The world's oldest democracy, and perhaps its best, has a new Prime Minister- Liz Truss- England's third female leader. Truss will pick up Tuesday where PM Boris Johnson leaves off. A dedicated Brexiter and Conservative, she will travel to Scotland to meet the Queen, who will formally ask her to form a government. The Queen has met every PM since Churchill, but this will be the first time the Queen has met a Minister of Parliament outside of London and asked them to form a government. The Queen is in Scotland for the summer and the 96-year-old monarch has some mobility issues, as the Palace discretely refers to her age-related challenges.
Truss has had a long and winding road to becoming PM. She was the foreign secretary before winning election, so she is well known to world leaders. But as a young woman she was a Liberal Democrat. Even after joining the Conservative party, she was staunchly an anti-Brexit European Union supporter ...until she wasn't. Which brings to mind a few Churchillian bon mots of wisdom: "Those that don't change their minds never change anything", and "A person who isn't a liberal in their youth has no heart. A person who isn't a conservative in their middle age has no brain."
We supported former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, but alas neither he nor we prevailed.
THE HANZMAN METHOD
Closer to home, the praise for the handling of the Surfside Building collapse continues to generate praise. The NY Times weighed in with a very flattering profiled of Judge Michael Hanzman, which included the quote from Judge Jon Colby that the survivors received "personalized justice."
Miami has a lot to be proud of in the way this case was handled and settled. It was done quickly; hard work uncovered several hundred million dollars of coverage that was not readily apparent at the outset of the case; and law firms were cajoled into relinquishing their normal 33-44% fee structure for recovery. It may be a road map for how the legal system handles future mass-tort disasters. Kudos to the Judges and the law firms who handled the case. It was very much a collaborative effort. First among the groundbreaking way this case was handled, was the speed in which it was resolved.
Ask just about any litigant in a case what the most frustrating part of the legal system is for them, and they will respond that it takes too long. There is no closure. Some of the problem lies with the new economics of the law. More lawyers means more competition which means lower fees which means lawyers take more cases to generate the fees needed to run a law firm which means cases move slower.
Couple that with the overbooked dockets and inability to get a hearing within six months of filing a motion in civil court, and you have a court system not responsive to the needs of the public it serves.
But maybe there is a flip side to that never ending downward spiral of the length of cases. And that is the quicker the case moves, the less time it takes, the less hours lawyers have to put in, and thus the lower the fees. Call it the ....Hanzman Method???
Has a nice ring to it.
One thing is for sure, Judge Hanzman can expect to be consulted by Judges across the country the next time one of these unfortunate tragedies hits the legal system.
Summer is officially over- now comes the sprint of trials and hearings until Thanksgiving. Slow and steady wins the race. Well, maybe with the Hanzman Method, quick and steady will be the new normal.
