News and Notes

1. The New York Times reports on Padilla here. The Government has been taking some hits in the press recently on this case and this is another example.

2. "Compensation: Empty-handed": That's the headline in this DBR article about Tom Tew's lawsuit against the Florida bar being dismissed with prejudice in federal court. "About 4,000 asbestos clients of disbarred attorney Louis Robles will have to find another way to recoup the $13.5 million their former lawyer stole from them after a federal judge threw out their claim against The Florida Bar. In an unusual class action suit filed last January, the plaintiffs claimed a security fund maintained by the Bar to compensate clients victimized by dishonest attorneys applied to them, and their claims should be paid in full. The suit argued that the Bar’s failure to pay a lump sum denied the plaintiffs their due process and equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution. But U.S. District Judge Willis B. Hunt Jr. of Georgia disagreed in a dismissal order Dec. 22. He denied the plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice, barring them from re-filing. The judge, who handled the case after the recusal of Miami judges, concluded the 11th Amendment gives the Bar immunity because it is a regulatory arm of the state Supreme Court."