XMAS EVE EVE

UPDATE: YOUR NEW CIRCUIT JUDGE- JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS: DARRIN GAYLES. WELL DONE GOVERNOR CRIST!

On the eve of Christmas Eve, here's the holiday scoop:

Miami Dade Courts are open today, although the clerks office will probably close at 12:00 or 1:00 PM.

Bah humbug.

Miami Dade State and Federal Courts (see below) are closed Friday.

Don't go on the Dade 11th Circuit website or Harvey Ruvin's Clerk of the Court website looking for a Holiday schedule. You won't find one.

However, props to Harvey and the Gang for allowing an attorney to check where they are on the court appointments list. Want to find out what position you are at on the appointment wheel of mis-fortune? Plug in your bar number here.

Thing are a little bit better at the Federal Website, which contains a link to

"Fast Freddie's" (c) 2010 administrative order for the holidays. Ever the careful legal technocrat, our Chief Judge has cited to 5 U.S.C 6103 for the authority to designate an additional day off from work when a holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday. Our Chief Judge carefully notes that tradition and precedent are such that when a holiday falls on a Saturday, the additional day off is Friday. Therefore, in the spirit of the season, and by the power vested in his holiness by the Congress of the United States Of America, etc., etc., the courts of the Southern District of Florida are hereby closed this Friday, December 24 for Christmas and next Friday, December 31, for New Years.

You can read the order here.

Tis the season for our robed readers to sip a little too much free booze at the office parties now in full swing all over the county. A gentle blog reminder not to drive if you've been drinking, but please do something otherwise stupid-but safe- so we can have something to write about in the New Year.

Be safe. Remember those we have recently lost, and after counting your blessings,

remember that 66 years ago, like today, America's Armed Forces were overseas engaged in combat. Remember to say a silent prayer for our soldiers, and have a Merry Christmas.

(We always make it a habit this time of year to re-read Stephen Ambrose's remarkable account of the 101st's defense of Bastogne in December, 1944. When Germany launched a surprise attack known as the Battle of the Bulge, all Eisenhower had in reserves were the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions. Both were ordered into the battle. Trucked across France and then marching into Bastogne while U.S. soldiers were fleeing in panic the other way on the same highway the 101st was marching in on, the division was lightly outfitted, without winter clothes or sufficient ammunition. And yet, with nothing to rely on other than each other, the 101st- and it's 506th PIR made famous by Ambrose's account in Band Of Brothers- took up front line positions in the woods of Bastogne, dug foxholes in the bitter cold, and once again held off the best troops and tanks of Germany. Their story is a remarkable one, and we urge you read about them and remember their sacrifice as we also remember the sacrifice of our current men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. )