JUDGE SHELDON "SHELLY" SCHWARTZ HAS PASSED AWAY .......

We are going to add our thoughts about the passing of Shelly, First, to us he was always "Shelly".  He always had a smile, and he always had an amusing story to share. But above all else, no remembrance of Shelly is complete without mentioning his sartorial splendor. 
The Ties. 
Chartreuse and lime green, with a splash of yellow and purple against an orange or perhaps light pink background. And that would be on a day he was toning it down. He reveled in his ties and it was an insight to the unique, friendly, happy man he was. He was truly a Justice Building original, one of the legends of our profession as an attorney and Judge who spent his time on the bench mentoring young lawyers. He has been missed for sometime in his well deserved retirement. 
Au revoir old friend. We are better for knowing you. 

THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:

SAD NEWS TODAY AS JUDGE SHELDON "SHELLY" SCHWARTZ HAS PASSED AWAY

Judge Schwartz was first elected to the County Court bench in 1996 when he defeated Larry King. He was last elected in 2006 defeating Migna Sanchez Llorens. He retired from the bench in 2012. He became a member of the Florida Bar in 1969 and celebrated 50 years as a bar member this past November. He previously was a law partner with Alvin Entin for more than 20 years.

Judge Schwartz was a real mensch and he never felt more comfortable than when he spent those six years on the bench serving in the "peoples court"; County Court. He was sometimes criticized for taking too much time explaining to un-represented defendants how the law worked and how it would affect them in their decision in court that day. He was proud of the fact that he took the extra time to treat each citizen who came before him with respect and compassion.

He famously apologized on this Blog when he once had a particularly bad day on the bench and he felt bad about it. Here is the link to that Blog post:

http://justicebuilding.blogspot.com/2006/01/honorable-judge-sheldon-schwartz.html

We will miss you Shelly.

Captain Out .......
Captain4Justice@gmail.com

HE MAY BE A BIT OF A PAIN.

(at times) but HE 'S OUR PAIN, and we don't take kindly to the Broward Blog putting him through the wringer.

Who are we talking about? What did the Broward Blog do?

It all started with this post on the Broward Blog:

JAABLOG FIELD TRIP - our first stop this morning took us to the North Dade Justice Center, for our first ever hearing before the legendary Judge Sheldon Schwartz. We were warned by a Miami lawyer about his curt, sometimes abrasive demeanor, with the caveat that he always does the right thing in the end. This description turned out to be accurate.

Schwartz came out bedecked in a black trimmed, glaring red robe. Was the sartorial splendor simply a nod to the holiday season, or par for the course? No, we were advised, he often dons flowing, colorful accoutrements worthy of a Roman emperor.

Next, he proceeded to rip an Israeli national, represented by counsel. Schwartz felt the defendant was trying to pull a fast one, by claiming he didn't speak English. He ordered the tapes played from a previous hearing, when the defendant had appeared without benefit of counsel, apparently understanding and speaking the English language. MOTION DENIED.

Counsel for the defendant got into it with Schwartz, but the Judge wouldn't budge. There were some choice berations directed at the defendant, worthy of Broward's finest, along the lines of "You may be one of the privileged people, but you don't have the privilege of driving in the United States without a license."

Classic north of the border stuff, except very un-Broward-like in the end, since Schwartz stated on multiple occasions that he would recuse himself if the defendant didn't feel he was getting a fair shake. Just like that. No motions to file, no tricky rules and deadlines to navigate, and no convoluted, hide the ball, highly technical bogus rulings to appeal later. In short, it was fair.

Impressed, we asked around after returning to home turf. It turns out Schwartz was also a super hot shot lawyer before he retired, at least according to Fred Haddad and Howard Finkelstein. As far as the red robe is concerned, however, no one could offer a satisfactory explanation.

Rumpole says: If you don't know about Shelly Schwartz's penchant for sartorial statements in the form of colorful ties, robes, shirts and suits.... then you don't know Shelly Schwartz, which puts that last line from the Broward Blog in dispute. How could Haddad or Finkelstein profess to know Shelly Schwartz and not know about his signature choices in haberdashery?

Kudos in the end to the JAABlog for recognizing the world of difference between Miami schtick, and Broward nastiness.

A LAWYER ANSWERS JUDGE SCHWARTZ

Starting on July 1, the shadowy and murky world of traffic attorneys became subject of blog discussion, fueled primarily by Judge Shelly Schwartz's criticisms of the ticket firms and their use of contract lawyers in court. Yesterday we printed Schwartz's primary complaints. We had earlier received an email from an attorney who wanted a front page blog response. Before we get to that, we re-print one comment yesterday that appears to be a knowledgeable criticism of Judge Schwartz (he is of course invited to respond):

In driver license cases, most judges in the building impose the standard $358 court costs. Shelly adds $525 for a total of $883, plus $250-$500 fines plus court costs plus high risk 30-hour traffic school in companion infractions even when they are non-moving such as no license plate or license not carriend or exhibited. That's unconscionable and hurts mainly the poor pro se defendants because the represented defendants will not plead guilty at arraignment as the unrepresented usually do. Those defendants could pay outstanding tickets and reinstate their licenses with far less money than it takes to pay Shelly's fines.

An attorney who hovers on the edge of this miasma has asked to respond:

Judge Schwartz:

You are correct and you are incorrect and here's the inside scoop.

First: I am not a traffic lawyer. I am one step up the ladder. I have a primarily misdemeanor and felony business. I handle the county court cases the traffic firms don't (DUI, Reckless, LSA) and the felony cases they can't.

The traffic business evolved from the work of one attorney, and then another, and then another, until there were dozens of firms competing for the same $69.00 ticket. How lucrative can it be? One well known firm had 20,000 OPEN cases when I saw their audit in the end of 2008. You do the math.

Here's what happens: Client's get tickets. They don't want to go to court. They don't want to even go to the lawyer's office. If they do answer an advertisement they received, they end up in one of a half dozen or so satellite offices the large traffic firm has (or on the phone with them). It is true that the client is then seen (or spoken to) by an experienced secretary who will give them the parameters of the case- what the possible sentences are and help them fill out a plea of absentia if they never want to appear in court. Most offices have one lawyer on the premises most of the time to handle more detailed questions.

I think Judge Schwartz would agree 99% of those cases go smoothly in court.

Here's the other 1-2%. The client is a problem client. Wants a jury trial before the Supreme Court on the running a stop sign. Being a problem client, they only want to pay $49.00 to have a team of top lawyers represent them.

I would suggest that the fault here is mostly the clients'. You get what you pay for. My firm will handle their stop sign case, but its going to cost almost a thousand dollars to have my assistant go to the scene with them, get pictures, do a diagram, and have me show up to try it.

So back to the 99% of the cases. When the ticket firms get the infraction case, they need to have every court and every ticket calendar in Dade and Broward covered. Do they employ dozens of attorneys to do this? Of course not. It's not economically feasible.

Once the ticket firms sprung up, the next economic necessity were the coverage or contract lawyers. They are a firmless group of nomads who get paid per case- usually ten bucks or so. They make camp in a courtroom or a small courthouse and they cover all the cases firm A has on the calendar.

But the analysis is not done. Because let's say firm A employs attorney X and Firm B employs attorney Y at the same courthouse. or courtrooms. Being of the same nomadic family, X and Y get together every morning and see what cases their firms have. Then X goes to courtroom 1 and Y goes to courtroom 2 and they cover the business for the traffic firms and X and Y work out what they're due and bill their respective firms.

That's a simplified explanation of what happens among dozens of ticket firms and dozens of nomadic ticket lawyers every morning.

And it works. The ticket lawyers do a good job. They spot the incorrectly written tickets. They know the cops who have faulty speed radars, and when they can't win, they argue for decent results. Occasionally the problem client shows up and what Judge Schwartz is writing about occurs.

But here's the problem Judge Schwartz does not recognize- The practice of law has evolved from the time he had his shingle out. Like it or not. The police write hundreds of thousands of tickets because their departments and municipalities make money. The ticket firms spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on mailing and marketing. The ticket lawyers, with virtually no overhead or headaches are driving Mercedes and feeding their families. In his day, I am sure people laid a couple of grand on Shelly to show up in County Court and handle their kid's careless driving. But today they can get virtually the same defense, by an experienced lawyer who does a hundred Careless Drivings month, for $150.00 or so. They have the choice to hire me or hire the ticket firms, but usually the issue comes down to money.

It is admittedly "drive -thru McDonalds" type of law. But it has to be that way. The numbers (tickets, clients, firms, lawyers) are way too high and the economics of the market place have created this environment. It will never be like it was in the days Judge Schwartz fondly remembers. The economics of law has evolved.

Judge Schwartz is wrong, and the clients are wrong, if they expect to pay $69.00 and get a high priced individually tailored legal defense. The client needs to know they get what they pay for. When I see my GP doctor, he has his Physician's Assistant spend 20 minutes with me, then he comes in for 3 minutes , tells me to eat less, lower my cholesterol and blood pressure, writes the scripts and leaves. If I want more personal service than my insurance will pay for, I am free to spend 5K a year on a "concierge medical practice." Until then, I get what I pay for. Why should a client spending $69.00 on a ticket expect anything different?

Remember-these are civil INFRACTIONS not criminal cases. But the practice has spread to criminal cases. Those ticket firms are my bread and butter. They spend on advertising and when the DUI or Reckless comes in they hire me- at my price (somewhat reduced for their volume.) I meet the client. I open a file. We prepare the defense and I am entirely responsible for what happens.

Let me close by asking Judge Schwartz this- is what the ticket firms do any different then if Exxon-Mobile hires a Greenberg Traurig Partner who promptly puts two dozen first and second year associates to start discovery? The CEO of Exxon-Mobile doesn't know the second year associate taking a depo on his company's behalf, but the work gets done.

What Judge Schwartz fails to acknowledge (and he knows this because he sees the numbers) is that no lawyer can survive on hanging out a shingle. and waiting for the odd thousand dollar LSA to wander in while a firm that is advertising gets 200 LSAs at 250 per a month. He doesn't like what he sees. It's not what he did when he was practicing (and doing a very fine job) but the law hasn't changed- just the business of law.

Hang in there Shelly and let these guys do what they do. You're fighting a battle you can't win. In my opinion it's not a battle you should win. The marketplace evolved this system as an efficient capitalistic response to the vast numbers of infractions the police write.

We all luv ya.

A Lawyer.

TRAFFIC TURMOIL

Judge Sheldon (Shelly) Schwartz saw fit to write in about a long standing situation involving the nefarious underworld of traffic attorneys.

You can find his full comments under the July 1st posting. We have edited his comments here (not in the comments section) to include the full gist of his feelings:

(Tomorrow: a traffic lawyer responds- we invite additional responses for consideration of a front page post. This is, as surprising as it may seem, one area of the Miami (quasi-criminal) legal community we know little about.)

Judge Schwartz said:

Times have truly changed in the practice of law. Once upon a time a client retaining an attorney actually met the attorney. Once upon a time an attorney or a member of the attorneys' law firm actually appeared before a court with a file. Once upon a time attorneys represented clients. Unfortunately those time have changed because of a few attorneys who merely believe their staff,non attorney may speak with the client, collect the money for the client and the attorney must never meet the client. Even the day of trial they have another attorney appear before the court having nothing to do with him/her or their respective law firm. The attorneys appearing do not even know the attorney in court if such "substitute"attorney appears and even then have no documents showing compliance.

They care not for their clients and do not make any attempt to properly represent the client.'knowing nothing of the persons past criminal history or traffic history.

These attorneys are a blight on most attorneys who provide proper representation to their clients.These attorneys are a blight on the judicial system.These attorneys,and they know who they are had better shape up,or be prepared to be called out.

...

[I] questioned the guarantees and promised many attorneys made to their clients:promising no points and no school.It is my belief the Florida Bar is the culprit here having forwarded a letter that such statements are not considered guarantees...
I have always questioned the propriety of "stand-in counsel,albeit in civil infractions.