, Patricia Manson, for permission to publish some of Larry’s best articles on this blog. She agreed enthusiastically. While the copyrights to these articles belong to the publishers, I believe that this nonprofit, educational publication falls well within fair use. (Warning: these are lengthy PDF files).
This was, and remains, the seminal article on trade secret law in Massachusetts.
This is the counterpart to the 1986 article.
An update on noncompetition agreements.
A valuable and comprehensive guide to trade secret protection programs.
A 2003 comprehensive update to the 1991 article.
These articles remain an important and valuable resource for lawyers and judges in the state, and I hope that they will prove useful, and help keep Larry’s memory alive.
by Lee Gesmer | Oct 4, 2006 | Courts, Litigation
Lawyers know that one of the most unpredictable decisions a Superior Court judge can make involves long-arm jurisdiction – that is, whether the defendant has enough “contacts” with the state to be sued here. (For an article by the author discussing the state long-arm statute in depth, click here).
Two recent decisions illustrate this point. In Saint-Gobain Ceramics v. Happy Hewes Judge Bruce Henry ruled that there was no personal jurisdiction over Hewes, who lived in Illinois, despite the fact that Hewes had been an employee of Saint-Gobain, engaged in phone calls with Saint-Gobain in Massachusetts, had made multiple visits to Massachusetts on company business and had received paychecks from Saint-Gobain’s facility in the state. Most lawyers would tell you that this was more than enough to establish personal jurisdiction, but Judge Henry disagreed, noting that “whatever Hewes did during the unspecified number of contacts with Massachusetts was at his employer’s behest and not for his own purposes.” This line of reasoning has little basis in Massachusetts law that I’m aware of, but it persuaded Judge Henry, who dismissed the case against Happy Hewes, leaving Saint-Gobain to pursue him in Illinois.
On the other hand, in Deutch Williams v. Naturopathic Laboratories Int’l a Massachusetts law firm sued its former client for attorney’s fees. Even though the former client had no operations in Massachusetts and had never visited here in connection with the representation, Judge John Cratsley held that the client’s decision to hire the Massachusetts law firm, together with communications between the law firm and its client over a period of seven months, was enough to establish jurisdiction.
It’s hard to reconcile these two decisions on legal grounds. There’s little doubt that had the cases (but not the judges) been switched, the outcome in the two cases would have been reversed. The moral? The outcome of long-arm jurisdiction motions are hard to predict at best, but the luck of the draw (which judge you draw, that is), may have a greater impact on the outcome than the facts of the case.
