His was the first South Florida legal blog, and the best (federal) legal blog around. Happy Birthday to SDFL blog and its creator David Markus!
We owe a debt to Mr. Markus and his blog. Many years ago, before Twitter and Snap-Tok, and Intergram, in a day when flip phones were cool, we saw two blogs, one out of NYC and DOM's. One gloomy afternoon, while whiling the hours away in our office, staring out the window waiting for inspiration to hit us on a nicer way to tell the 3rd DCA that the trial judge was a dofus (edited for inappropriate content), we thought "why not?" and blog legal history was made in South Florida.
But David was first, and he paved the way, and for that he deserves all the accolades.
Of course, our blogs are fundamentally different. David puts his name on his blog, which requires him to be more circumspect in his coverage of judges and issues. Like all of us, he is bound by codes of professional ethics and responsibility that doesn't allow for lawyers to say what they really think about the wearer of the black robe. And...and don't underestimate this- David has to go to court and practice before the same judges in the courts he is blogging about. So naturally his blog covers the federal legal community in ways much different than we do- which is at the fringes of decency, and in the safety of opaqueness.
We've had our differences over the years.
We don't agree on the historical and formal language of pleadings. We are formal. Proper. Reserved. We like "Comes Now" and DOM- a Gen Ex-er with all their informality, is progressing towards "Hey Judge!...".
But (and as Bruce Springsteen sings in his live performance of Tenth Avenue Freeze Out -"This here is the important part!")- we all know that you can do no better * than hiring Mr. Markus and Ms. Moss, and their team when scurrilous accusations are hurled your way.
SO, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SDFL BLOG. Thank you for leading the way.
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* Not including the author of this blog
