Dave Aronberg Will Take Away Your Happy Pills!

Or something like that:

Former state senator Dave Aronberg of Greenacres is expected to lead a state effort aimed at eliminating unscrupulous pain clinics, or "pill mills."

 Attorney General-Elect Pam Bondi announced today that she will appoint Aronberg as a special counsel in her administration, charging him with leading an intense anti-pill mill initiative.

Aronberg, 39, served in the Florida Senate from 2002 through this year, when he lost a bid for the Democratic nomination for attorney general to state senator Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, who lost to Bondi in November.

I like this.

Dave's a good guy and this is a good cause, plus now he has a job.

It's also encouraging to see new AG Bondi reaching across aisle, something I wasn't quite expecting.

Speaking of happy pills, be careful about what you put in emails -- you could be sanctioned:

Tampa lawyer Nicholas F. Mooney calls his opponent a jerk and a "junior lawyer." Palmetto lawyer Kurt D. Mitchell questions Mooney's mental health. The name-calling continues over six months.

Now the Florida Supreme Court has weighed in, issuing sanctions for both lawyers.

After two complaints by the Florida Bar, Mitchell was suspended for 10 days and was ordered to attend an anger management class. Mooney gets a public reprimand and must take a class on professionalism.

All because the men refused to be civil.

Neither lawyer answered calls for comment or responded to e-mails Thursday. But several e-mail exchanges between them included in the Bar complaints paint a vivid picture of their disagreements.

It started in May 2008. Mitchell was representing a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Volkswagen of America. Mooney was the attorney for the car company.

The two men couldn't agree on the date of a hearing. The first volley came from the 50-year-old Mooney, who addressed his colleague as "Junior."

"Please do not send me any more of these absurd emails. While I am happy to know that you are also the judge in this case, your continued unprofessional & juvenile behavior is not necessary," he writes.

Mitchell, 36, responds in kind: "Old Hack: Your unprofessional and otherwise asinine behavior is not necessary. Learn to litigate professionally and these issues will be avoided."

The issues were not avoided.

This is exceedingly lame.

I love it when lawyers argue about a hearing date, one of those trivial matters that too often serves as the battle ground for practitioners who can't control their ego or id, who have poor self-esteem or anger management issues, or who sometimes are just plain jerks. 

Even worse, writing a snarky, put-down email may allow you a minuscule moment of self-pleasure, but your minute moment of bliss will be memorialized digitally for the rest of your career.

Way to maximize a law degree!

Finally, here's a news flash -- the rich have everything.....except empathy (but you already knew that).

Carry on, childrens.

Gelber v. Aronberg -- Getting Dirty.

I'm not referring to their handsome faces of course.

I mean that accusations are flying and so is the mud as we get closer to the AG primary:

“In his ad, Aronberg calls Gelber a ‘Miami lawyer.’ This is both unseemly and ironic, considering Aronberg was himself a Miami lawyer,” said Christian Ulvert, Gelber‘s campaign manager. “Dave Aronberg should end his outrageous and false attacks on Dan Gelber. Newspapers across the state have overwhelmingly said Dave Aronberg is engaging in a manufactured campaign that is simply dishonest.

This is true -- they were (are?) both "Miami lawyers."

But I don't get why this is a pejorative.

Let's face it kids, Miami is where most of the sophisticated business transactions and litigation occurs in the state, and thus has the most sophisticated bar and judiciary in the state.

Or is that type of exceptionalism "unseemly"?

Gelber vs. Aronberg on BP Resignation

Here's an interesting video that puts together a point-counterpoint from the candidates on Dan Gelber's resignation from Akerman as that firm took on the massive BP Oil Spill defense work.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- Dan was slightly slow off the dime on this issue, and initially offered some weak tea in defense of his original argument that no conflict exists.

So David could certainly raise that as a legitimate issue.

But now that the issue has been resolved, I'm not following David in his continuing pursuit of it.

Could BP move to recuse Dan from the case if he is elected Attorney General?

Not likely in my view.

On the other hand, Dan has a slight case of exaggerated vapors in his reaction to it all, don't you think?

What strikes me, as I listen to Dan explain the timeline, is that it's pretty clear he didn't get much of a heads up from the firm as it aggressively (and successfully) sought out the business.

That's BigFirm life for you.

Aronberg Tars Gelber With "BP's Law Firm"

I've previously criticized my friend Dan Gelber's initial reaction over his firm Akerman getting all the BP Florida work.

Basically, when the news broke Dan did what lots of politicians do (he was joined by several other Akerman state legislators) -- he went into defense mode.

Specifically Gelber argued there was no conflict for two reasons I thought were pretty bogus:

1. He's "of counsel" (a contract lawyer) and therefore doesn't make any more money from the firm receiving the humongous BP business; and

2. The firm would build a "Chinese Wall" and isolate him from any BP work at Akerman.

As I detailed in my original post, both arguments and the conclusion (no conflict) are beyond weak, and to his credit Dan thought better of his initial reaction and left the firm shortly after making his initial comments on the matter.

Apparently, on the same day Dan announced his resignation, his opponent -- also my friend -- Dave Aronberg called for Dan to resign, leading to a predictable pissing match over who should get credit for Dan doing the right thing.

Now Dave has ratcheted it up with a flier that seems a bit over the top:

Aronberg, of Greenacres, recently began using the name of a defunct statewide Democratic group — the Florida Mainstream Democrats — to help raise money for his campaign.

And last week, Aronberg's campaign mailed Democratic voters a flier with a picture of an oily bird to attack Gelber, of Miami Beach, for working at the law firm retained by BP to handle its civil litigation in Florida.

State Rep. Rick Kriseman, the former chairman of Florida Mainstream Democrats, said he was "disappointed" Aronberg was using his group's name.

"It's misleading people," said Kriseman, who closed the political committee earlier this year after struggling to raise enough money.

He also is no fan of the BP ad for much the same reason. In a call that went to Democratic voters this weekend, Kriseman said he was "disappointed and frustrated that Dave Aronberg has sent out to Democratic voters mail pieces which are very misleading and are simply not true. Dan Gelber has been a leader in going after BP for the damage they have caused our communities."

The St. Petersburg Democrat said he had been neutral in the attorney general race, but decided to record the automated phone call for Gelber's campaign after he saw Aronberg's flier.

At least two other Democratic representatives, Luis Garcia of Miami Beach and Keith Fitzgerald of Sarasota, have lent their names to Gelber in opposition to the flier, which tells voters that 80 million gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico before Gelber quit Akerman Senterfitt. It also refers to Gelber has having worked for "BP's law firm."

Ok, now it's Dave's turn for some criticism -- oily birds and "BP's law firm."

Dan might have reflexively defended his Akerman connection when the news first broke -- in fact I suggested Akerman might have thrown him under the bus to go after the BP business -- but days later Gelber did the right thing and it's time to move on.

The flier is beneath Dave's good judgment and I hope we never see another ad like it.

Like I always say, play nice kids!

Dan Gelber and Akerman: Who's Zooming Who?

The always intrepid Julie Kay breaks the slightly late resignation of Dan Gelber from Akerman in the wake of that firm getting the massive BP business:

State Sen. Dan Gelber has resigned his counsel position with Akerman Senterfitt two weeks after saying his firm’s representation of BP was a “non-issue.”

Gelber is joined by state Sen. Joe Negron, who quit Akerman in the last week to join Gunster in West Palm Beach. Two other state lawmakers are still working at Akerman: state Sen. Alex Villalobos and state Rep. Joe Gibbons, a nonlawyer consultant.

Read the letter from Dan Gelber to supporters

Gelber, who now plans to run full-time for Florida attorney general, said he planned to quit immediately after being told by the Daily Business Review that his firm has been hired to represent BP for all Florida civil litigation. “I knew immediately I would have to,” he said. “But it doesn’t happen overnight. I’ve been a lawyer for 25 years. I have a lot of clients to tell.” But Gelber also said it was not an issue since he was of counsel and not an equity partner at Akerman, Florida’s largest law firm. Villalobos, who also is of counsel, agreed and shared a letter he wrote to Akerman’s managing partner, Andrew Smulian, on May 24 asking that the four legislators who work at Akerman be “walled off” from any BP discussions or documents.

As I said, I know and like both of these candidates, and they are eminently qualified and will make terrific AGs.

But Gelber should have immediately tendered his resignation in light of Akerman's retention, and not argued irrelevancies like his of counsel relationship and whatever Chinese Wall his firm thought was high enough to erase any perception of conflict.

And even if he decided last week he had to resign (before Aronberg demanded it), that is one week after the story broke and therefore one week too late. He should have included his resignation in his first public statement on this matter.

But really this episode shows you how little regard Akerman holds for its "of counsel" partners.

When they ran the conflicts check, the issue with Dan obviously came up.

And rather than support their partner and stay on one side of that issue, they seem to have decided that gelt is the better part of valor and the dude running for office will have to deal with the consequences.

Two weeks later, he did.

Conflict? What Conflict?

Julie Kay breaks the story of Akerman representing BP in the Gulf Oil disaster, a huge piece of business worth many millions of dollars.

But there's a little wrinkle:

State Sens. Alex Villalobos and Dan Gelber are taking the lead in calling for a special legislative session to ban offshore drilling in Florida waters.

Yet the two work for Akerman Senterfitt, the law firm that has been retained to handle BP’s oil spill defense work in Florida.

Villalobos and Gelber both said they don’t think there is a conflict in their dual roles as attorneys with the law firm defending BP in court. Two other state legislators at the firm, state Sen. Joe Negron and state Rep. Joe Gibbons — are also of counsel at Akerman.

Villalobos, who chairs the Senate rules committee and sits on the policy and steering committee on energy, environment and land use, wrote to Akerman chairman Andrew Smulian on behalf of the firm’s four legislators on May 24.

He requested that the four be “walled off” and isolated from any “discussions, documents or activities of any kind between the firm and BP.”

He noted the legislators’ “of counsel” status at the firm means they have no ownership stake or access to the firm’s financial records and do not share in firm profits.

“By serving in the ‘of counsel’ relationship, the legislators who are associated with the firm are not involved in any manner with this client nor do we have access to files or information relating to the firm’s representation of BP,” the letter stated.

The problem is that the state is preparing to sue BP.

This would mean that if Dan Gelber is elected Florida's Attorney General, he will be supervising a highly significant piece of litigation against his own firm (or possibly former firm).

Can a Chinese Wall (how anachronistic is that?) and "of counsel" relationship cure that issue?

(Both Dan and Dave Aronberg are buddies and both are immensely qualified btw.)