Thursday Digital Dump!

Hi kids, here's what is clogging up my ability to play words with friends all day:

1.  Rodier & Rodier to former client David Cassidy --  I don't think I love you:

Aging Fort Lauderdale heartthrob David Cassidy is getting sued yet again for not paying his bills – and this time, it’s for attorney’s fees!

The Partridge Family’s star and singer, 63, is being sued by the Broward County law firm of Rodier & Rodier, who represented Cassidy when he was sued for contract indebtedness in 2007.

The lawsuit, brought by a neighbor who owned a race horse with Cassidy, was settled in 2011. Terms were confidential.

But Cassidy was ordered to pay for his own legal bills – totaling more than $134,000!
Two years later, Cassidy has yet to make good on the debt, and now he’s being sued.

Always get a large retainer from aging rock stars, I always say!

2.  Turns out banks don't always do the right thing, according to DBR reporter PIA (that's Paola Iuspa-Abbott, a great scrabble word btw!).

3.   Adolfo Pesquera reports on the Florida Bar's investigation of JAABlog's William Gelen and our joint statement condemning same.

4.  Richard Shuler on the value of "Public Citizen":

I cannot tell you how many times the most ardent hardline defense attorney has called me to say: “My mother just lost her life savings in an investment scam; can you help her?” or “My father just died as a result of an accident or medical malpractice; can you help us?”

Because of abusive and unconstitutional arbitration clauses that corporations seek to use as a shield against accountability or the Anti-Consumer Medical Malpractice Act, it may be impossible to provide justice. Folks need to realize that their own liberties and rights hang in the balance.

The organization known as “Public Citizen” can make them aware of this reality.

5.  All hail General Zod!

(I've long argued the dude is due for a comeback).

 

Joint Post by Justice Building, South Florida Lawyers, and Southern District of Florida Blogs!

You lose your rights, not with a bang, but with a whimper. One small encroachment after another. A bureaucrat pushes the edges here, a prosecutor challenges the boundaries in a few cases there. No one says or does anything and then you look up and suddenly a cherished right is gone. 

Nothing is more insidious and dangerous to our constitutional rights than a bureaucrat who, under the cover of a government agency, seeks to intimidate someone. That is why the letters we have posted  from the Florida Bar to attorney and blogger William Gelin have so alarmed us:the bloggers who run the Justice Building Blog, the South Florida Lawyers Blog, and the Southern District of Florida Blog.

WIlliam Gelin runs the JAA Blog which covers the Broward County Courthouse. To Mr. Gelin's credit he has never sought to hide his identity as the lawyer behind the blog. As a blogger who has openly challenged the way things are done in Broward, Mr. Gelin has courageously taken on numerous people in Broward County, including judges. Now, apparently after a series of posts about two Judges in West Palm Beach and Broward County, (ironically) anonymous bar complaints have prompted the Bar to send Mr. Gelin letters seeking him to admit or deny his involvement in the JAA Blog. 

We as the legal blogging community in Miami view these letters as an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and freedom of speech. The letters are chilling, and will have a chilling affect on the free speech of lawyers. Judges are invested with responsibilities and powers and all too often those powers cloud their judgment. The ability of lawyers to freely comment on a Judge represents an important check on those powers. The ability of citizens to write about the issues of the day has a long and storied history in our country. James Madison anonymously published many of the federalist papers under the pseudonym Publius in the local newspapers of the time. Blogging, anonymous and otherwise, serves a similar purpose. 

The Florida Bar's letters to Mr. Gelin amount to both a fishing expedition and a veiled threat for him to stop criticizing Judges from the pages of his blog.  We jointly condemn the letters the Bar has written, and stand behind our colleague in this matter. That is why all three blogs have taken the unprecedented step of running this post simultaneously.We urge our readers to voice their support of Mr. Gelin by writing to the Bar to condemn the actions of the Bar Counsel in this case. 

Thank you. 

Justice Building Blog

South Florida Lawyers

Southern District of Florida Blog

Shoot The Messenger

I'm glad I don't have to go to Broward court all that often.

When I do, I find the usual annoyances -- parking, getting in, the meshuga elevator system, crowded/dysfunctional courthouse, lawyers wearing ratty tan blazers, some of the judges.....

One thing I don't often (ever?) think about -- JAABlog's poisonous effect on the Broward judicial system.

Apparently, however, others do:

Contributing to the tumult, Campbell said, was the Internet and people who post anonymous comments railing against judges.

He did not refer to specific Internet sites or blogs, but JAABLOG, a courthouse gossip blog that highlights judicial missteps and encourages lawyers to run for judge, has become a popular forum for anonymous, critical – sometimes racist – comments about judges.

“We have people using the Internet as a means of communication to force humiliation on people they may disagree with,” Campbell said. “We cannot allow this humiliation to continue, and I believe that’s one source of our problems at the Broward County Courthouse.”

Exactly -- a key "source" of the problems in Broward has finally been identified!

I love Skip, but on this he's a bit off base.

I'm pretty sure racism and humiliation can be found just about anywhere on the internet, and sometimes even around us in real life.

And talk about misplaced priorities.

Can anyone really say, in the wake of the Rothstein debacle, that one of the core problems with the Broward legal system is the existence of a bunch of dips*#t commenters on a blog?

If so, Broward's in worse shape than I thought.

Time For Yet Another Blogger Ethics Panel!

Our friends in Broweird, already awash in facacta "investigations," may have another one on their hands, as reported by the always-excellent Bob Norman.

This one, at least, (finally) has some naughty bits:

Local attorney Barbara Heyer, who happens to be the wife of Broward County Judge Marc Gold, sent an oh-so serious letter -- with "exhibits," mind you -- to JAABlog administrator Bill Gelin that basically accused Gelin, a lawyer, of violating the Florida Bar by posting the racy photograph (shown at right) on his blog.

Heyer wrote that she was "dismayed to see the display of a nude woman in a very suggestive and demeaning position" on the blog on April 23. The latter day Queen Victoria continues:

"As you are a member of the Florida Bar, perhaps you need to be reminded that we have certain obligations to the Public and the legal community. Let me refer you to Rule 4-8.4(d), which states, in pertinent part, that a lawyer will not: 'engage in conduct in connection with the practice of law that is prejudicial to the administration of justice, including to knowingly, or through callous indifference, disparage, humiliate, or discriminate against litigants, jurors, witnesses, court personnel, or other lawyers on any basis ... on account of race, ethnicity, gender ..."

Heyer, who added the emphasized text, also wrote that "dozens, if not hundreds, of vile comments that have appeared on your blog serve only to embarrass our profession."

The implication is clear here, but it's ridiculous. That photograph didn't humiliate or disparage any lawyers. And don't you just love the way these folks who fear JAABlog always act like their profession is so pure and virtuous? Such high-minded rhetoric might pass the smell test in a meeting of lawyers, but the public damn well knows better.

First question -- is posting to a blog "conduct in connection with the practice of law"?

Second question -- doesn't "knowingly or through callous indifference" mean anything?

Third question -- the letter's a bit much, no?

To the Blogger From the North:

Stay gold, Gelin-boy, stay gold.

Time For A Blogger Ethics Panel!

With all the crazy and sometimes illegal doings in Broward lately, I can't believe the Broward County Bar Association has decided to devote time and effort to investigating a blog:

A Broward County Bar Association committee will meet to determine whether the legal blog JAABlog — the premiere place for courthouse gossip — meets its professional standards.

The professionalism committee plans to hold a closed-door meeting April 1 at the behest of association president Carlos Llorente.

JAABlog, run by criminal defense attorney Bill Gelin, posts quick takes on courthouse flaps, urges lawyers to run for election against incumbents, rails against a planned courthouse and calls for reform in a system that imprisons a disproportionate number of black people.

Since the blog’s launch in 2006, Gelin has become a fixture at high-profile hearings and meetings. He said he has not been told whether he will be allowed to attend the committee meeting.

Llorente said he did not really pay attention to the blog until he learned its comment section was populated by anonymous posts, ostensibly from the site’s heaviest readership: lawyers and judges.

The association’s rules of professional standards state lawyers are not allowed to criticize judges, opposing counsel, parties or witnesses because it could cast the justice system in a bad light.

Does this strike anyone else as slightly bone-headed?

Here's the proferred explanation:

“I have no problem with him being a journalist,” Llorente said. “If he wants to be an expose-type journalist, so be it. But do it as a journalist. Don’t pose as a lawyer with an inside knowledge.”

When asked what is specifically offensive about the blog, Llorente said he would withhold comment until he hears from the professionalism committee.

Oy.

Let me offer a prediction: by convening such a panel the BCBA likely will do more to discredit and denigrate their own organization than anything some goofball could ever post anonymously on a blog.