Two Words: "Alan Becker" and "Podcast"

That's about all I got out of this DBR story regarding a former Becker & Poliakoff associate who is suing for his $2k in deferred compensation:

Valuntas, now an associate at Rosenbaum Mollengarden Janssen & Siracusa in West Palm Beach, said Becker notified the staff of the deferrals by a podcast, stating it was effective for all attorneys and department heads working for the firm before 2008.

“It is intended that this be temporary, and by that I mean that as soon as the cash flow situation improves so that we are back on a stabilized revenue stream, it is our intention not only to resume the salaries to the original authorized salaries for this year but to restore retroactively the deferred portion to anybody who is here with the firm at the time we make the decision to do so,” Becker stated in the podcast.

Salary deferrals announced via podcast?

Boy, it's heartwarming to see how advancements in technology can bring people closer together.

BTW, if you want more live-action Becker on your private computer screen, check out this video of him on his bio page, talking about what kind of "young lawyers" Alan wants at his firm.

Entrepreneurs indeed!

A few other fun tidbits from this article:

Becker said his firm repaid only “those who were loyal.”

There's also this:

Becker was formerly represented by the defunct Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler but now represents itself.

“I felt they were distracted,” he noted.

Gotta love this town!

Should Lawyers Tell Jokes?

That's the question raised by the above video appearing on a new YouTube-like site for lawyers called LegalTube.

Ok, it's mildly funny but am I missing something? Is this supposed to be a marketing tool?

I'll stick with Carlin for now.

Then there's this profile of Doral lawyers Michael Wermuth and Ricardo Gonzalez from today's Herald. It's part of a new series by Herald writer Doug Hanks designed to highlight any discernible glimmers of recovery in the current dismal economic environment -- he's calling it "Green Shoots."

I'm not sure you can draw any broad conclusions for the general marketplace from the experience of these lawyers, or even whether you can apply it more specifically to the South Florida legal community as a whole.

Basically these guys, who seem like good lawyers, have a real estate, business and transactional practice, much of it coming from South America, and as the economy soured they continued to bill a lot but collections fell off.

Now, however, collections are on the rise:

For Gonzalez and Wermuth, cutting the firm's collections list has given them hope that the businesses they represent are shifting attitudes, too. Outstanding bills have dropped from 75 percent of billed hours to about 25 percent.

Instead of sensing disaster ahead, the lawyers say, their clients see some hope of new profits.

``It's not like all of a sudden we have another bull run,'' Wermuth said. ``But at least people made the adjustments they needed to make.''

``They cut down their costs,'' Gonzalez added. ``They cut down their overhead. Now ``they're looking for opportunities.''

Does that translate to the legal community as a whole, or beyond? I hope so, but we would need a lot more data beyond a few anecdotes to make even an educated guess.

All we know for sure is Alan Becker says 2009 is "stable," so that's pretty much a lock. Time to trade up my Porsche!

Settlements: Sometimes A Good Thing.

The always intrepid Julie Kay gets to the bottom of the $4.9 million malpractice verdict against Becker & Poliakoff.

Apparently, Becker & Poliakoff stepped in to pursue malpractice claims against Ruden McClosky:

The roots of the discrimination case began when Young and 55 other plaintiffs sued BellSouth, alleging failure to promote blacks to management.

Their attorneys at Ruden McClosky settled the case for $1.6 million with BellSouth in 1997, according to an exhibit accompanying the malpractice lawsuit filed against Becker & Poliakoff on behalf of Young. Plaintiffs split $300,000, or about $5,000 each. The plaintiffs later learned the settlement agreement called for Ruden to receive $120,000 a year for four years, enter a consulting agreement with BellSouth and agree to file no employment cases against the company for a year.

Angered by that outcome, the plaintiffs hired Becker & Poliakoff to sue Ruden for malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty.

Ruden settled for $8 million in 2002, and the proceeds were distributed among 54 plaintiffs, according to memos that became part of the court record in Young’s malpractice case against Becker & Poliakoff. Carl Schuster, managing partner of Ruden McClosky, declined comment, citing a confidentiality agreement with all parties.

“We have been sworn to secrecy,” he said. “It’s bad enough that Becker & Poliakoff got hit with a $4.9 million judgment. We have a settlement agreement, and I could be sued for violating it by saying anything.”

So Becker's firm got involved in order to sue Ruden for malpractice, which settled for big money, and then itself got sued for malpractice.

A few things interested me about the story.

One -- B&P's alleged net worth:

Additionally, Palm Beach Gardens forensic economist Bernard Pettingil Jr. testified about Young’s projected wage losses at BellSouth. He estimated Becker & Poliakoff’s revenue for the last five years totaled $49 million per year. Zobel asked for Becker & Poliakoff’s total net worth, which the expert witness estimated to be $10 million.

They're only worth about 10 million, after taking in $49 million per year for the last five years?

Also, consider the settlement negotiations:

In mediation, Becker & Poliakoff offered to settle for $25,000, but Young walked out, Zobel said. A week later, the offer was raised to $100,000. In trial, it rose to $500,000. By closing arguments, Becker & Poliakoff offered $900,000, and Young turned them down, Zobel said in an interview.

Jurors awarded Young $4.9 million, including $4.5 million in punitive damages and $394,000 in lost wages on Sept. 16. The punitive damages are especially harsh for Becker & Poliakoff as malpractice insurance generally does not cover these types of damages.

25k at mediation?

I know it's hard to value punis for settlement purposes, but these are very experienced lawyers and they didn't evaluate and quantify this risk? Or if they did they couldn't bring themselves to offer more than $100k before trial?

I also like Alan's explanation of what went wrong:

“Apparently, the jury did not believe me, the supervising lawyer who no longer works for us and came from Mississippi to testify and the written documents that supported everything we said,” he said. “Instead, they believed a rogue lawyer who had been disbarred.”

Hmm, what exactly do you think that might mean?

Don't Blame Us -- Blame Romeo The "Rogue" Lawyer.

For all you Becker & Poliakoff fans, there is this:

A West Palm Beach woman said she was victimized by BellSouth when she worked for the phone company, and then victimized again by her own attorneys, who messed up her case and hid the mistake from her until it was too late.

A Circuit Court jury on Wednesday agreed and said Becker & Poliakoff, the Hollywood-based law firm which represented her, must pay her $4.5 million for its mistake.

"I just said to myself 'Thank you God because you are the only one I have to thank'," Jackie Young said after hearing the jury verdict in her favor Wednesday. "After all that I've been through I never thought I'd be standing in this place."

Young was one of 54 employees who sued BellSouth in the 1990s alleging racial discrimination against black employees. Eventually a judge dismissed Young's suit in September of 2001 because of errors in the lawsuit filed by Becker & Poliakoff, according to the compliant she later filed against that law firm.

Becker & Poliakoff was founded in 1973 and now has more than 100 attorneys and offices across Florida as well as the Bahamas, France, Israel and the Czech Republic, according to the firm's Web site.

The firm did not tell Young that her case had been thrown out until October of 2002. By then it was too late for Young to fix the problems in the suit and refile it, so her claim against BellSouth was permanently dismissed with no avenue to appeal in the future, according to Young's attorney, Craig Zobel.

Zobel said the fact that it took a year for Young's attorneys to tell her about the case being dismissed was not a simple oversight.

During that time they settled the overall class action lawsuit with BellSouth and collected $2.9 million in attorney's fees. Young said that if she had known how her attorneys had made mistakes in her case, she would have told other plaintiffs to dismiss Becker & Poliakoff and the case would not have been settled.

"They were chasing a lot of money and they let her slip through the cracks," Zobel said.

Alan Becker, however, says it was all the fault of a "rogue" lawyer:

A senior partner at the firm, Alan Becker, issued a statement after the verdict saying it was the fault of the specific lawyer who handled the case, Thomas Romeo, not the law firm.

Becker said Romeo was a "rogue lawyer who filed this case without authority and contrary to his supervisor's clear direction. Unbeknownst to the firm and his colleagues, the case was filed and dismissed due to his error. Mr. Romeo purposely hid that information from all parties."

Becker said Romeo was later fired from the law firm and disbarred. Romeo was disbarred in 2003, according to the Florida Bar.

Ok, but what about the $2.9 in attorneys' fees that the firm collected? Did Romeo hide that too?

Despite whatever happened with this rogue Romeo, I'm sure Alan feels tremendous sympathy for the poor victim:

"We disagree with the verdict blaming the firm for (Romeo's) rogue behavior and we believe the damages are excessive," Becker said in his statement. "We will appeal."

Hey, even sympathy has limits.

Postcards From Europe (They Write Letters....)

Joining the illustrious list of attorneys who for some reason write letters to the Miami Herald, we now have Alan Becker:

Criticism of Gov. Charlie Crist's trip to Europe is unfair. There is a reason that I and other Florida business leaders travel, at our own expense, on Team Florida missions: They help create investment and jobs in Florida. Economic development is not part of the state's problems; it is part of the solution to a declining economy.

These trips are not junkets. Meetings begin early and run well into the night. It is an exhausting schedule, but worth it.

In fact, they are so exhausting that $320 in electric fans were required to properly modulate the temperature of the Governor's face as he inked mega deals that would benefit all Florida residents:

This particular trip resulted in millions of dollars in sales of Florida products and services. Crist held discussions with companies that will expand or invest for the first time in Florida, creating jobs.

Oh goody! Well, that does seem worth it then. Ok, let's see what Alan submits in terms of evidence of the direct casual relationship between the overseas trip and the resulting millions of dollars of sales of Florida products and services:

...crickets chirping.....

Darn editors! Why does the Herald always leave all the good stuff on the cutting room floor?