Public Justice

March 19, 2013 In Blog

Corporations to humans: Arbitration is good enough for you, but not for us

By Paul Bland, Senior Attorney A big part of my job is listening to advocates for huge corporations explain how great arbitration is. Corporate lawyers are always insisting that arbitration is cheaper, fairer and faster than court. Some of them make it sound like arbitration…

March 18, 2013 In Blog

Making a difference one gob pile at a time

By Richard Webster, Power-Cotchett Attorney When visiting the La Belle coal ash dump in Pennsylvania for the first time last fall, I thought I had misheard. Why were people talking about a “huge pile of gob”? In the British vernacular, “gob” is slang for spit…

March 15, 2013 In Blog

When generic drugs harm patients, can’t count on FDA; lawsuits play role

By Claire Prestel, Staff Attorney On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in a case called Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Bartlett, which will decide whether generic drug makers can be held responsible for the harm their products cause. Public Justice joined an amicus…

March 14, 2013 In Blog

Top 5 reasons I love my job

By Leslie Brueckner, Senior Attorney Sitting in my office today, it just hit me: I’ve been working at Public Justice for almost 20 years. Madness. On the brink of entering my third decade here, it’s safe to say that I actually love my job (well…

March 13, 2013 In Blog

Arbitration: not a silver bullet

By Leah Nicholls, Kazan-Budd Attorney Last week, I traveled to Rockville, Maryland, to speak with the employment law section of the Montgomery County Bar Association. The topic was arbitration agreements in employment contracts. We discussed the types of arbitration clauses that make an arbitration agreement…

March 11, 2013 In Blog

Dear Corporations – Learn how to protect yourselves from class actions! Sincerely, the AAA

By Paul Bland, Senior Attorney I want to talk about judges, arbitrators and neutrality. Imagine a federal district court sending a mass e-mail to a whole bunch of plaintiffs’ lawyers. The e-mail says the court will hold a webinar instructing plaintiffs’ attorneys on how they…

March 7, 2013 In Blog

In the battle over class action bans, the latest casualty may be logic

By Leslie Bailey, Staff Attorney As an undergraduate philosophy major, I lived for all things logical. I relished Alfred North Whitehead and wrote essays seeking to prove that propositions about the future are true at the time they are stated. There was something deeply reassuring…

March 5, 2013 In Updates

EPA Improperly Withholds Information Vital to Public Health

Despite the threat of a lawsuit brought by Public Justice against Yakima Valley (Washington) industrial dairies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is continuing to improperly withhold information vital to the public health, acting in direct dereliction of its duties under the Freedom of Information…

March 5, 2013 In Updates

Citizen Action Pushes Dairies To Declare Hazardous Substance Releases

Following years of violations, threat of lawsuits forces industrial dairies to publicly report data Community Association for Restoration of the Environment (CARE) and the Center for Food Safety (CFS) – represented by Public Justice, Law Offices of Charles M. Tebbutt, P.C., and the Center for…

March 3, 2013 In Blog Anti-Bullying

Using litigation to change the culture of bullying

By Adrian Alvarez, Goldberg-Robb Attorney Like so many other gay people, I was bullied in school. Although I didn’t come out until college, people perceived my sexual orientation: I was routinely called “faggot,” punched in the locker room, and generally ostracized. I was even bullied…