Florida

John Yoo To Appeal To Judge Bybee?

Posted on July 14, 2009
Just two torture memo dudes, reliving the good times:A federal jury in Miami convicted Padilla and two others of conspiring to murder, kidnap and maim people in a foreign country, along with two counts of providing material support to terrorists. He was sentenced to 17 years and four months in prison, a lighter sentence than prosecutors had pushed for...

Steven Marks Defends Integrity of Nicaraguan Legal System (and also Co-Counsel).

Posted on July 13, 2009
Hi kids, how was your weekend?The details of mine were quite inconsequential, really.Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet...

SFL Friday -- Wet, Hot and Delightfully Dangerous

Posted on July 10, 2009
Ahh, nothing beats Miami in the summertime -- the heat, the rain, the bugs.Note: wash, rinse, repeat.A kind reader (he's a pretty good attorney, too) passed along an interesting motion filed a few weeks ago in Palm Beach state court to require defense counsel to wear appropriate shoes...

Men With Broken Hearts

Posted on July 10, 2009
So have you all read the Florida Bar complaint against Hank Adorno yet?It's dated June 5, 2009, and deals with Hank and his firm's role in settling the now-ancient Miami fire fee class action on an individual basis, which we previously covered here, here, and here (well, sorta)...

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Jeff Kaplan New Math: One Soundbite, Two "Moral Compasses."

Posted on July 09, 2009
Jeff Kaplan explains the nature of sin in one easy soundbite:?The moral compass of people who commit those kinds of crimes is something that my partners and I will never understand,? says Jeffrey Kaplan. ?You either have a moral compass, or you don?t...

Death By A Thousand Small Cuts?

Posted on July 08, 2009
The spiral continues as the WSJ takes a look at how small and mid-sized firms are taking away business from the BigLaw dinosaurs: John Quinn, a founder of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, LLP, a 400-lawyer business-litigation firm based in Los Angeles, acknowledges there's been something of a switch to small firms...

3d DCA Watch -- A "Very Substantial," "Totally Precluded" Edition

Posted on July 08, 2009
Well, frankly I'm surprised that the 3d DCA would even consider issuing rulings so soon after the death of Fred Travalena, I mean Michael Jackson.Judgment during times of national calamity can be clouded by grief, and even coffee-swilling, dispassionate jurists need time to digest such an enormity before returning to the important business of dispensing PCAs like candy corns on Halloween...

Are There Any Lawyers Left in Town?

Posted on July 07, 2009
Did anybody else watch Manhattan on TCM last night?And another thing -- where is everybody? Judges are on vacation, lawyers are gone for the hills, everything is getting rescheduled or postponed.So let's talk Walkman.I remember when the Walkman first came out, some 30 years ago this week...

Finally, Good News About GrayRobinson!

Posted on July 06, 2009
Hi kids, it's Monday all over again -- hope you had a nice three-day weekend, celebrating the violent, bloody birth of our nation -- plus hot dogs and fireworks!Did you catch this story by Alana Roberts on more cuts at Ruden?I like this part best:The attorney said talk at the firm is that Ruden is $4 million to $6 million behind its budget goals for the year...

Bowman Brown and the Lawyer "Across the Street"

Posted on July 05, 2009
Remember when Bowman Brown repeatedly shared his "brush with Stanford" anecdote? We covered it here, here, here, here, and here.This is what we wrote back in March 2009:But it is such a great story. To borrow from Gore Vidal for a moment, the art of a good lawyer war story is to craft something that manages to burnish your own skills and competence at some other lawyer or judge's expense...

Independence Day!

Posted on July 04, 2009
Happy 4th of July!!Have a great weekend, everyone.

There is No Such Thing as Bad Press

Posted on July 02, 2009
It's one thing for a firm to announce that it is cutting associate pay, or withholding partner compensation, but when you lose The Bearded One, that's news.You can no longer see his smiling visage here. You have to hire this Firm.Begging the question - unless you're Bilzin - why is no one talking about this?NB: You have to admit, The Dude's beard is remarkable, considering he pulls it off and we are a few years removed from the 70s...

Breaking News - Al Malnik is Not Your Father!

Posted on July 02, 2009
But you knew that.Just like you never thought for one moment that Al Malnik was the biological father of Michael Jackson's children. Or gave a rat's ass, for that matter.But in an apparent effort to capture that long since expired 15 minutes, Al has publicly denied that which needed no denial...

11th Circuit Affirms Halliburton Dismissal on Political Question Grounds

Posted on July 01, 2009
Hi kids -- why have you not started your vacation yet?For those of you who read this crappy blog to get some update on, you know, legal matters, here is an interesting 11th Circuit opinion that affirms a Georgia district court decision to dismiss a negligence action against Halliburton on political question grounds:At issue today is whether the district court erred in dismissing the plaintiff?snegligence suit arising out of an accident in which her husband, a sergeant in theUnited States Army, was severely injured in May 2004 while serving as an armedescort for a large military convoy traveling through a war zone in Iraq...

3d DCA Watch -- Yep.

Posted on July 01, 2009
Well folks you can just feel the long holiday weekend coming on, as even our beloved judicial beasts of burden, who -- admit it -- toil and sweat in the Fortified Concrete Bunker of Justice basically for your own personal amusement, are starting to wind down and plan their departures to North Carolina or North Dakota or North Korea or wherever Florida appellate judges go to escape the unbearably massive pressure of releasing a couple of opinions once a week...

Layoff Success Story, Guest Blogging -- Oh Hail, Who Cares Anymore?

Posted on June 30, 2009
Hi kids, it's a dreary Tuesday and, for me, especially dreary due to the unexpected loss of Fred Travalena.First Ed, then Farrah, then the Queen of Pop, and now this:Fred Travalena, the master impressionist and singer whose broad repertoire of voices ranged from Jack Nicholson to Sammy Davis Jr...

"Turn Your Heartache Right Into Joy"

Posted on June 30, 2009
Well there's a rose in the fisted gloveAnd the eagle flies with the doveAnd if you can't be with the one you love honey.....Can you believe Mark Sanford actually pulled out the "I did not sleep with that woman" defense:Sanford also said that he "crossed the lines" with a handful of other women during 20 years of marriage, but not as far as he did with his mistress...

Bye Bye Havana Club.

Posted on June 29, 2009
Remember when you were growing up and cigars, poker, and Dean Martin were all considered "uncool"?Pretty much the only folks smoking them were decrepit old guys like Buddy Young Jr. and maybe George Burns.Funny, but old.Then the 90s happened and suddenly everyone was a poker ace, loved cigars, and thought Dean Martin was the King of Cool...

Ponder the Joys of Club Gitmo at the Four Seasons

Posted on June 29, 2009
Hey all you armchair warriors who think the untried, never-charged, indefinite detainees have it way too easy at Club Gitmo, come and join us as we show them how tough we really are: Brigadier General Rafael O?Ferrall Deputy Commanding General Joint Task Force Guantanamo Guantanamo Bay , Cuba ? Guantanamo Today? Tuesday, the Seventh of July Two Thousand and Nine from 6:00 - 8:00 PM The Miami Ballroom at The Four Seasons Tower Sixth Floor 1441 Brickell Avenue Miami , Florida Admission Complimentary Please R...

SFL Friday -- So, Did Anyone Die Recently?

Posted on June 26, 2009
Hi kids, since I'm a blogger I suppose I have to comment on all the dead folks who have died recently. That would include Ed McMahon (his performance as a slimy, lecherous boss in Fun With Dick and Jane was a keeper), Farrah Fawcett (who can forget her in a robe that just won't stay on, a bed, and a horny robot in Saturn 3), and of course Michael Jackson...

Song For The Courthouse Nightbox

Posted on June 25, 2009
I received a rather abrupt "Dear SFL" letter from one of my nearest and dearest true loves, the courthouse nightbox:Severe cuts recently made to the Clerk's Budgets by the Florida Legislature have required significant reductions in personnel.As a result, effective July 6th, the Clerk's office will no longer be providing additional hours for filing pleadings...

Should Any South Florida Lawyer Charge More Than $1000 An Hour?

Posted on June 25, 2009
Hey, what a surprise -- they've printed all the love notes between SC Governor Sanford and his Argentinian mistress!I particularly like this one:??please sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul...

3d DCA Watch -- Holistically Fiscing The Public Edition

Posted on June 24, 2009
Do you ever open up your office window on a late Wednesday morning and just scream "HOORAY!!!" because you know the 3d DCA has released another set of brilliant opinions?I don't know about you, but I'm swooning this morning as the latest missives are released from the fortified concrete bunker of justice, where coffee-swilling robed ones frolic amid apodictic affirmances, at the only place in America where you can both obtain a reversal and also see an FIU football game, yes it's our one and only, patented 3d DCA Watch:Eastern Atlantic v...

Are You A Rude Lawyer?

Posted on June 24, 2009
What a crazy morning, how about you?Note to hipster ahead of me in line at the Starbucks by the Courthouse on Flagler this morning -- you do not look "cool" in your ironic fedora, particularly when you are ordering a mocha frappachino. Man up, dude...

Rosemary Usher Jones, RIP

Posted on June 24, 2009
The Herald is reporting the death of Judge Rosemary Usher Jones. Rosemary Holmes Usher Jones, a former Miami-Dade County Circuit Court judge in the juvenile and civil divisions, died Tuesday of cancer. She was 80.The longtime Coral Gables resident had been living at East Ridge Retirement Village, Cutler Bay, for several years...

More Things I Love About Miami

Posted on June 23, 2009
So I saw Judge Seitz and Raoul Cantero chatting briefly at lunch today, no doubt busily dissecting SexyLexus and the various noncomments about the story that appear in Vanessa Blum's excellent front-pager today in the DBR.What makes me most happy about this story is that you guys have really spiced up the DBR comments section...

Neil, God!

Posted on June 23, 2009
Well that about does it for me and AM radio.I'm still processing the news that Neil will be off the air in South Florida.Anyone who grew up here in the 70s and had any sense of humor at all listened to Neil, and what a run it was. Talk radio had a bunch of freaks back then -- Neil, Steve Kane, Alan Burke, Bill Calder, Hank Goldberg, Larry King, I could go on -- but Neil was the funniest, and the best...

Steel Hector = South Florida's Woodstock?

Posted on June 23, 2009
Hi kids!Let's give big props and thanks to Guest Blogger for so ably stepping up, stepping in and holding down the fort while I attended to Important Legal Matters.Not only is that kid a tremendous lawyer -- he's a darn good blogger!I think I handled the Important Legal Stuff pretty well myself, though there's always room for improvement...

Rumors of Our Demise are Greatly Exaggerated

Posted on June 22, 2009
I don't know about you, but I am sick and tired of the constant analysis of the law business and the portrayal that because law firms are making cuts and changing strategies, the legal system as we know it will cease to exist. Okay, Okay: I know its not that extreme, and I realize we present an easy target for bashing and that folks - including our clients, behind our backs - may quietly cheer our collective need to tighten the belt and reassess...

Yes, Virginia, there is a S.E.C.

Posted on June 22, 2009
The Securities and Exchange Commission, at least in the Southern District of Florida, is comprised of an incredibly talented group of smart, aggressive experienced lawyers who for the last two decades, have worked tirelessly to rid South Florida of financial crime...

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