FLA BAR WEBSITE FOR RESOURCES

 Did you that our own Florida Bar (mott "Dues please") has a separate website that has all sorts of stuff like free CLE, and practice management tools? 

And it is named LegalFuel. 

Your dues at work. 

We are reminding many of you that if your judge was up for election this year and did not get opposition on Friday to speak softly in court on Monday. Their hangover will just be subsiding. 

DIS'D AGAIN

 

NOT THE REGJG 

Someone should tell the geniuses at the Florida Bar, Criminal Law section, that on their Instagram Account- floridabarcls- regarding a post on the new bond pyramid (Motto: "The paralegal says NO BOND for you") they are using the picture of the WRONG Miami courthouse.  Unless of course, the civil judges will now be doing bond hearings. 

Judge: "Sir, you missed court on your case, you're late on your interrogratory responses, your new charge carries a twenty thousand dollar bond. How long will you need to file a motion for summary judgment?" 

Assuming that is not the case, then...

Just more disrespect from the rest of Florida for our old gray lady, the REGJB. 

BAR RESULTS ARE IN

 It's not our favourite Steve Martin moment- "The new Phone Books are here!"  but the results from the Florida Bar tests are in and your favourite Florida law school is on the list. 

Bringing up the rear is Florida Costal with a 57.6% pass rate (33 took the exam, 19 passed). 

Barry at 61.2% (116/71); Florida A&M  61.7% (107/66) which is probably why it is good practice to NOT attend a law school dedicated to Agriculture and Medicine. 

Ave Maria was next at 64.4% (45/29) and we must admit we have never heard of the school. The song? yes. The school? nope. 

St Thomas came in the middle of the pack with 66.9% (130/87) followed by Nova- 67.4% (138/93) - trivia quiz- name the first law student from Nova to become a judge- and yes, he was a Miami-Dade Judge recently retired. Any law school named after a fish we have on our Sunday bagel with a schmeer cannot be all bad. 

U of M is an embarrassing 5th at 72.5% (244/177) which is maybe why Mr. Markus left for the greener crimson pastures of Harvard. 

And now your top four Florida law schools bar passing rates. 

Stetson beats out U of M  at 74.4% (203/151) followed by the Gators U of Florida at 83.9% (248/208). Any rate over 80% seems good to us. 

And your top two Florida schools are.....

FSU at 84.4% (135/114)  comes in second,  and that means once again FIU kicks some Bar butt coming in at NUMBER ONE with an 89.3% bar passing rate (103/92) which is not surprising because any law school that has REGJB Legend  H.T Smith and  REGJB irregular Scott Fingerhut as professors is doing something right. 

Thompson Thread 2- Free speech and the Bar.

Mr. Thompson kicks off the week with a letter to the ACLU, confirming the oft quoted affirmation that politics makes strange bedfellows. The letter is in the comments section.

Query re: The Bar and Broward Attorney Sean Conway: Should there be any regulatory supervision over what an attorney says about a Judge? Or should it just be a free for all?

Attorneys (are supposed to) occupy a special place in our society. In our practice we are very judicious about what we say to our clients about judges assigned to their case. The door swings both ways on this. A client who has a tough case assigned to a Judge that we believe is very fair and not afraid to grant a motion despite the consequences, may still well end up with a poor result (although hiring us is a step in the right direction.).

Similarly, a client with what appears to be an easy case may have a Judge who we believe is prosecution oriented to the extent they will ignore favorable case law if at all possible.

In those cases we believe, unless the circumstances are extreme, we have a responsibility to not disparage the justice system and try our best and let the client see the outcome in court. However, the Aleman scenario in Broward may well be that extreme situation. We would not have resulted to crass name calling on a blog (far be it from us to do that!). But we would have expressed an unfavorable opinion to the client about the Judge's policy of what we view as pure extortion in the misguided attempt to get clients to waive their rights to speedy trial by threatening them with a trial before their counsel had time to prepare.

But this analysis goes a step further. Assume the Bar exonerated Conway's statements because of Aleman's conduct. The result is a gutting of the Bar's prohibition regarding derogatory comments about Judges. Any Judge who had a case reversed on appeal would be fair game for the worst possible comments about their ability (hmm...we could be on to something here) and any attorney challenged by the Bar would have a sure-fire defense.

Questions of such magnitude are better suited for the wise and learned legislature and experienced Judges.

Ok. We shall stop joking. The serious issue is that unless we as attorneys and Bar members resolve this issue together with the Judiciary, we will have an answer forced upon us by yahoo politicians who never pass up an opportunity to disparage attorneys, especially criminal defense attorneys, to get curry favor with voters.

See You In Court, where we go out of our way to heap tons 'o' praise upon our learned and distinguished robed readers.