DOJ Lawyering Up in Preparation for Swine Flu Litigation
Are you prepared to meet and fight the anti-vaccinators in open court? The Department of Justice is, and they are looking for a few good litigators. This is a job ad that is up on the DOJ website:
Experienced Attorney/ GS-12 to GS-14
U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, Torts Branch
Office of Constitutional and Specialized TortsAbout the Office: The Civil Division, Torts Branch, is seeking an experienced attorney for a position in the Office of Vaccine Litigation. Trial attorneys in the Vaccine Litigation Group represent the interests of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in all cases filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. The cases involve claims of injury as a result of the receipt of certain vaccines.
Responsibilities and Opportunity Offered: The position offers a unique experience in public service. The legal and medical issues at stake in each case vary greatly. Attorneys in the section independently manage heavy case loads, and while streamlined procedures are utilized, cases frequently involve complex liability and damages issues. The position involves significant trial practice. Vaccine staff attorneys are obliged to ensure that the Vaccine Trust Fund, from which damage awards are paid, is protected and, where eligibility criteria are met, that fair compensation is distributed to those whom Congress has intended. Attorneys appear frequently before the Office of Special Masters in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and also appear before the judges of the Court, as well as in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit when handling appeals.
That’s right folks, the legal profession will find a way to benefit from Swine Flu. Special torts, special torts defense, it’s all copacetic man.
(35) Comments
Comments
WTF is "Swing Flu"?
1
Rockin pneumonia = boogie woogie flu = swing flu
Swing Flu? Really?
Lat better sign you up for some kind of remedial spelling/grammar classes. Imagine how frigging annoyed he must've been to vent like that on his Twitter.
swing flu occurs after you sit on a swing and twist yourself around. when the swing untwists and you get dizzy, what you are actually feeling are the acute effects of swing flu.
"DOJ Lawyering Up in Preparation for Swing Flu Litigation"
Swing flu? The "g" isn't even that close to the "e" on a standard qwerty keyboard. Are your fingers that fat? Or are you just retarded?
Swing flu, hahahaha
Swing flu is when you get your testicles in a permanent twist.
And btw, this job posting has jack to do with swine flu. The NCVIA was around long before swine flu and applies to a host of vaccinations, not just swine flu.
So the title has a typo, and it's substantively misleading/incorrect. Double fail, Eli.
Nice find, Captain Tripps.
It's still early, but #2 is the post of the day.
Suck my ass, Mystal, you obese swing flu spreading Walrus!
How long until Lat counsels out Elie? I've been a fan and once or twice a defender, but the grammar/spelling mistakes are too much.
All those Good Samaritan claims will bankrupt the country.
looks like an awesome position.
The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act has nothing to do with the swine flu H1N1 vaccine. By Order of HHS Secy Sibelius the PREP Act conferred immunity on the vaccine manufacturers for injuries from H1N1 swine flu, unless a claimant can show willful misconduct - virtually impossible to meet that high standard.
Under the PREP Act there is a special program administered by HHS for swine flu injuries. There is no provision for attorney's fees and it is an anemic compensation program, modeled after the smallpox program of a few years ago.
Vaccine injuries can be devastating.
Robert J. Krakow
krakowlawfirm.com
BLACK TACO
I don't know why people constantly complain about spelling errors. It's 11:52 now, and "swine flu" is correctly spelled. Maybe you should all just wait a half hour before reading a new post rather than have your poor eyes burned by looking at the occasionally misspelled word.
17, you have a very liberal definition of occassionally.
16 = racist
"All those Good Samaritan claims will bankrupt the country."
The only reason vaccine injury claims could "bankrupt the country" is that there are a high number of devastating injuries. In any case, under the NVICA claims are paid from a tust fund derived from excise taxes on vaccines. Every time one receives a vaccine antigen $.75 is paid into the fund. It does not draw on the U.S. Treasury. Your taxes do not finance awards for injuries.
The trust fund balance is currently approaching $3Billion. See: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/tfmp/vaccomp/vaccomp.htm
18 - you have a very liberal way of spelling "occasionally."
Elie got pwned by people (18 and 20) that actually know what the hell they are talking about.
I meant 15 and 20
22
It's hard to imagine why a good trial attorney would want to work at DOJ, because the top salary isn't very good. Yes, DOJ is a great place for lazy or stupid lawyers, particularly affirmative action types, but real attorneys rarely want to work there except at the start of their career to get experience.
um, 24 and you base that comment on what, exactly?
Did they reject your application or something?
More importantly, as 15 correctly points out, the post is complete nonsense, as the job has nothing to do with the Swine Flu, but rather with a long-established program designed to compensate people who claim their children were injured by childhood vaccines.
I feel like a good half the posts on ATL now are in this vein--a totally innocuous news story or posting, augmented by some random speculation that would briefly flicker across the average person's mind and then disappear, given the total lack of support for it. We saw it last week with the sudden "scandal" of a bit of years-old boilerplate from the VA bar website, and now this.
Swine Flu, killin' what's inside of you....
as with all things the first year layoff-ees get screwed. Why couldn't they consider GS 11 for this...
You're missing the big picture here, folks.
The DOJ is hiring. Not a lot of places can say that unless you count some ID law firm in Long Island that pays $14 a hour.
Of course, the standards have heightened somewhat at the DOJ. You need to be top 5 percent in your YHS class, law review, moot court, and be able to recite from memory A.S. Byatt's "Possession."
One strategy if you cannot get hired by the most prestigious place for an attorney to work on behalf of the public is to denigrate the workplace based on the available salary. 24 has the right idea. That way, people will just assume that you're one of the jackholes who went into law for the money or because you had no idea what else to do, rather than because you were genuinely interested in the practice of law. This way they might not realize that you're so unbelievably off base that you genuinely think DOJ is a place for "lazy or stupid" attorneys. Follow up with a low-high mixup. Once he raises his hands, then its the takedown and transition to an armbar.
Bas!!!!! How hard can you kick said jackholes denigrating DOJ trial lawyers? (I didn't know you knew that word - good for you!) Maybe 24 knows of a better place to get substantive trial experience?
- not a DOJ lawyer, but someone who has litigated against one.
Elie isn't worth his gold in weight.
31, if you take the time to actually read what I wrote, you would see that I acknowledged that a DOJ trial team is a good place for a new attorney to get experience before leaving for greener pastures. The job offer was for an experienced trial attorney to come and work at DOJ. My point is: Why would someone who already has the experience want to waste his time at DOJ. When you look at career attorneys at DOJ, most of them are way too comfortable with 9 to 5, no sweating allowed, and taking every minute of available vacation, and then some more to boot. The young guys who come and get expenience and then go into the real world aren't likely to ever come back to DOJ. Also, by the by, there are no jury trials for vaccine claims. Just push some paper, read some scripts, then leave it to the judge. An idiot can do that.
33- are you braindead? Very few (if any) trial attorneys at DOJ work 9-5. from what i've heard, the hours can be brutal- akin to that of BigLaw.
This job has been up since mid-summer; I remember seeing it on PSLawNet while I was job hunting.