Less Awful Days Are Here Again!

That's the lede in this solid article on South Florida lawyers starting to make deals again, by the always intrepid Julie Kay:

Jim Meyer, a partner at Harper Meyer in Miami, said it feels like ``the dam has burst.''

''The first few months of the year, everyone seemed to be in a holding pattern,'' he said. ``It seemed that people had to start doing business again eventually. There are a lot of pent-up deals from the first quarter. Financing does still seem to be the challenge.''

Meyer is hoping to secure the financing on several deals he's working on using the Interamerican Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of the United States -- banks that offer programs in which loans are backed by the government.

That's right, Jim -- only businesses and banks should be able to rely on the federal government to assume their risk and back their deals.

NO PUBLIC OPTION!!

(The foregoing message brought to you by the US Chamber of Commerce).

Don't you love it when lawyers make statements to the media that inadvertently hurt their cases?

I wonder if my friend Luis Delgado stepped into it here:

A Venezuelan investor is accusing a global insurance broker of playing a key role in Allen Stanford's banking empire, saying the company enticed thousands to invest in now worthless securities.

The federal suit filed Friday in Miami alleges that Willis Group Holdings provided letters to investors vouching for the financial integrity of Stanford's certificates of deposit, now the focus of a massive federal fraud case.

Filed as a class-action by Venezuelan resident Reinaldo Ranni, the suit says the global insurance broker issued ``safety and soundness'' letters that were given to clients in Miami and elsewhere.

Ranni says he invested more than $2.7 million after he was shown the letters at Stanford's Miami office.

``My client would not have placed deposits with Stanford if he had not been given the letters,'' said Miami attorney Luis Delgado.

``The claims were absolutely false.''

Hmm, I'm just a country lawyer and all, but in a class action do you really want to assert individual reliance by each investor on each letter?