Judge Hanzman goes old school

Back in the day during the hot summer months in Miami state court, suits were optional.  And most judges shut down entirely in August.  We haven't gone back that far yet, but Judge Hanzman did issue this order, letting lawyers know that they could go business casual during the claims process of the Champlain Towers case (hat tip Rumpole).  Thoughts?

 

Order 7-21-2025 (1) by Anonymous PbHV4H

Congratulations to Magistrate Judge Ryon McCabe

He had his investiture in West Palm Beach last week, and by all accounts, it was a big hit. Congrats!

 

Many Roads Should Lead to the Courthouse

by Michael Caruso 

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with U.S. Attorney Tony Gonzalez to several law students participating in Judge Bloom’s Judicial Internship Academy this summer. Judge Bloom’s efforts are truly a force for good by opening this fantastic opportunity for many more law students. A judicial internship during law school provides students with a direct insight into the judicial process and is a valuable and enriching experience. The students gain practical experience by attending judicial proceedings, performing legal research, and providing other assistance to the judge. During the summer, the internship also exposes the students to practicing lawyers. And, of course, the internships may broaden the future employment opportunities of these students. I found the students to be smart, engaged, and committed. They also happened to be quite diverse.

 

A recent article published in the Notre Dame Law Review Reflection makes the case for diversity in law clerk hiring as “an imperative that basic democratic principles compel. The importance of diversity is not in demographics alone or the legitimacy that may flow from those numbers. Rather, the purpose is to ensure that the judiciary benefits from a range of perspectives that more accurately reflect those who are affected by the law.”

 

According to the article, in 2000, over 90% of all federal appellate judges were white. Today, 77% of federal appellate judges are white. “Although the past twenty-two years have brought modest changes to the racial composition of federal judges, the slight demographic shift has yet to trickle down to the law clerks that staff their chambers. Over time, the voices in those chambers remain increasingly white. In 2006, 74.5% of law clerks were white. In 2019—the most recent data available—that percentage grew to 79%.” 

 

The authors propose several changes to the law clerk hiring system. First, judges should explicitly allow for more fluidity in the application materials they request so that racially diverse applicants can provide more relevant information. Second, the federal judiciary may want to explicitly focus on law clerk hiring and how current markers of achievement are likely to limit the racial diversity of a pool of clerkship applicants. Third, judges may wish to reconsider how they sort through clerkship applicants.

 

Law schools also can make changes to increase the racial diversity of the clerkship pool by making more of an effort to educate students about clerkships early on and to level the playing field for students who may be interested. Relatedly, professors should ensure that they equally offer underrepresented students opportunities. 

 

Current and former law clerks can also help change the clerkship pipeline. Clerks who have gone through the clerkship application and interview process can offer unique insights to diverse applicants and ensure they have as much information as possible. Recently, local Miami lawyer and former law clerk, Chris Lomax organized a “Pathways to Federal Clerkships” event that did just that.

 

The authors conclude: “Judges, lawyers, and law schools must all commit to addressing the lack of diversity among law clerks while being accountable for the part they have to play in the current lack of diversity. Without owning their individual roles in creating this problem or committing to solve it, nothing will truly change—we will continue robotically requesting the same inputs and be dismayed at the same, stale outcomes. We owe it to the future of the profession to do better than what we are doing now.”

 

Judge Bloom and Chris Lomax are doing their part; we all need to step up.

 

The Miami legal maeket is en fuego

 All the big firms are opening shops in the 305.  Chiacgo's Sidley Austin is the latest with a 40 lawyer office.  From Reuters:

  After months of recruiting lawyers from rival firms in Miami, Sidley Austin said on Wednesday it has opened a physical office in the South Florida city that has become a popular spot for large firms' expansion efforts.

Chicago-founded Sidley said it already amassed more than 40 lawyers in Miami through hiring and relocations before formally opening the office.

Lawyers from the firm are currently working out of a temporary space in the city and will move next year into a new office tower in Miami's financial district.

Miami has attracted several other big law firms this year that are following the migration of lawyers and clients in the tech and finance sectors to South Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two other Chicago-founded firms, Kirkland & Ellis and Winston & Strawn, have opened up Miami outposts in recent months. Atlanta-founded King & Spalding and Quinn Emanuel Urqhuart & Sullivan, which was started in Los Angeles, have also planted roots there.

 And Dearest Rumpole, the Verdict is great, but A Few Good Men is better:

'Dobbs' Will Open the Floodgates to Litigation

 That's the title of an op-ed that my oldest daughter Nicole Markus (and I) wrote about Dobbs.  The intro:

My co-author and father was born in 1972, almost 50 years ago. (Sorry, dad). The next year, in 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that the U.S. Constitution protects the right to privacy, which includes the right to have an abortion. A few months ago, someone leaked a draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, suggesting the court was about to overturn Roe and later cases like Planned Parenthood v. Casey (which reaffirmed Roe in 1992).

Dobbs is now official, and the Supreme Court, per Justice Samuel Alito, did not change much from that draft opinion. It is now the law of the land that states can not only prohibit—but affirmatively criminalize—abortion. That means, for example, that if a woman finds out that a fetus will be born without a heart and will die within minutes of birth, a state can force her to remain pregnant for nine months and have the child, only to watch it immediately die. If a state chooses, it can force a 10-year-old rape victim only six weeks pregnant to carry a pregnancy to term (or risk being arrested for traveling to another state, as one such victim allegedly had to do after Ohio’s total ban on abortions took effect in the aftermath of Dobbs).

In Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Dobbs concurrence, he offered the wishful thought that the court is now free from deciding further abortion cases. Boy, was he wrong. It already is clear that Dobbs is going to lead to an avalanche of litigation.

Would love your thoughts.

Judging in Times of Crisis

                                  

Washington Reviewing the Western Army, by Kemmelmeyer, Fred., 1796-99

By John R. Byrne

That's the subject of Judge Altman's forward to the recent issue of the University of Miami Law Review. He covers the role judges have played in various domestic crises, from Justice James Wilson authorizing President Washington to use force to put down the Whiskey Rebellion to Chief Justice Taney's ruling that President Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus--done to facilitate the seizure of a confederate sympathizer--was unconstitutional. Most relevant to our district, he discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic posed its own set of challenges to the judiciary, including how to resolve whether the Court's suspension of grand-jury proceedings meant that defendants indicted after the expiration of the statute of limitations must have those indictments dismissed (Judge Altman and Judge Ruiz held "no" and Judge Middlebrooks "yes"). The Eleventh Circuit is set to weigh in on that issue soon. Interesting read!

RIP Jerry Shargel

 Legendary criminal defense lawyer Gerald Shargel (left, with Bruce Cutler and John Gotti) passed away over the weekend.  From the New York Times:

Mr. Shargel argued that he was no more aggressive in defending his clients than the government was in prosecuting them.

Referring to the extortion and robbery case against John Gotti Jr., a son of the reputed mob boss, he said, “The Government’s campaign reminds me of something that Gregory Scarpa” — a deceased member of the Colombo crime family — “once was heard to say,” he told The New York Times in 1999. “After he killed a particular person, he was heard saying that he hated the guy so much that he wanted to dig him up and kill him again. The Government hates John Gotti, the father, so much that they’re trying him again, through his son.”

“Clients hire me,” he told The New Yorker in a 1994 profile, “because I’ll do anything that the law will allow, without concern for how it’s gonna make me look.”

“6-3 is the new SCOTUS 5-4“

That’s the title of this interesting post by Adam Feldman over at Empirical SCOTUS.  It starts:

What this means? The Court’s most common split vote this term was six justices in the majority and three justices in dissent. The most frequent six justices in the majority were the Court’s conservative justices and the most frequent in the dissent were the three liberal justices.

Why this matters? The Court’s biggest cases came in the 2021/2022 Term came down to this vote. This includes Dobbs (abortion), NY Rifle (guns), Kennedy and Carson (religious liberty) and WV v. EPA (Clean Air Act).  When at least five of the conservative justices voted together there was no opposing vote that could decide the outcome to a case. These big cases though all had a supermajority of six votes.

What do the numbers show? 13 of the 18 six to three decisions this term came down along ideological lines. This is up from 10 of 18 six to three decisions last term. Last term also had much less ideologically charged cases on the docket with the biggest cases dealing with voting rights issues (Brnovich), campaign donations (Americans for Prosperity Foundation), and unions (Cedar Point).