Dan Gelber Won the AG Election?

Well, according to Palm Beach County, he did:

Dan Gelber may not have won the race to become Florida's Attorney General, but Palm Beach County's official Guide to Services says he did.

The 88-page book, which includes names and phone numbers for county and state offices, lists Gelber as the state's attorney general, even though Pam Bondi defeated the former democratic state senator in November.

"We have apologized," said Lisa De La Rionda, the county's public affairs director. "We recognize our mistake."

The county printed 35,000 copies of the services guide. About 13,000 have been distributed since it was printed last year, county officials said.

Although the name is wrong, the guide lists the correct phone number for the attorney general's office in Tallahassee.

So at least the guide has that going for it.

BTW, this thing costs the county $27k to produce.

Simple question -- why?

Why spend that much money (and get it wrong) when the entire enterprise has been superseded by a Google search?

As they say....follow the money.

Oh well, enjoy the commercials and intermittent violent ground acquisition, kids!

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.

Trust Me, Dan Gelber Likes Jews!

It seems every lawyer I know has been sending me emails about this scurrilous attack by Karl Rove and Citizen United's unholy love child, the "Committee for Florida's Education Inc.," that alleges Dan Gelber -- a mensch by any measure and I can vouch for this personally -- is somehow anti-Semitic.

It's too bad Dan is a down-ticket candidate in an election where a bunch of yahoos are apparently going to get elected, but this latest attack is just simply beyond the pale.

Here's an excerpt from the attachment to the email making the rounds among lawyers on Dan's behalf:

If  this “Committee” were truly interested in providing access to Jewish education for needy children, they could have accomplished that with all the money it is spending to finance these defamatory pieces.  But, of course, the purpose of these flyers is not to ensure “access to Jewish education for needy children.”   They were bought with undisclosed, anonymous money in an effort to get Senator Gelber’s opponent, Pamela Bondi elected. 

Not true, Ms. Bondi?  Then renounce these despicable practices immediately.  The Attorney General is supposed to do justice.  To allow such lies to stand unchallenged while you reap their political benefit without absorbing their taint is unworthy of a person who would presume to lead our state’s highest law enforcement office.  Your deafening silence on this issue speaks poorly for your sense of justice and your candidacy.

The more worrisome issue is what do these big money GOP guys have in mind with Ms. Bondi?

We may have the unfortunate honor in this election cycle of catapulting two Palinesqe rock stars into national orbit.

But that's why we love our silly State!

Fort Lauderdale Attorney Jim Lewis Wants to Make Us (Legal) Potheads!

Well maybe I'm not reading that quite right, but my eyes are a little puffy at the moment and I've still got some residuals from last night's Dylan concert:

Relatively unknown as a candidate in the race to become Florida’s next Attorney General, Fort Lauderdale attorney Jim Lewis has announced he’s calling for Florida to take a step beyond simply decriminalizing marijuana for medical use, saying in press release Tuesday that he will seek the legalization of marijuana (in what is widely considered to be the state that ranks number one for highly potent, indoor-grown pot) should he be elected.

Jim even has some "science" and stuff to support his wacky views:

He added that studies have shown marijuana isn’t physically addictive and there are no documented cases of people dying from marijuana abuse. “I think some of the people using drugs like Oxycontin are using them because marijuana is illegal, and I think we’d be saving some lives,” he said.

A report by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission in July found that 5 percent of all deaths in 2009 were attributable to prescription drug use, far outnumbering those caused by illegal substances, and that Oxycodone, the generic version of the Purdue Pharma brand name prescription pain-killer OxyContin, was the cause of 1,185 state deaths in 2009, a 26-percent increase from the year before and a whopping 249-percent increase from 2005.

What say you, dashing Dan Gelber or "law and order" Pam Bondi?

Guess we can ask them both at the DCBA luncheon tomorrow (btw, what happened to Jim's invite?)

The Paminator.

I actually think it's a good nickname:

In the e-mail, Howard suggested that Bondi hire the firm if she wins the race.
``Told me at church today she will use us for consumer protection if she wins,'' Howard wrote on Nov. 22, 2009. ``She plans to announce this week I think, but u would know more than me as usual.''
Both Howard and Bondi now insist such a conversation never took place.
In a brief phone conversation, Howard said: ``There was never any talk about retaining our law firm.''
He said Bondi made no such offer.

``No, she never did. Absolutely not,'' he said in an e-mail reply.

I'm not following Howard's explanation.  If Bondi didn't make such an offer, then why does the email indicate that she did?

Can someone shed some light on this?

Oh hail, I'm voting for one of the Ds anyway.