ABA white collar conference

 It's here for the next 3 days, folks. Lots of big firm "litigators" descending on Miami to discuss the latest white collar trends. Usually there are a bunch of DOJ officials that attend. Not this year. From Bloomberg:

Several senior Justice Department officials are last-minute scratches at a white-collar crime conference that leaders have regularly used to engage with the defense bar and reveal new policy initiatives.

The gathering, organized each year by the American Bar Association, begins March 5 in Miami and features a various panel discussions on trends in US enforcement. But most of the senior DOJ lawyers planning to appear are no longer on the schedule.

They include Glenn Leon, chief of the criminal division’s fraud section; Molly Moeser, head of a money laundering and asset forfeiture unit; David Fuhr, chief of the criminal division’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act unit; and Michael Granston, a deputy assistant attorney general in the civil division’s commercial litigation branch.

$3,000 an hour

 That's what Alex Spiro is charging at Quinn Emanuel.  Per Reuters:

Quinn Emanuel's $3,000 top rate marks a milestone for leading U.S. law firms as lawyers' hourly fees continue to soar.
Law firms routinely raise their rates each year, and top rates at some of the largest U.S. firms have pushed past $2,500 an hour or higher in recent years, court records show.
Quinn Emanuel said in its court filings that its partners now bill between $1,860 and $3,000 an hour. It said it will charge between $1,775 and $2,725 an hour for “of counsel” attorneys at the firm, and between $1,035 and $1,665 for associates.
Billing rate increases helped drive growing revenue and profits for U.S. law firms in 2024, Wells Fargo's Legal Specialty Group said in a recent report.
Clients have been willing to accept “dramatic increases” in rates, according to a report last month by the Thomson Reuters Institute and the Georgetown Law Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession. The institute and Reuters share the same parent company, Thomson Reuters.

While you think of that, you may need a moment of zen.  So I give you Billy Joel:

Friday before trial

What do you do on the weekend before trial?  Are you cramming?  Do you try to relax a bit?  Do you spend time with the client?

An old colleague of mine at the PD's, Vince Farina, used to say -- if you don't know it by now, you don't know it.  He would go get a massage and a haircut.

Congratulations to Judge Lett!

By John R. Byrne

Congratulations to Judge Enjoliqué Lett on her investiture last Friday.  Attendees say it was a heartfelt event, with several speakers remembering Judge Marcia G. Cooke, for whom Judge Lett clerked.  

 

In addition to family and colleagues, Judge Seitz, Judge Williams, and Stephanie Casey spoke, with Judge Gayles administering the oath of office.

Trial inspiration?

 I'm about to start a trial where I really believe in my client.  I like to watch trial movies and scenes to get fired up before the trial gets going.  Of course there are the classics like A Few Good Men, My Cousin Vinny, 12 Angry Men, A Time to Kill, and others.  

What are your favorite trial movies and scenes?

 

 And for those of you who don't know, Star Trek has some really great trial scenes: 

 

Kash Patel, former Miami APD and AFPD, confirmed as FBI director

1. From NPR:

The Republican-led Senate voted Thursday to confirm Kash Patel as the new FBI director despite questions about whether he has the qualifications and the temperament to lead the nation's most powerful law enforcement agency.

Patel, a close ally of President Trump and a fierce critic of the FBI, was confirmed by a 51-49 vote, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski joining all Democrats in opposing him.


It caps a remarkable rise for Patel, who has worked as a public defender, federal prosecutor and congressional aide before serving as a national security official in President Trump's first term. He later emerged as a fixture in MAGA world, a right-wing podcast regular and a Trump loyalist.

Republicans welcomed his confirmation. They argue that the FBI has unfairly targeted conservatives in recent years, and they see Patel as someone who will fix that purported problem.

"Kash is the right man to clean up the FBI to restore Americans' confidence and trust that the FBI is not a political organization, it is a law enforcement organization," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a post on X.

2.  In other news, Jay Weaver covers Trump's new pick for U.S. Attorney in the SDFLA, Jason Reding Quinones.  The intro:

On paper, President Donald Trump’s new nominee to head the U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Florida seems to have solid credentials.

He formerly served as a federal prosecutor in the Miami office, was appointed as a Miami-Dade County judge a year ago by Gov. Ron DeSantis, and he’s a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve.

But there are a couple of things in the background of Jason A. Reding Quiñones that were not highlighted in Trump’s glowing post about him on his media platform, Truth Social, on Sunday, including a name change and that he received poor evaluations as a criminal prosecutor in the same office he has been nominated to head.

You don't see this all that often...

 ...the feds dropped a drug case against a doctor who was previously accused of sex trafficking because of a bad warrant.  Jayne Weintraub was Dr. Jeffrey Kamlet's lawyer.  From the Herald:

Serious mistakes by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office led to the dismissal Tuesday of federal narcotics charges against Dr. Jeffrey Kamlet, a Miami addiction doctor accused of sex trafficking a 17-year-old girl found hiding in his closet with another teenager in 2022. In a court filing last week, Kamlet’s attorney, Jayne Weintraub, seized on several errors made in drafting the search warrants, among them, an obvious “cut and paste” job by the investigator for Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle’s Human Trafficking Task Force. The dismissal of the federal drug charges is another stunning embarrassment for Rundle, whose office has come under scrutiny after years of sloppy prosecutions that have led to similar dismissals, as well as resignations of top lawyers in her office.

Judge Jason Reding Quiñones nominated to be U.S. Attorney in the SDFLA

It is my honor to nominate Judge Jason Reding Quiñones as the next United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

A former Federal prosecutor and Justice Department National Security Official, Judge Reding Quiñones currently serves as a highly respected State Trial…

— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) February 16, 2025

He's an FIU grad, class of 2008. Before that he went to U.F. He's been in the Air Force and in JAG. An AUSA. And a judge. Congrats to Mr. Reding Quinones. For those that know him, please let us know your thoughts in the comments.