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!

3d DCA Watch -- Time to Start a New Book!

Sorry I'm a bit late this morning, as it took some time for me to get through all the 3d DCA opinions published today.

Actually, not all the opinions, just one -- Payne v. City of Miami, which is only 134 pages long!

By way of comparison, it recently took me about a week to finish John Steinbeck's The Pearl, a brilliant, under appreciated novel that is some thirty pages less than the 3d's latest magnum opus.

Is it fair to compare the two?

Well, they're both about fishermen along the river, but that's pretty much where the comparison ends

For those keeping score, Judge Gersten's dissent starts at page 59, and Judge Wells' dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc begins at page 72.

Happy trails!

CDC Builders v. Riviera Almeira:

Judge Freeman gets reversed, and the 3d helps out with some public policy:

This Court is well aware of the impact this decision could have on the construction industry as a whole. If we were to agree with the trial court, the purpose of liens would be undercut as liens could be subject to attack for inaccuracies or simple mathematical errors. This is not what the legislature intended when it enacted the construction lien law, and therefore it is not an outcome this Court can allow.

Inaccurate or math-deficient contractors, your Christmas present has arrived early!

Empire World Towers v. CDR Creances:

My pal Robert Kuntz beats my other pal Marcos Jimenez on a Motion to Vouch.

Hold on -- what the hail is a motion to vouch?

Samantha Ruiz Cohen and Monica Gordo Receive Rousing Anti-Gay Anti-Endorsement!

I think it was ole Honest Abe who once said "[p]oliteness costs so little."

With that in mind, a tipster passed along this exceedingly polite anti-endorsement for judicial candidates Samantha Ruiz Cohen and Monica Gordo, apparently by the editor of something called El Nuevo PATRIA:

Voter Alert: UNQUALIFIED MIAMI-DADE JUDICIAL CANDIDATES

TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY:

Samantha Ruiz Cohen and Monica Gordo, both candidates for judge in Miami-Dade County, sought and received the endorsement of the extremist homosexualist hate group, "SAVE-Dade."

This is the same anti-Life, anti-Family, anti-God homosexualist group that vehemently opposed the Florida
Marriage Protection Amendment defining civil marriage as the union of one man and one women, and that continues to fanatically attack Florida's Adoption Law that protects abandoned and orphaned children from falling into the hands of admitted homosexuals via adoption.

Both Samantha Ruiz Cohen and Monica Gordo know perfectly well that the homosexualist group in question is an admitted extremist, Liberal hate group and yet they met with them and gladly ACCEPTED their endorsement, i.e., their kiss of death! This speaks volumes about their lack of integrity and judicial temperament!

Furthermore, ANY group calling itself "Conservative" and asking the public to support a homosexualist candidate is perpetrating a FRAUD and SCAM on the public. Do not be misled or deceived!

El Nuevo PATRIA, the oldest Cuban Exile anticommunist and anti-Liberal newspaper in Florida, wants you to know and make an informed decision when you vote next Tuesday, August 24th.

Orphans "falling into the hands of admitted homosexuals" -- I like the imagery!

Also "admitted extremist, Liberal hate group" -- really, is there any other kind?