Around the blawgosphere and elsewhere . . .
*Eugene Volokh notes that the metamorphosis of amici curiae from friends of the court to friends of the parties can be traced to the early- to mid-19th century and the rise of written as opposed to oral advocacy.
*If you haven’t noticed yet, the indefatigable Howard Bashman has moved to a new address at https://legalaffairs.org/howappealing/; like Kevin Drum, he’s now the opening act for the online home of a magazine, in this case Legal Affairs. Speaking of which, Legal Affairs has a good writeup on New York’s Martin Act, with some useful historical detail as well as some anonymous potshots at New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
*California gets tough on unfounded lawsuits, as a California Supreme Court opinion (authored by DC Circuit nominee Janice Rogers Brown) concludes that a lawyer can be sued for malicious prosecution for continuing to pursue a lawsuit that appeared to have arguable merit when filed but was later discovered to be frivolous:
“Continuing an action one discovers to be baseless harms the defendant and burdens the court system just as much as initiating an action known to be baseless from the outset,” Justice Janice Rogers Brown wrote. “As the court of appeal in this case observed, ‘It makes little sense to hold attorneys accountable for their knowledge when they file a lawsuit, but not for their knowledge the next day.'”
Ironically enough, the case involved (stay with me here) a lawyer suing his former client’s lawyer for malicious prosection in bringing an action on behalf of the former client against her former lawyer. For his actions in yet another lawsuit.