South Florida Legal Blawgers To Waste Everyone's Time on Friday!

Yes it's true, kids, a veritable murderer's row of your favorites, all ready to answer important questions about why everyone wastes their time reading these stupid things:

Ripped from the Headlines: Eleventh Judicial Circuit Honors

100th Anniversary with Symposium on Media and the Courts

* * *

            The Eleventh Judicial Circuit Centennial Committee, Joseph H. Serota, Chair, is pleased to present "Ripped from the Headlines: The Vital, Tempestuous and Changing Relationship between the Court and Media."

             Symposium Chairs Robert Kuntz and Timothy M. Ravich will present a 3-part, half-day symposium showcasing important trials throughout the history of the Miami-Dade County judiciary and focusing on what the future holds as court cases are actively covered by new and emerging media sources.

• Part I – A multi-media historical presentation by the 11th Judicial Circuit’s Court Historian Judge Scott J. Silverman. This presentation will focus on the Court’s early relationship with the press, with an emphasis on Giuseppe Zangara’s attempted assassination of President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt at Miami’s Bayfront Park in February 1930.

• Part II - A panel discussion of the William Lozano shooting of Clement Lloyd, Lozano’s trial and re-trial, and the evolving relationship between the media and the Court.

• Part III – A panel discussion of the role that “new media” plays in the courtroom. The discussion will include blogging, Twitter, email, cameras in the courtroom, and feeding the 24-hour news cycle.

            Featured speakers include John Hogan, Mark Seiden, Roy Black, Joseph H. Serota, Bob Levenson, Kendall Coffey, David Markus, Brian Tannenbaum -- and special "appearances" by the writers of the legal “blawgs” The Justice Building Blog and South Florida Lawyer.

            The event is scheduled for Friday, March 25, 2011 beginning at 8:30 A.M. in Room 4-2 of the Miami-Dade Courthouse, For more information visit http://circuit100.com/events/courtmedia.html

Despite our presence, I do think it is unique and will be very interesting, plus it's for a very good cause.

We are only congregating in one place due to the hard work and fine efforts of symposium co-chair Robert Kuntz, an upstanding and highly respected attorney whose reputation for quality legal work and moral character is impeccable, who really should be a sitting judge as we speak, and who runs a literate and highly entertaining blog in his own right.

Oh yeah, and also Tim Ravich.

Tim knows I'm joking, to be fair this is a guy who did something with the Dade County Bar once and also spends a lot of time thinking about planes(!).

I even have a list of topics -- tentative of course.

They include:

Rumpole on why Anglophiles are sexy and make the best lawyers plus why escalators in courthouses should work at least some of the time;

David Markus on how to attract high-quality legal talent (hint -- marry them!) plus how to get the feds to pay your client's legal bills; and

Brian Tannebaum on how to win a Twitter fight (I think it involves "clouds," "Diggs" and "Tumblring"?).

As for me, the organizers have agreed to my standard twenty-four page contract rider, which specifies certain conditions of my appearance (btw -- thank you Robert and Tim for the oversized hot tub filled with Evian and patchouli -- I believe my remarks will be much more reflective, relaxed and peaceful).

Sorry kids, but you'll have to show up to hear the rest!