By DONNA BALANCIA, The Florida Law Journal ORLANDO -- It took many years for the College of Law at Florida A&M University to receive its accreditation by the American Bar Association, but Dean LeRoy Pernell said his real work is just beginning. Pernell said he and his staff have set goals to achieve in order to continue to improve. Recruiting, bar examination preparation and community outreach, are markers Pernell says the law school must hit. "We're building a financially strong foundation and were able to provide a source of legal education for students who want to take advantage of that here," Pernell said. "But more importantly, were moving towards providing a major resource for the county both in terms of regional interaction with the bench and bar and providing intellectual resources for the community and our nation." FAMUs accreditation by the ABA, which it … [Read more...]
Employment expert: E-discovery among hot hiring areas
MIAMI -- Employment for attorneys is looking strong approaching 2011, particularly in the areas of e-discovery, labor and employment, intellectual property, and litigation, according to a prominent legal employer. Miami-based Charles Volkert, executive director of Robert Half Legal, said that while the economy is still rocky, the legal field is hanging tough with just under 2 percent unemployment nationally. Support staffers in law are seeing 4 percent unemployment across the country. Volkert said research done by his employment firm indicates: -- 33 percent lawyers surveyed planned to hire -- 2 percent planned to cut -- 83 percent of respondents are confident growth What were seeing is an uptick in legal hiring, Volkert said. Were seeing an increase in full-time hiring as well as use of part-time and temporary employees. Volkert said companies are hiring on the … [Read more...]
Shareholders Suit v. BankAtlantic Bancorp Moves Ahead
BankAtlantic Bancorp executives duped investors into buying the bank's shares at an inflated price by lying about the riskiness of its real-estate-loan portfolio during 2007's economic downturn, a lawyer told jurors in a Miami federal court Wednesday. Officials of the Fort Lauderdale bank ignored lending guidelines in approving land-development loans and then sought to hide the losses to prop up the institution's stock price, Mark Arisohn, a lawyer representing disgruntled BankAtlantic shareholders, said in closing arguments in the trial of investors' securities-fraud lawsuit. BankAtlantic's defense attorney countered that executives didn't foresee the collapse of Florida's real-estate market in the fallout over subprime mortgages and alerted investors to problems within the bank's loan portfolio when they became clear. Jurors, who have heard five weeks' worth of testimony and … [Read more...]
Senate Republicans Join Lawsuit on Healthcare
GANNETT WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON The Senates top Republican is recruiting colleagues to join him in supporting Floridas challenge to the federal health care reform law. Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky plans to file a brief arguing the new law is unconstitutional because it requires everyone to buy insurance. "For the first time, the Congress is not regulating an economic activity in which its citizens have chosen to engage, but rather is mandating that its citizens engage in economic activity that they purchase a particular product ... and it would punish those who make a different choice," McConnell wrote to his colleagues Tuesday. "I hope you will join me in arguing to the court in the attached brief why that should not happen." The argument closely follows a lawsuit Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum filed in U.S. District Court in Pensacola on behalf of 19 … [Read more...]
Two Florida Members of Congress File Federal Lawsuit on Redistricting Reform
Courtesy of Ballot Access News Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives filed a federal lawsuit to overturn the Florida redistricting measures that passed last week. Seethis story. The two members are Democrat Corrine Brown and Republican Mario Diaz-Balart. The measures do not remove the power to draw district boundaries from the legislature, but they require the legislature to draw plans that do not favor any particular incumbent, and also plans that do not favor any particular political party. The two plaintiffs argue that this violates the Voting Rights Act. The case is Brown v State of Florida, southern district, 1:10-cv-23968. Thanks to Justin Levitt and Rick Hasen for the case name and case number. … [Read more...]
