Your Friday Morning Digital Dump!

Hi there, that was some debate last night!

Anyone else notice how much water Paul Ryan drank?

He's obviously following the P90X nutritional plan to a tee:

In all of the phases eating frequent small meals and drinking lots of water are emphasized.

Where were the celery sticks?  (Biden probably would have chomped them right out of Ryan's hands.)

In other news, DBR reporter Deb Espana reports on law students doing good things:

A Guatemalan teenager who came to the United States with his parents when he was 11 is attending a magnet high school focusing on law studies and dreams of becoming a Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

He is a senior at the Law Enforcement Officers Memorial High School in Miami and seeking admission to West Point.

But because of his status as an undocumented immigrant, he has been unable to take any jobs and faces other limitations as a noncitizen.

To help children and young adults like him, Florida International University College of Law has joined forces with the law schools at the University of Miami and St. Thomas University to handle applications under a change in immigration policy by President Barack Obama. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program allows the deferral of removal for immigrant students and young adults.

Call me crazy, but don't you just love stories like this?

Meet the Herald's newest columnist, Florida Supreme Court Justice James E.C. Perry: 

Make no mistake. It’s not just about the Florida Supreme Court justices and appellate court judges on the ballot. It’s much bigger than that. The integrity of the entire judicial branch — and therefore, the overall balance of our state’s government — is in play.

Look at it this way: Will Florida Supreme Court Justices and appellate court judges in the future hesitate to make difficult decisions that they believe are required of them if their colleagues have been voted out of office for doing just that?

You be the judge.

Not bad, Your Honor -- and already a huge improvement on Garvin!

Finally, this guy is building a practice focusing exclusively on e-discovery: 

Teppler is now going where few other attorneys on the Gulf Coast are, by hyper-focusing his practice on a rare new section of the law: electronic discovery. The concentration isn’t only counterintuitive. It’s also timely, in that the Florida Supreme Court recently adopted seven new rules of civil procedure specific to electronic data discovery in state courts.

The rules are supposed to make the e-discovery process clearer, more specific and more efficient. The rules, which also spell out how judges can sanction attorneys in e-discovery matters, were adopted in July and went into effect Sept. 1.

The trick now is to ensure attorneys, and by extension, their clients, are fully aware of the changes. “There are some landmines (in e-discovery) that can trip up attorneys, to the detriment of clients,” Teppler says. “Attorneys know how to handle technology — kind of. But when it comes to litigation, they are at a disadvantage.”

Right, like I had to ask my kid last night how to change my default settings in iTunes.  He told me to stick my metadata where the sun don't shine.

The children really are our future!

 more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/11/3045785_p2/in-florida-separation-of-powers.html#storylink=cpy

3d DCA Watch -- School Daze Edition!

What a treat -- the bunker denizens will be heading to UM to play Ultimate on the lawn, get soused at the Rat, and TP a few sorority houses....

What?

Actually, I'm advised that this is the Court's official position on the visit:

On February 10, 2012, the Court will hear Oral Argument at the University of Miami Law School, Newman Alumni Center, 6200 San Amaro Drive, Coral Gables, 33146.

Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.

Onward:

Aronson v. Aronson:

In this opinion Judge Shepherd "reasons inductively."

Demchak v. Davia:

In a fraudulent inducement suit over the value of a house, do you need to sell the house to establish your damages?

Judge Ramirez says no; Judge Shepherd says yes.

(Question -- can't expert testimony serve as a basis?)

See you crazy kids on campus!

UM Law Grad Challenges Girlfriend to Naked Sword Fight?

Meet Rockledge, Florida attorney Terry Lee Locy, a UM Law grad with a self-proclaimed "intensely aggressive" style of litigation:

Terry L. Locy possesses an energetic, articulate, innovative, but most importantly, an intensely aggressive style of litigation that often leaves his opponents fuming and courtroom onlookers entertained and wanting more. In just three short years after graduation from law school, this attorney has built a thriving law practice in Central Florida with ambitions for further expansion. 

Terry is energetic alright, just ask his girlfriend:

A graduate of the University of Miami law school was arrested this week in Cocoa Beach after allegedly threatening to kill his girlfriend in a naked sword duel.

"You're going to need this," a nude Terry Lee Locy, 36, said to his live-in girlfriend as he handed her a sword, according to an arrest report from the Brevard County Sheriff's Office.

The couple had been arguing about Locy's alleged excessive drinking early Wednesday morning, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by Florida Today, when Locy took a mirror off a wall and raised it as if to strike his girlfriend.

The woman took the mirror hook from the wall and flung it at Locy, accord to the police report, causing a cut to his head.

Locy then took a shower and emerged naked to challenge his girlfriend to a duel, police say.

 See, this is an example of where Roy Black's suggestion for improving UM's legal education comes in -- if they would just spend less time on esoteric academic flights of fancy, and more time on courtroom skills and sword duels, we'd be producing not only more skilled attorneys but also better sword duelists.

BTW, I think the pre-duel shower ritual is a nice touch -- say what you want about Terry, but this is clearly a man who cares about personal hygiene.

3d DCA Watch -- On the Road Again.

 

It's pretty exciting that the 3d DCA is taking their act on the road, in concert for a special one-night-only performance at UM's beautiful Storer Auditorium.

The 3d even provided a nice map with the building clearly identified with a big orange arrow.

The event will take place February 11th, which allows just enough time to get the building 3d DCA-ready in accordance with their detailed 11-page contract rider, which specifies the usual extensive site bunkerization, lukewarm coffee, careful placement of donated antique exercise equipment into various mechanical and storage rooms, heavily bolted down restroom facilities and of course showers, lots and lots of showers.

However, because moving trucks and roadies have already begun preparations for the big show (I understand Chief Judge Ramirez has specifically requested use of the Grateful Dead's massive quadrophonic Wall of Sound PA system), the 3d unfortunately has had absolutely no time to issue any new civil opinions this week.

Sorry about that, but priorities are priorities.

Above you can see some of the details on that epic Wall of Sound system -- say what you will, but these judges are true audiophiles!

UM Law Student's Tale of Woe

University of Miami School of Law 3L Todd Sussman is about to graduate and isn't all that happy:

I'd always thought about becoming a lawyer, so I started applying to law schools and chose to attend the University of Miami. At first I hesitated to attend a private institution because of their high tuition rates especially in a city like Miami where life can be expensive, but I'm from South Florida and I wanted to be close to home. I wasn't sure how I would pay for it all so I looked into student loans. The financial aid office at UM was very helpful and was able to help me get the money I needed for tuition and living expenses while in school. I knew I would have to pay the money back eventually, but I thought about the earning potential I would have as a lawyer and didn't think I would have any problems paying those loans back. Unfortunately, my plan didn't involve an economic recession.

Now here I stand three months from graduating, $180,000 in debt and no prospects of a job after graduation. I've started reaching out to everyone I know in hopes of finding something to pay the bills after I graduate, but no luck so far.

This is a tough time to be entering the South Florida legal market, though we've been there a few times before.

Todd doesn't write about how he did in school, what he was doing over the summers, and what specific efforts he has made while in school to get a job.

I have to assume he didn't work at a BigLaw firm over the summer, so he's probably not going to be hired by one of them anytime soon.

(Not that they're doing so hot anyways -- H&K is reporting revenue down 10 percent and a 9 percent lawyer reduction with 70 layoffs).

That means hit the pavement, talk to the ham-and-schleppers, expand your options well beyond South Florida, look to teaching, part-time hourly, public service, and other alternatives to traditional post-grad legal entry positions.

Who knows, maybe one of you big-time machers who read this crappy blog will give Todd a hand?

Dean Hausler Continues Effort to Collect Assets From Cuban Government

You may recall the continuing efforts by Roberto Martinez, on behalf of longtime and beloved UM Law School Dean Hausler, to collect on a default judgment against the Cuban government relating to the 1960 torture and death of her brother Bobby Fuller.

The latest twist is a case recently removed and pending before Judge King in which Dean Hausler seeks to garnish funds allegedly retained by Tata Communications, a telecommunications company. Tata is represented by Michael Higer.

You can read the docket here.

Michael's answer (filed in state court before removal) asserts that the plaintiffs bear the burden and have not shown that ETECSA -- the telecommunications provider in Cuba -- is an instrumentality of the Cuban government and, even if it was, his client owes no money to it.

Higer also asserts that this case is entirely different than the Hausler I, the case brought against telephone provider EmtelCuba, in which there was no dispute that EmtelCuba was an agent or instrumentality of the Cuban government, and thus subject to garnishment for a judgment against the Cuban government.

The answer asserts that the extant evidence indicates that ETECSA is owned by Dutch, Italian, Panamanian and Cuban companies and thus would not be an agent or instrumentality of the Cuban government under existing law.

That seems like a tough sell, but who knows?

You can see some wonderful photos of Dean Hausler here.

UM's Foreclosure Fellowship Program Gets National Attention

It's nice to see a good idea reach fruition, as is the case with UM Law Professor Michael Froomkin's Foreclosure Fellowships, which received national attention in this Time article:

That specter of judicial paralysis helped spur UM law professor Michael Froomkin to create the foreclosure defense program. It places fledgling attorneys like Paschal with legal aid service organizations to help tackle the backlog of cases — more than 50,000 foreclosure filings so far this year in Miami-Dade County alone. Many homeowners don't know what legal defenses are available to them as they battle lenders to keep their properties — or at least make foreclosure less painful, and costly. "Potentially, one of the most significant [defenses] is that the lender, because so many home loans were securitized during the housing boom, often doesn't even know who owns the mortgage anymore," says Froomkin. That, he adds, could throw into question the lender's right to bring the foreclosure case in the first place.

Carolina Lombardi, senior attorney at Legal Services of Greater Miami Inc., which is mentoring some of the UM fellows, says foreclosure defendants also need attorneys to help them fend off all too frequent lender practices such as exorbitant escrow claims. "Homeowners who have lawyers are usually prevailing in those cases," says Lombardi. But she notes that unless homeowners fall below the federal poverty line ($22,000 for a family of four), they can't qualify for the free legal aid that agencies like hers provide. That creates an obstacle for most foreclosure defendants, who aren't impoverished but, due to job loss and other circumstances that brought them to the brink of losing their home, often can't afford a lawyer.

Another impediment is foreclosure law itself, a bureaucratically convoluted field worthy of a Dickens novel. "It's a labor-intensive area of practice," says Paschal. "It involves a ton of paperwork." Yet another is the relatively low pay attorneys usually reap from defending foreclosure clients. Melanca Clark, counsel at the Brennan Center and co-author of this month's study, urges Congress and state legislatures to create incentives, like more funding for foreclosure legal representation, that "level the playing field" against lenders and their comparatively well paid lawyers. Restrictions on government funding for legal services should be relaxed, she says, especially rules that don't let victorious foreclosure defendants collect attorney fees, as prevailing parties in most other kinds of civil litigation do. "We need structural reforms as badly as we need more [foreclosure defense] lawyers," says Clark.

The Professor also points to this NYT article from Saturday on how some judges are holding banks' feet to the fire on producing the underlying mortgage documents, which in one case led a federal judge to dismiss a claim based on a securitized mortgage where the alleged assignee could not provide proof that it owned the underlying note, effectively wiping out a $461k debt.

I'm fine with all that, provided the Judge who dismissed the case did so without the slightest hint of compassion.

Limos for Everyone?

Several in-the-know readers have passed along an incendiary anonymous memo making the rounds among administrators and trustees regarding financial mismanagement at the University of Miami.

Thanks folks, but I'm not touching it -- it's even too hot for your humble crappy (lawsuit-averse) blogger.

Instead, let's regale over Greenberg's request for an incentive award of $4 million on top of their $20 million in fees for handling the Southeast Bank bankruptcy. Those greedy plaintiffs' lawyers!

(Young ones, Southeast Bank was something big and powerful that existed a long, long time ago, like dinosaurs and David Paul).

And get a load of this hilarous column by Virginia Heffernan in which she finds that online commenters to Anne Applebaum's NYT column are pretty much uninformed, mean-spirited, anti-semitic, sexist pigs.

In other words, dog bites man:

Commenters, in short, rarely really sock it to a columnist. They also too often go automatic, churning out 100-word synopses of one stock ideological position after another. But most disappointing of all, for readers, is that commenters don’t, as literary critics say, read an article against itself to show how, for example, an argument framed as incendiary is in fact banal, or one that’s meant to be feminist is retrogressive, or one that touts its originality is a knockoff.

Instead, paradoxically, commenters frequently reiterate Applebaum’s own arguments in the service of their would-be critiques. Last year, for instance, when Applebaum described her newfound disillusionment with John McCain, whom she supported for president in 2000, many commenters criticized her bygone support for McCain by doing little more than rehashing her new case against him, which she had just presented.

This echo-chamber effect is unpleasant, and it makes it hard to keep listening for the clearer, brighter, rarer voices nearly drowned out in the online din.

I immediately thought of the comments posted on the Miami Herald website. Can you imagine if someone took the time to break those down? Oy, oy, and triple-oy.

I meant to put this up Friday, but it's a slow news day so enjoy this silver lining from our friend, Mr. Deepening Recession.

Other tips always welcome!