The more they stay the same.
Things are about to change at the DDLaw blog, but they will also remain the same. First, after more than nine years, Bexis is changing law firms. He’ll be leaving Dechert and joining Reed Smith (still in Philly) on May 14, 2012. The reasons for the change are his business alone, but the departure has been amicably handled on all sides. His new email will be jmbeck@reedsmith.com.
We like amicability because nobody (except the other side of the “v.”) would benefit from having the Blog and its 5+ year store of information, scorecards, and all the other good stuff go out of existence and become unavailable. Both Reed Smith and Dechert know what’s best for their clients, and for the rest of the industry – just as a rising tide lifts all boats, a win anywhere can help defendants everywhere. So the Blog will be returning to its roots.
As our long-time readership knows, when the Blog first started in 2006 it was an odd duck – a cooperative effort between two lawyers at different firms (Dechert and Jones Day) that otherwise competed for the same clients and business. We don’t know of any other legal blog that’s ever operated like that, but because the bloggers knew, liked, and trusted each other, it worked smoothly.
If it worked once, it can work again, as the same can be said for the current blogging team – everyone’s friendly with everyone else. In fact, in one way it will work better. We’ll be able to hand off again between firms and provide better commentary on cases involving the other firm’s cases than we sometimes can about our own cases, due to limitations on what either firm can say about its own litigation.
Thus, second, after Bexis joins Reed Smith, our remaining Dechert bloggers, John Sullivan, and Michelle Yeary, will continue blogging as they have, and Bexis will keep on doing his thing from Reed Smith. We all know how persuasive Bexis can be, so we expect him to recruit one or more additional Reed Smith bloggers (McConnell, that means you) to help him out.
In any event, we expect the Blog itself to remain essentially as it is, at the same location and with the same type of content. This blog has always been about substance – not marketing – so we hope and expect that nothing substantive will change as a result of Bexis’ firm change.
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Friday, May 11, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Who Are We/What Can We Do?
We’ve been blogging now, with one lineup or another, since November of 2006 – over five years. As we’ve said on a number of occasions, such as here, our philosophy has always been that a rising tide lifts all boats. It’s the nature of stare decisis (that earlier court decisions are the precedent on which later decisions rest) that defense wins anywhere tend to help other defendants everywhere. We thus strive to keep the pharmaceutical/medical device defense community abreast of new decisions, new arguments, and (when we’re lucky) new strategies that can help win cases.
We’re big firm lawyers. We have big firm clients and big firm resources. Not everybody is or does. But cases not involving big/big/big can be every bit as important as those that do. For instance, the two major product liability cases that established the (we’d say unfortunate) course of strict liability here in Pennsylvania are Azzarello v. Black Brothers Co., 480 Pa. 547, 391 A.2d 1020 (1978), and Berkebile v. Brantly Helicopter Corp., 462 Pa. 83, 337 A.2d 893 (1975). Everyone who’s heard of the Black Brothers Co. or the Brantly Helicopter Corp. other than in connection with these cases raise your hands.
We thought so.
Those cases handled for those clients have screwed up the law in Pennsylvania since before some of us started practicing it. We don’t think Pennsylvania’s unique. The Fortune 500 and the AmLaw 100 aren't anywhere near all that matters.
Thus, as much as we want to reach – and be thought well of by – our big firm colleagues around the country (and globe), we believe it’s probably even more important to reach the folks in the regional firms, and defending the smaller companies, who are involved in prescription medical product liability litigation. Because those folks, and their clients, might not have the resources to do the kind of comprehensive research that we're used to, we try to make what we do on this blog as helpful as possible, and we have even taken research requests on occasion. That’s probably the chief reason we keep our scorecards and cheat sheets. These concern important or current subjects, and provide (we hope) comprehensive and up-to-date legal research that anybody can use and craft to their particular cases.
For these five+ years, we’ve always had a Google Groups subscribe feature on the right hand side of our blog, near the bottom, that allows anybody who wants to receive all of our posts by email. Over those five years, 784 people have signed up (actually, more, but we periodically delete group members whose emails are reported as “bouncing” – meaning invalid). That gives us some data to indicate who the subscribers to this blog, the “we,” are.
We have to discard, at the outset, 229 subscribers whose emails end in “yahoo,” “gmail,” or various other nonspecific domains (that’s what our Google analytics call them, anyway). Anybody who doesn’t want us to know where s/he is affiliated is certainly free to do so. We’re not nosy.
Of the remaining 555 subscribers, 365 of them (one for each day of the year, except this is 2012) are with identifiable defense firms. We have subscribers, who get all of our posts, at 116 different defense firms – from names that anybody would recognize, to names that even we had to check out online to figure out what side of the “v.” they were on. To us, the number of firms is more satisfying than the number of subscribers, because any subscriber can pass any of our posts around internally. The more defense counsel we reach, directly or indirectly, the better we like it.
Some firms, of course, have a lot more subscribers than others. We’d like to give a shout out to our most numerous supporters:
Tucker, Ellis & West – 40 individual subscribers
Shook Hardy & Bacon – 33 individual subscribers
Reed Smith – 20 individual subscribers
Drinker Biddle – 18 individual subscribers
Dechert – 12 individual subscribers (including us)
Sidley & Austin – 10 individual subscribers
We set the cut off at ten. Why? Probably because we have ten fingers.
Another 156 of our subscribers are in house. We’re not going to identify even company names here, but we’re pleased to count among our number practically every well known name in the pharmaceutical and medical device business. We’ve also been invited into many smaller manufacturers, for a total of 66 different recognizable corporate domains.
There are also a handful of subscribers from other manufacturing companies that, as far as we know, don’t make prescription medical products. Some of our interests – class action tolling and removal before service to name a couple – do have impact that extends beyond companies who have to jump when the FDA says so.
We also count 34 plaintiff-side subscribers. Yes, we know who you are (that is, if you sign up from work). No, we’re not going to delete you or anything like that. We don’t work that way. Frankly, we’re rather flattered when those on the other side think we’re saying things that are worth knowing about – even if at times we’re sure we make our opposing colleagues want to pound their keyboards to bits, put their fists through their screens, or throw their PDAs as far as they can.
The remainder of our subscribers come from a variety of related interests and fields. Trade associations – both PhRMA and AdvaMed have subscribers. Folks from both Lexis and Westlaw have signed up. We have subscribers from the FDA and other governmental entities, both federal and state. There are some academics on the list, or at least their email addresses end in “.edu” (they might be law students). We also have various consultants, members of the press (including the medical press), CLE providers, insurance company people, contract researchers, and other health related businesses.
So once you’re here, what can you do? Well, if you’re here to take advantage of our legal research over the years, we put up a post less than a year ago that compiles quite a bit of that in one place (with links). We’ve already mentioned our cheat sheets and scorecards. Briefly, scorecards contain all cases, pro and con. Cheat sheets include only decisions favorable to our (the defense) side.
Each one of these posts is strictly in chronological order and is accessible via a separate link on the right-hand side of the blog, under the category helpfully called “Links.” We’re not known for creativity – except that there are two successive “Links” sections on the blog. Our internal links are in the second of these. The first serves as our blogroll (links to other blogs/websites of interest).
The blog’s basic Google Blogger software (we’re not into pictures and other extraneous stuff here at DDLaw) also provides some tools to help find things.
The blog has an “archive” that includes every post we've ever written – all 1700+ of them. That can be useful, but you first have to know the date or name of the post.
If you don’t know the date or the name (and we, ourselves, are quite forgetful), there’s an internal blog search function in the blog’s extreme upper left-hand corner. It’s not labeled (probably should be) but it has a clickable white space for typing followed by what’s supposed to look like a hand magnifying glass. That search function is good enough for searching relatively unusual terms (such as “conveniens”) or case names (such as “Mensing”), but less useful when trying to accomplish anything more sophisticated. When we require more involved searching, we simply go to Google and search for “druganddevicelaw” along with whatever other terms we want to find.
On the right-hand side, below our “Archive” is a long list of terms called “Topics.” Each one is clickable, and will produce a list of every one of our posts that we’ve decided (in our utterly unreviewable discretion) belongs under that heading. We can use as many headings as we want, and some of our posts are listed in as many as a half-dozen different Topics. The number of posts in a topic range from one (a lot of things) to over 100 (preemption, class actions). While we might have something on the topic of cancer, we won't have anything on the topic of capricorn.
Finally, most people know this already, but in case somebody doesn’t, on just about any internet page, including our blog, you can use “control f” to search for particular words, phrases or sequences of characters that appear on that page.
So thanks to all our loyal subscribers, and to everybody else whom we reach through RSS feed, Twitter, Lexology, and of course those who simply click to our site (over 500 a day according to Google analytics).
We’re big firm lawyers. We have big firm clients and big firm resources. Not everybody is or does. But cases not involving big/big/big can be every bit as important as those that do. For instance, the two major product liability cases that established the (we’d say unfortunate) course of strict liability here in Pennsylvania are Azzarello v. Black Brothers Co., 480 Pa. 547, 391 A.2d 1020 (1978), and Berkebile v. Brantly Helicopter Corp., 462 Pa. 83, 337 A.2d 893 (1975). Everyone who’s heard of the Black Brothers Co. or the Brantly Helicopter Corp. other than in connection with these cases raise your hands.
We thought so.
Those cases handled for those clients have screwed up the law in Pennsylvania since before some of us started practicing it. We don’t think Pennsylvania’s unique. The Fortune 500 and the AmLaw 100 aren't anywhere near all that matters.
Thus, as much as we want to reach – and be thought well of by – our big firm colleagues around the country (and globe), we believe it’s probably even more important to reach the folks in the regional firms, and defending the smaller companies, who are involved in prescription medical product liability litigation. Because those folks, and their clients, might not have the resources to do the kind of comprehensive research that we're used to, we try to make what we do on this blog as helpful as possible, and we have even taken research requests on occasion. That’s probably the chief reason we keep our scorecards and cheat sheets. These concern important or current subjects, and provide (we hope) comprehensive and up-to-date legal research that anybody can use and craft to their particular cases.
For these five+ years, we’ve always had a Google Groups subscribe feature on the right hand side of our blog, near the bottom, that allows anybody who wants to receive all of our posts by email. Over those five years, 784 people have signed up (actually, more, but we periodically delete group members whose emails are reported as “bouncing” – meaning invalid). That gives us some data to indicate who the subscribers to this blog, the “we,” are.
We have to discard, at the outset, 229 subscribers whose emails end in “yahoo,” “gmail,” or various other nonspecific domains (that’s what our Google analytics call them, anyway). Anybody who doesn’t want us to know where s/he is affiliated is certainly free to do so. We’re not nosy.
Of the remaining 555 subscribers, 365 of them (one for each day of the year, except this is 2012) are with identifiable defense firms. We have subscribers, who get all of our posts, at 116 different defense firms – from names that anybody would recognize, to names that even we had to check out online to figure out what side of the “v.” they were on. To us, the number of firms is more satisfying than the number of subscribers, because any subscriber can pass any of our posts around internally. The more defense counsel we reach, directly or indirectly, the better we like it.
Some firms, of course, have a lot more subscribers than others. We’d like to give a shout out to our most numerous supporters:
Tucker, Ellis & West – 40 individual subscribers
Shook Hardy & Bacon – 33 individual subscribers
Reed Smith – 20 individual subscribers
Drinker Biddle – 18 individual subscribers
Dechert – 12 individual subscribers (including us)
Sidley & Austin – 10 individual subscribers
We set the cut off at ten. Why? Probably because we have ten fingers.
Another 156 of our subscribers are in house. We’re not going to identify even company names here, but we’re pleased to count among our number practically every well known name in the pharmaceutical and medical device business. We’ve also been invited into many smaller manufacturers, for a total of 66 different recognizable corporate domains.
There are also a handful of subscribers from other manufacturing companies that, as far as we know, don’t make prescription medical products. Some of our interests – class action tolling and removal before service to name a couple – do have impact that extends beyond companies who have to jump when the FDA says so.
We also count 34 plaintiff-side subscribers. Yes, we know who you are (that is, if you sign up from work). No, we’re not going to delete you or anything like that. We don’t work that way. Frankly, we’re rather flattered when those on the other side think we’re saying things that are worth knowing about – even if at times we’re sure we make our opposing colleagues want to pound their keyboards to bits, put their fists through their screens, or throw their PDAs as far as they can.
The remainder of our subscribers come from a variety of related interests and fields. Trade associations – both PhRMA and AdvaMed have subscribers. Folks from both Lexis and Westlaw have signed up. We have subscribers from the FDA and other governmental entities, both federal and state. There are some academics on the list, or at least their email addresses end in “.edu” (they might be law students). We also have various consultants, members of the press (including the medical press), CLE providers, insurance company people, contract researchers, and other health related businesses.
So once you’re here, what can you do? Well, if you’re here to take advantage of our legal research over the years, we put up a post less than a year ago that compiles quite a bit of that in one place (with links). We’ve already mentioned our cheat sheets and scorecards. Briefly, scorecards contain all cases, pro and con. Cheat sheets include only decisions favorable to our (the defense) side.
Each one of these posts is strictly in chronological order and is accessible via a separate link on the right-hand side of the blog, under the category helpfully called “Links.” We’re not known for creativity – except that there are two successive “Links” sections on the blog. Our internal links are in the second of these. The first serves as our blogroll (links to other blogs/websites of interest).
The blog’s basic Google Blogger software (we’re not into pictures and other extraneous stuff here at DDLaw) also provides some tools to help find things.
The blog has an “archive” that includes every post we've ever written – all 1700+ of them. That can be useful, but you first have to know the date or name of the post.
If you don’t know the date or the name (and we, ourselves, are quite forgetful), there’s an internal blog search function in the blog’s extreme upper left-hand corner. It’s not labeled (probably should be) but it has a clickable white space for typing followed by what’s supposed to look like a hand magnifying glass. That search function is good enough for searching relatively unusual terms (such as “conveniens”) or case names (such as “Mensing”), but less useful when trying to accomplish anything more sophisticated. When we require more involved searching, we simply go to Google and search for “druganddevicelaw” along with whatever other terms we want to find.
On the right-hand side, below our “Archive” is a long list of terms called “Topics.” Each one is clickable, and will produce a list of every one of our posts that we’ve decided (in our utterly unreviewable discretion) belongs under that heading. We can use as many headings as we want, and some of our posts are listed in as many as a half-dozen different Topics. The number of posts in a topic range from one (a lot of things) to over 100 (preemption, class actions). While we might have something on the topic of cancer, we won't have anything on the topic of capricorn.
Finally, most people know this already, but in case somebody doesn’t, on just about any internet page, including our blog, you can use “control f” to search for particular words, phrases or sequences of characters that appear on that page.
So thanks to all our loyal subscribers, and to everybody else whom we reach through RSS feed, Twitter, Lexology, and of course those who simply click to our site (over 500 a day according to Google analytics).
Thursday, December 8, 2011
On Self Promotion
Yesterday we blogged about co-promotion, an obscure topic if ever there was one. Today we’re blogging about promotion that's considerably less obscure – self promotion. We’re not all that much into self-promotion here on the Drug And Device Law Blog, and before you start throwing things and telling us we’re a pack of blogging liars, try this. Go look for a link to our law firm’s (that would be Dechert LLP) website on this page. You won’t find it. It’s not there. We provide you with our personal pages (so you know who we are, or at least who we want you to think we are) and professional emails (so you can contact us), but that’s it. So it’s not like we’re being total hypocrites here.
We continue this blog for the same reason we started it. That’s to provide up-to-date information and commentary useful to those who, like us, defend pharmaceutical and medical device companies (also vaccines) in product liability litigation, either in law firms or in-house legal departments. We have strong views on practically all aspects of this subject – we’ve written books and articles – and our big-firm platform allows us the relative luxury of keeping current on a plethora of legal issues, from preemption to ediscovery. We firmly believe that a rising tide lifts all boats, that is, that defense wins anywhere help other defendants (like our clients) win everywhere.
That’s why we blog, so the defense lawyer on the front line in Augusta, Georgia or Spokane, Washington can get real-time access to new decisions (and what they mean) and tactical innovations (such as removal techniques) being pursued by us white-shoes up in our air conditioned skyscrapers. All we ask in return is that you folks in the field let us know when you’ve won something so we can report it (with full attribution, of course) to everybody else. Our soapbox is, and always has been, pointed squarely towards our colleagues in the defense bar and the in-house people who supervise us.
So to that extent we’re self-promoters. We believe we have something to say that others who do what we do will find worthwhile. Big deal. We share that view with everybody else who’s ever blogged.
But that’s it. It goes no further. You won’t find bells and whistles, ads, or any sort of fancy graphics here – only content; we try to post something every business day. We didn’t start blogging with the expectation that we were going to be quoted in the press, or in law review articles, or that we would be requested to give speeches and the like. That’s all happened, but from day one we’ve said that the availability of such opportunities is what has most surprised us as a consequence of creating a successful blog.
And something else goes along with successful blogging.
Badges.
The more blogs there are, and the more legal blogs (“blawgs”), the more other folks out there want to take advantage of the new media’s popularity for their own purposes. One way these non-bloggers do that is to “rank” us bloggers. Technorati’s been doing that sort of thing for years, although their rankings are so opaque we’ve never really understood them. But who mentions that? Technorati needs to start handing out badges.
In the last couple of weeks we’ve been informed, first, that according to Lexis-Nexis, this blog is one of the top 25 tort law blogs in the country. It’s an honor we share with some other blogs we link to, such as Abnormal Use, FDA Law Blog, Mass Tort Defense, Pharmalot, and Tort Talk. We also find some of our favorite advocates from the other side on the list: Litigation and Trial and the NY Personal Injury Law Blog.
About a week later, we’re also informed that the legal gods of the ABA have anointed our blog as one of the best 100 law blogs in the whole country. Wow! We share that list with some true heavyweights, like AboveTheLaw, SCOTUS Blog, and The Volokh Conspiracy. We look at those puppies, and we figure there’s a little more going on than a few guys commenting on cases when they have a spare moment. Some (lucky?) folks must do legal blogging full time. Seriously, though, we are flattered; it’s the fourth consecutive year we’ve been on the ABA’s list.
However, there’s more to these awards than the pretty badges (we’re sure our tech guys will figure out how to get the ABA’s latest up). We’re supposed to get you – our faithful readers – to vote for us for this or that. For the ABA, it’s vote for the number one blawg in twelve different categories. For Lexis/Nexis it’s name the best tort blog of all.
Anyway, if you want to vote for us, we thank you. We've just given you the links.
Bexis voted, and since he refuses to vote for himself, he went with SCOTUS blog (among others) on the ABA site, and the FDA Law Blog on Lexis/Nexis. Then again, Bexis is an old stick-in-the-mud about this sort of thing. He doesn’t even like fan voting for the all star game (only one such game warrants the article “the”). Remember what happened in 1957.
So if you don’t want to vote, that’s fine, too. It’s all a bunch of log rolling. Indeed, some of our friends on the plaintiff side, more accustomed to pejorative language, would probably call it a Google-ranking scam or at least blatant cyber-hucksterism. Essentially, in return for the privilege of festooning our site with badges, we’re supposed to write posts like these to drive traffic (you guys, our readers) to their sites. Lexis/Nexis is even worse – in order to vote, you have to register for its “communities” – and they ask us to link to them.
You’ll find that link right next to the link to our firm’s webpage, folks.
We’re not terribly comfortable with unpaid shilling for anybody, so this implicit – and sometimes explicit – quid pro quo arrangement leaves us feeling a little queasy. Not to mention, the expectation of mutual back scratching takes some of the fun out of winning this sort of recognition.
Anyway, we don’t want to take up more of your valuable time on a subject that, at the end of the day, is neither here nor there when it comes to what this blog is trying to accomplish. On this subject (and probably only this subject) we’re content to let the other side of the “v.” have the last word. Bloggers Max Kennerly and Eric Turkewitz have more choice things to say about badges for law bloggers, if you’re interested.
We continue this blog for the same reason we started it. That’s to provide up-to-date information and commentary useful to those who, like us, defend pharmaceutical and medical device companies (also vaccines) in product liability litigation, either in law firms or in-house legal departments. We have strong views on practically all aspects of this subject – we’ve written books and articles – and our big-firm platform allows us the relative luxury of keeping current on a plethora of legal issues, from preemption to ediscovery. We firmly believe that a rising tide lifts all boats, that is, that defense wins anywhere help other defendants (like our clients) win everywhere.
That’s why we blog, so the defense lawyer on the front line in Augusta, Georgia or Spokane, Washington can get real-time access to new decisions (and what they mean) and tactical innovations (such as removal techniques) being pursued by us white-shoes up in our air conditioned skyscrapers. All we ask in return is that you folks in the field let us know when you’ve won something so we can report it (with full attribution, of course) to everybody else. Our soapbox is, and always has been, pointed squarely towards our colleagues in the defense bar and the in-house people who supervise us.
So to that extent we’re self-promoters. We believe we have something to say that others who do what we do will find worthwhile. Big deal. We share that view with everybody else who’s ever blogged.
But that’s it. It goes no further. You won’t find bells and whistles, ads, or any sort of fancy graphics here – only content; we try to post something every business day. We didn’t start blogging with the expectation that we were going to be quoted in the press, or in law review articles, or that we would be requested to give speeches and the like. That’s all happened, but from day one we’ve said that the availability of such opportunities is what has most surprised us as a consequence of creating a successful blog.
And something else goes along with successful blogging.
Badges.
The more blogs there are, and the more legal blogs (“blawgs”), the more other folks out there want to take advantage of the new media’s popularity for their own purposes. One way these non-bloggers do that is to “rank” us bloggers. Technorati’s been doing that sort of thing for years, although their rankings are so opaque we’ve never really understood them. But who mentions that? Technorati needs to start handing out badges.
In the last couple of weeks we’ve been informed, first, that according to Lexis-Nexis, this blog is one of the top 25 tort law blogs in the country. It’s an honor we share with some other blogs we link to, such as Abnormal Use, FDA Law Blog, Mass Tort Defense, Pharmalot, and Tort Talk. We also find some of our favorite advocates from the other side on the list: Litigation and Trial and the NY Personal Injury Law Blog.
About a week later, we’re also informed that the legal gods of the ABA have anointed our blog as one of the best 100 law blogs in the whole country. Wow! We share that list with some true heavyweights, like AboveTheLaw, SCOTUS Blog, and The Volokh Conspiracy. We look at those puppies, and we figure there’s a little more going on than a few guys commenting on cases when they have a spare moment. Some (lucky?) folks must do legal blogging full time. Seriously, though, we are flattered; it’s the fourth consecutive year we’ve been on the ABA’s list.
However, there’s more to these awards than the pretty badges (we’re sure our tech guys will figure out how to get the ABA’s latest up). We’re supposed to get you – our faithful readers – to vote for us for this or that. For the ABA, it’s vote for the number one blawg in twelve different categories. For Lexis/Nexis it’s name the best tort blog of all.
Anyway, if you want to vote for us, we thank you. We've just given you the links.
Bexis voted, and since he refuses to vote for himself, he went with SCOTUS blog (among others) on the ABA site, and the FDA Law Blog on Lexis/Nexis. Then again, Bexis is an old stick-in-the-mud about this sort of thing. He doesn’t even like fan voting for the all star game (only one such game warrants the article “the”). Remember what happened in 1957.
So if you don’t want to vote, that’s fine, too. It’s all a bunch of log rolling. Indeed, some of our friends on the plaintiff side, more accustomed to pejorative language, would probably call it a Google-ranking scam or at least blatant cyber-hucksterism. Essentially, in return for the privilege of festooning our site with badges, we’re supposed to write posts like these to drive traffic (you guys, our readers) to their sites. Lexis/Nexis is even worse – in order to vote, you have to register for its “communities” – and they ask us to link to them.
You’ll find that link right next to the link to our firm’s webpage, folks.
We’re not terribly comfortable with unpaid shilling for anybody, so this implicit – and sometimes explicit – quid pro quo arrangement leaves us feeling a little queasy. Not to mention, the expectation of mutual back scratching takes some of the fun out of winning this sort of recognition.
Anyway, we don’t want to take up more of your valuable time on a subject that, at the end of the day, is neither here nor there when it comes to what this blog is trying to accomplish. On this subject (and probably only this subject) we’re content to let the other side of the “v.” have the last word. Bloggers Max Kennerly and Eric Turkewitz have more choice things to say about badges for law bloggers, if you’re interested.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
A Top 25 Blog?
As our regular readers know, here at DDlaw we concentrate pretty single-mindedly on content. We don't do pictures; we don't do videos, we don't do gossip. We just try to keep everyone on the defense side of prescription drug and device product liability litigation informed of whatever we think is interesting or important at any given time.
That's what we've done for over five years, now. That's right, the Drug And Device Law Blog turned five a couple of weeks ago, but we were too much otherwise engaged to say much about that. Once you get as accustomed to blogging as we have - once it becomes as much a part of our ordinary day, the anniversaries don't have as much meaning as they used to. Blogging just becomes part of our blood, part of who we are. Don't just take our word for it, think of our blogger emeritus, Mark Herrmann. He decides to be done with litigation, and goes in house, thinking he's leaving blogging behind. But he can't. So less than a year later he's back at it, blogging about something else.
Well, we're still here, and still at it. And every now and then somebody notices. For three years, it's been AmLaw. We've got three AmLaw top 100 blog badges on the right-hand side of the screen. Not bad for a blog that still uses the same basic Blogger software that came with the right price (free) five years ago.
Now, it's LexisNexis. We got word the other day that we've been chosen as a "nominated candidate" for the LexisNexis Top 25 Tort Blogs of 2011. We got a badge for that, too. You can see it on the right hand side of the screen.
We're flattered (that's not hard to do), but all that means is that we're a "nominee." Fine. That's not going to change what we do, but that also makes you out there the electorate. So consider the following question.
If you were picking the best blogs about torts, would Drug and Device law make your top 25?
If the answer to that question is yes (or even if it's not) you are invited to mosey on over to the LexisNexis Litigation Resource Community and say so. Yeah, it's a business for Lexis/Nexis (we know, they charge us enough to use their data bases), so you have to register (it's free). But if you think we're deserving of the honor, we invite you to visit there and let them know. The comment box is at the bottom of the nomination page, and comments are being accepted through November 17. We won't ask you again, since we're about content, not personality contests, but we thought we'd at least let our readers know of this opportunity....
Now, back to drug and device law.
That's what we've done for over five years, now. That's right, the Drug And Device Law Blog turned five a couple of weeks ago, but we were too much otherwise engaged to say much about that. Once you get as accustomed to blogging as we have - once it becomes as much a part of our ordinary day, the anniversaries don't have as much meaning as they used to. Blogging just becomes part of our blood, part of who we are. Don't just take our word for it, think of our blogger emeritus, Mark Herrmann. He decides to be done with litigation, and goes in house, thinking he's leaving blogging behind. But he can't. So less than a year later he's back at it, blogging about something else.
Well, we're still here, and still at it. And every now and then somebody notices. For three years, it's been AmLaw. We've got three AmLaw top 100 blog badges on the right-hand side of the screen. Not bad for a blog that still uses the same basic Blogger software that came with the right price (free) five years ago.
Now, it's LexisNexis. We got word the other day that we've been chosen as a "nominated candidate" for the LexisNexis Top 25 Tort Blogs of 2011. We got a badge for that, too. You can see it on the right hand side of the screen.
We're flattered (that's not hard to do), but all that means is that we're a "nominee." Fine. That's not going to change what we do, but that also makes you out there the electorate. So consider the following question.
If you were picking the best blogs about torts, would Drug and Device law make your top 25?
If the answer to that question is yes (or even if it's not) you are invited to mosey on over to the LexisNexis Litigation Resource Community and say so. Yeah, it's a business for Lexis/Nexis (we know, they charge us enough to use their data bases), so you have to register (it's free). But if you think we're deserving of the honor, we invite you to visit there and let them know. The comment box is at the bottom of the nomination page, and comments are being accepted through November 17. We won't ask you again, since we're about content, not personality contests, but we thought we'd at least let our readers know of this opportunity....
Now, back to drug and device law.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Reparations
The last couple days' dialogue with our subscribers suggests that the blog's email outage was uneven. Some subscribers may have lost email transmission of our post for more than a month. We've already apologized, but we think we should do more. Here's a list of what we posted about - with links - between June 1 2011 (the earliest date reported to us) and July 12, 2011 (when we finally got the problem fixed):
July 12, 2011: Third Circuit Reaffirms Berrier - Third Restatement Applies in Pennsylvania Federal Court - New Covell opinion - Link.
July 12, 2011: Fosamax and the Risk/Benefit Analysis - Interlocutory appeal of risk/benefit design defect theory - Link.
July 11, 2011: ProDisc Dismissal for Want of Indispensable Parties - Unusual procedural issue - Link.
July 8, 2011: Industry Tries Again For Clarity Concerning Off-Label Promotion - Reviewing FDA citizen petition for clearer regulation - Link.
July 7, 2011: No Stand Up Comity In New York - Forman (new), Desiano, and Buckman with respect to preemption of NJ fraud on the FDA based punitive damages statute - Link.
July 6, 2011: Of Treating Physicians And Manufacturing Defects - New Mast opinion on what is, and is not, lay opinion testimony from a plaintiff's treating physicians - Link.
July 5, 2011: An Easy Case Makes Good Learned Intermediary Law - New Legard warning causation decision - Link.
July 4, 2011: Happy Independence Day - Link.
July 1, 2011: Another Reason To Like TwIqbal - New McFarland opinion on pleading product identification - Link.
June 30, 2011: Applied American Exceptionalism - Exclusion of experts on foreign business behavior and foreign regulatory standards - Link.
June 29, 2011: Give Us A T For Tennessee - New Tennessee Supreme Court (Nye) ruling reaffirming learned intermediary rule but limiting it to prescription medical products - Link.
June 28, 2011: A Little Rain In The Desert - New Trasylol decision holding that New Mexico would recognize learned intermediary rule - Link.
June 28, 2011: The Supreme Court Reins in “Stream of Commerce” Personal Jurisdiction - Description of new Brown and Nicastro stream of commerce decisions - Link.
June 27, 2011: Embracing Compliance - More on what makes jurors angry and what to do about it - Link.
June 24, 2011: What Other People Are Saying About Mensing - Since we can't say much about Mensing, what else is out there? - Link.
June 23, 2011: Two More From The Supreme Court - Mention of Mensing, which we can't talk much about because of our litigation involvement, and full description of Sorrell pharmaceutical detailing First Amendment decision - Link.
June 22, 2011: Medicare . . . Yep It Is Still Boring - New Humana decision that Medicare third-party providers can't recover under secondary payor statute - Link.
June 21, 2011: What's In Them For Us? - A review of the new Dukes and AEP (global warming) Supreme Court decisions for how they might apply to drug/device product liability litigation - Link.
June 20, 2011: Phony Choices - New Zicam decision distinguishing prescription drug and toxic tort cases with respect to need for dosage information in Daubert causation opinions - Link.
June 17, 2011: E-Discovery Fee Shifting? - New EDPA case requiring unsuccessful plaintiff to pay as costs part of cost of complying with its ediscovery demands - Link.
June 16, 2011: It Should Be An Interesting Couple Of Weeks - Analysis of new Supreme Court Smith v. Bayer class action/collateral estoppel decision and review of interesting cases yet to be decided - Link.
June 15, 2011: To Retain or Not to Retain - Discussing situation (in-house experts) in which expert correspondence may still be discoverable after latest changes to Rule 26 - Link.
June 14, 2011: Denture Cream Myelopathy Claims Found Toothless - New Daubert win in Denture Cream - Link.
June 13, 2011: Some Good News On SSRI Preemption - New Dobbs decision finding that SSRI facts (Effexor) satisfied Levine "clear evidence" standard and preempting suicide warning claims - Link.
June 13, 2011: Getting Better - Discussing new Pucey decision on recalls and investigations as subsequent remedial measures - Link.
June 10, 2011: An Oldie But Goodie - Discovering favorable MDL precedent (Aredia/Zometa) from two years ago that informal interview with treating physicians save time and are to be allowed - Link.
June 9, 2011: When It’s The Plaintiff, Not The Doctor - Winning warning causation when there's no learned intermediary defense, and the plaintiff's conduct is at issue - Link.
June 8, 2011: Utah Preemption Split Deepens - New case (Pierce) holding that Utah fraud on the FDA punitive damages statute is preempted - Link.
June 7, 2011: Defendant Didn’t Buy The Love - New case (Shaw) on impact of prescriber/manufacturer financial ties on applicability of learned intermediary rule - Link.
June 6, 2011: Anger Management - What makes jurors angry and what to do about it - Link.
June 3, 2011: Opening Salvo In New FDA Attack On Off-Label Use? - New FDA draft guidance that would change "intended use" based upon mere knowledge of off-label use - Link.
June 2, 2011: The Closing Of The Learned Intermediary Frontier - Updated 50-state learned intermediary rule survey occasioned by first Rhode Island precedent on rule - Link.
June 1, 2011: While Plaintiff Slept, Learned Intermediary Got a Re-affirming Wake Up - New (Dykes) decision where lazy plaintiff lost a learned intermediary motion - Link.
July 12, 2011: Third Circuit Reaffirms Berrier - Third Restatement Applies in Pennsylvania Federal Court - New Covell opinion - Link.
July 12, 2011: Fosamax and the Risk/Benefit Analysis - Interlocutory appeal of risk/benefit design defect theory - Link.
July 11, 2011: ProDisc Dismissal for Want of Indispensable Parties - Unusual procedural issue - Link.
July 8, 2011: Industry Tries Again For Clarity Concerning Off-Label Promotion - Reviewing FDA citizen petition for clearer regulation - Link.
July 7, 2011: No Stand Up Comity In New York - Forman (new), Desiano, and Buckman with respect to preemption of NJ fraud on the FDA based punitive damages statute - Link.
July 6, 2011: Of Treating Physicians And Manufacturing Defects - New Mast opinion on what is, and is not, lay opinion testimony from a plaintiff's treating physicians - Link.
July 5, 2011: An Easy Case Makes Good Learned Intermediary Law - New Legard warning causation decision - Link.
July 4, 2011: Happy Independence Day - Link.
July 1, 2011: Another Reason To Like TwIqbal - New McFarland opinion on pleading product identification - Link.
June 30, 2011: Applied American Exceptionalism - Exclusion of experts on foreign business behavior and foreign regulatory standards - Link.
June 29, 2011: Give Us A T For Tennessee - New Tennessee Supreme Court (Nye) ruling reaffirming learned intermediary rule but limiting it to prescription medical products - Link.
June 28, 2011: A Little Rain In The Desert - New Trasylol decision holding that New Mexico would recognize learned intermediary rule - Link.
June 28, 2011: The Supreme Court Reins in “Stream of Commerce” Personal Jurisdiction - Description of new Brown and Nicastro stream of commerce decisions - Link.
June 27, 2011: Embracing Compliance - More on what makes jurors angry and what to do about it - Link.
June 24, 2011: What Other People Are Saying About Mensing - Since we can't say much about Mensing, what else is out there? - Link.
June 23, 2011: Two More From The Supreme Court - Mention of Mensing, which we can't talk much about because of our litigation involvement, and full description of Sorrell pharmaceutical detailing First Amendment decision - Link.
June 22, 2011: Medicare . . . Yep It Is Still Boring - New Humana decision that Medicare third-party providers can't recover under secondary payor statute - Link.
June 21, 2011: What's In Them For Us? - A review of the new Dukes and AEP (global warming) Supreme Court decisions for how they might apply to drug/device product liability litigation - Link.
June 20, 2011: Phony Choices - New Zicam decision distinguishing prescription drug and toxic tort cases with respect to need for dosage information in Daubert causation opinions - Link.
June 17, 2011: E-Discovery Fee Shifting? - New EDPA case requiring unsuccessful plaintiff to pay as costs part of cost of complying with its ediscovery demands - Link.
June 16, 2011: It Should Be An Interesting Couple Of Weeks - Analysis of new Supreme Court Smith v. Bayer class action/collateral estoppel decision and review of interesting cases yet to be decided - Link.
June 15, 2011: To Retain or Not to Retain - Discussing situation (in-house experts) in which expert correspondence may still be discoverable after latest changes to Rule 26 - Link.
June 14, 2011: Denture Cream Myelopathy Claims Found Toothless - New Daubert win in Denture Cream - Link.
June 13, 2011: Some Good News On SSRI Preemption - New Dobbs decision finding that SSRI facts (Effexor) satisfied Levine "clear evidence" standard and preempting suicide warning claims - Link.
June 13, 2011: Getting Better - Discussing new Pucey decision on recalls and investigations as subsequent remedial measures - Link.
June 10, 2011: An Oldie But Goodie - Discovering favorable MDL precedent (Aredia/Zometa) from two years ago that informal interview with treating physicians save time and are to be allowed - Link.
June 9, 2011: When It’s The Plaintiff, Not The Doctor - Winning warning causation when there's no learned intermediary defense, and the plaintiff's conduct is at issue - Link.
June 8, 2011: Utah Preemption Split Deepens - New case (Pierce) holding that Utah fraud on the FDA punitive damages statute is preempted - Link.
June 7, 2011: Defendant Didn’t Buy The Love - New case (Shaw) on impact of prescriber/manufacturer financial ties on applicability of learned intermediary rule - Link.
June 6, 2011: Anger Management - What makes jurors angry and what to do about it - Link.
June 3, 2011: Opening Salvo In New FDA Attack On Off-Label Use? - New FDA draft guidance that would change "intended use" based upon mere knowledge of off-label use - Link.
June 2, 2011: The Closing Of The Learned Intermediary Frontier - Updated 50-state learned intermediary rule survey occasioned by first Rhode Island precedent on rule - Link.
June 1, 2011: While Plaintiff Slept, Learned Intermediary Got a Re-affirming Wake Up - New (Dykes) decision where lazy plaintiff lost a learned intermediary motion - Link.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
An Apology To Our Subscribers
We'd like to apologize to those of you (all 700+) who subscribe to our email feed through the Google Group function. Somehow, we're not sure how, the Google Group became separated from our account. We don't know when this started, but yesterday we started getting complaints and investigated. We believe it has now been fixed.
Anyone receiving the blog by email should check how long its been since your last email from us. We try to post something every business day, so you may have missed a number of posts.
Anyone receiving the blog by email should check how long its been since your last email from us. We try to post something every business day, so you may have missed a number of posts.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Fare Thee Well, Dave Walk
It is with some sadness that we announce the end of Dave Walk's career as one of our blogging buddies. Dave is leaving Dechert today to take a senior position with the United States' Attorney's office in South Jersey - where he will no doubt disavow many, if not most, of the positions he has advanced while blogging here.
We at Druganddevicelaw will miss Dave's unique perspective on a variety of issues, particularly the False Claims Act, where he has probably forgotten more than the rest of us know.
Anyway, we wish Dave well in this new phase of his legal career - that is, unless and until he inexplicably decides to go after one of our clients.
We at Druganddevicelaw will miss Dave's unique perspective on a variety of issues, particularly the False Claims Act, where he has probably forgotten more than the rest of us know.
Anyway, we wish Dave well in this new phase of his legal career - that is, unless and until he inexplicably decides to go after one of our clients.
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