As we’ve noted in Morning Docket for the past two days, lawyer Scott Rothstein is in all kinds of trouble in Florida. From what we understand, it’s Marc Dreier redux, the sunshine state version.

We’re still trying to wrap our heads around the story, but as the Bard would say, the sh** hath hitteth the fan this week.

The WSJ Law Blog is similarly perplexed by the scandal (See What’s Going on at Rothstein Rosenfeldt? Part I and Part II).

Scott Rothstein, a founding partner of Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, has been out of the country for the last few days, making this all even more confusing. He just flew back into Miami an hour ago and police have surrounded his firm. We give you context after the jump.

[Ed. note: Above the Law has teamed up with Law Shucks. Law Shucks has done excellent work translating all of the layoff news into user-friendly charts and graphs: the Layoff Tracker.]

That’s it? We’re looking for that one perfect week of no layoffs and we lose it to a Tennessee firm and two UK firms? So much for midsize firms being a safe harbor. The dream of a week without layoffs lives on. Instead, we’ll catch up on the regular activity. The trend of initial jobless claims declining continues, with new applications down to January levels. Same old song and dance, though, as total unemployment continues to climb, setting a record for the 19th straight week.

Businesses are slowing staff reductions as signs emerge that the worst recession in at least five decades may end in the second half of 2009. Still, economists in a Bloomberg News survey predicted the unemployment rate will climb to 10 percent by year-end and restrain consumer spending, muting any recovery.

That’s pretty much in line with the trend in the law-firm sector, although we might have our first green shoots. After the jump.

* Supreme Court Justices are more powerful. Very powerful. Castle Grayskull powerful. [Beacon Broadside]

* If I ever end up in a North Korean Court, would someone please use the hard diplomacy we practiced with the Somalia Pirates instead of the “soft diplomacy” we’re seeing today? Thanks, in advance. [Miss Trials]

* The benefits of t’ai chi to a practicing attorney. [Underdog]

* Bose McKinney & Evan attorneys have been sanctioned. Chameleons don’t make very good lawyers. [Indiana Lawyer]

* Here’s the next installment of the Summer Associate Interviews. Summers pontificate on what makes a good lawyer. Surprisingly, abject fealty to clients and their inconsistent whims regardless of your own personal commitments is not on their list. [Young Lawyers Blog]

* I’ve mentioned Weil Gotshal’s pro-bono efforts on behalf of puppy-mill puppies. The Humane Society has found new homes for all 32 animals. I hope a few Weil attorneys have some new, furry friends. [Humane Society]

The recently released Michael Vick can expect no quarter from most animal lovers. I forget how long he was in jail, but if his sentence didn’t involve a dog biting him in the ass every day, then it wasn’t long enough.

But Vick is (or was) merely a retailer in the world of inhumane treatment of animals. The real outrage should be directed at the wholesalers. And that is just what Weil Gotshal appears to be doing. The firm won a major victory against the alleged puppy mill Wizard of Claws, in Broward County Circuit Court:

The Broward County Circuit Court has issued a ruling refusing to dismiss several defendants from a major class action lawsuit against a south Florida puppy dealer known as “Wizard of Claws.” The suit, filed in 2007, accuses Wizard of Claws, its owners, and its affiliates of defrauding customers by misrepresenting the origin of puppies, and by selling puppy mill dogs who suffer from severe health problems and genetic defects.

The court’s order allows plaintiffs to proceed with their claims against three entities sharing common ownership with Wizard of Claws — Celebrity Kennels, Inc., Dog Breeder Kennel, Inc. and Puppies for Sale, Inc. — and also directs the defendants to turn over records regarding the puppies they have sold to the public. The court also ordered the owners of Wizard of Claws to sit for depositions concerning their business practices.

This victory has been a long time coming for lawyers at Weil Gotshal. More details after the jump.

[Ed. note: Above the Law has teamed up with Law Shucks. Law Shucks has done excellent work translating all of the layoff news into user-friendly charts and graphs: the Layoff Tracker.]

First time jobless claims ticked back up again last week, up 27,000 to 640,000, continuing the 12-week run of record number of people staying on unemployment. There was a net increase of 93,000 in the overall number of people collecting benefits, at a total of 6.14 million. From the “ray of hope” department, the rolling four-week average, which is less volatile, dropped slightly to 646,750 from 651,000 first-time applicants.

“There is nothing suggesting at this point that payroll declines are going to abate,” said Tom Porcelli, a senior economist at Castlestone Management Ltd. in New York. “We could bounce along the bottom here for a while.”

That may be true in the broader markets, but in BigLaw there is one factor looming on the horizon that could stanch the bleeding. What is it? After the jump.

In Blawg Review #204, I quipped that lawyers don’t do well in a street fight. Thanks to Judge Ian Richards, I stand corrected. Check out this TMZ video:

The video is a little grainy, so let me give you the play-by-play, after the jump.

Broward County has given us many, many Judges of the Day in the past. Now the county has earned the dubious distinction of our first ever “Courthouse of the Day” award. The central courthouse building is a disaster area.

From Courthouse News Service:

A 2-inch pipe burst on the second floor, courthouse communication center, damaging about 3,000 civil, family, traffic and misdemeanor files….

The building has broken elevators and tottering plumbing, air conditioning and electrical systems. Its mildew problem has led two longtime judicial aides to notify the county of their intent to sue. They say the mildew has given them severe pulmonary problems.

The courthouse’s Welcome Page indicates jurors (and assumedly attorneys and court staff) are not off the hook though. They are required to report as scheduled.

The Sun Sentinel has concerns about the effect of the decrepit courthouse on constitutional rights:

The constitutional access to courts is blocked because of aging water pipes, flooded rooms and a prior lack of urgency. Telecommunications into and out of the hub of our local legal system are downgraded to cell phones for judicial assistants and walkie-talkies for bailiffs.

That’s right. Because the phone lines are out, the court has posted cell phone numbers for all the judges. So if you were hoping to score the number of hottie former Judge of the Day Ana Gardiner (or at least her judicial assistant), now’s your chance.

Broward citizens deserve, demand working courthouse [Sun Sentinel]
Broward County Courthouse Is Falling Apart [Courthouse News Service]

One of the “perks” of working in Biglaw is the ridiculous amount of money that gets direct deposited into your account every two weeks. Even if you work for a firm that pays below market rate, your earnings still beat the bag out of what they pay at the local 7-11.

Can you imagine having to take a second job to make ends meet?

Welcome to the world of an assistant prosecutor or public defender. The National Law Journal has some disturbing stories of attorneys putting in double duty to pay off their loans:

“I have lawyers delivering pizzas, I have another lawyer umpiring and another bartending,” said Frank de la Torre, chief assistant at the Broward County Public Defender’s Office. “Many of us could be making more money in private practice, but obviously those of us who make a career in the field of indigent defense do it because we love it and we believe in the Constitution.”

The sad thing isn’t just that they have to take these jobs, it’s that they make more money — bartending or whatever— than they do in the legal profession.

We’ve covered the craptistic pay for government lawyers in the past. Many public attorneys used to be able to pick up some real estate or T&E work on the side. Today? Not so much.

Keep on grifting ‘till you drop, or it’s back to the crumbs from the table after the jump.

Here’s a report on the disposition of an odd case we wrote about back in February. From David Oscar Markus:

Remember this case from Ft. Lauderdale? Well, the assault charges against Kathy Brewer Rentas for her “handshake” of AUSA Jennifer Keene have been dropped. Vanessa Blum covers the case here:

The case of an over-enthusiastic courtroom handshake that escalated into an assault charge against a local attorney was dropped Thursday by federal prosecutors who deemed it the “prudent” thing to do. Kathy Brewer Rentas, with the Hollywood firm of Becker & Poliakoff, spent the night in jail after her Feb. 7 arrest for assaulting a federal prosecutor by handshake in a Fort Lauderdale courtroom.

More detail from the Sun-Sentinel:

Brewer Rentas was charged with assaulting a federal officer, a misdemeanor that carried a maximum penalty of a year in prison. To avoid any conflict of interest, the case was transferred to the Orlando U.S. Attorney’s Office, where Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Carolyn Adams filed notice Thursday that she was dropping the charge.

“We conducted numerous interviews with witnesses, we reviewed the evidence and we just felt after taking a look at everything that the prudent thing to do was just drop the charges,” said Steve Cole, spokesman for the Orlando U.S. Attorney’s Office. “We don’t have any comment beyond that.”

So Kathy Rentas is in the clear. But we still wouldn’t shake her hand in congratulations.

Handshake assault case dismissed [Southern District of Florida Blog]
Assault charge dropped against Hollywood lawyer over handshake [South Florida Sun-Sentinel]

Earlier: Lawyer of the Day Weekend: Kathy Rentas

* The Top 100 Law and Lawyer Blogs (with pride of place going to ATL). [Criminal Justice Degrees Guide]

* Skadden: this home to the hotties also has a strong track record on diversity. [Conglomerate]

* Bruce Springsteen fans will appreciate Katrina Kuh’s case for more judicial citation to the Boss. [PrawfsBlawg]

* Convicted tax fraudster Wesley Snipes: has movie, will travel. [TaxProf Blog]

* Are we sure that Loyola 2L was a guy? [YouTube]

* Lawsuit of the Day: former Broward County Judge Jay Spechler sues Chief Judge Victor Tobin. [JAABlog]

* Lawyer of the Day: Meanith Huon. [Madison County Record]

If you’re thinking of taking refuge from the tanking economy by going into government, you might want to think again. Although government employers are generally less sensitive to economic fluctuations than private-sector ones D.like law firms, they’re not immune.

Last month, for example, the D.C. Attorney General’s office laid off 10 lawyers. And now comes this news from Florida, via the Daily Business Review:

Four criminal court case managers. One mental health court case manager. Four attorneys helping criminal and family judges with their legal research. They are among the 11 administrative employees laid off in recent days by courts in Broward County to comply with state-mandated budget cuts….

Palm Beach County courts are laying off nine people, and the 3rd District Court of Appeal is losing eight people in addition to a judge who is retiring and won’t be replaced…. At the 4th District Court of Appeal, six people were notified they will lose their jobs June 30, including three administrative secretaries, two people in the clerk’s office and one attorney.

Maybe they can go work for TV judges? When it comes to the television bench, the Florida state court system is a major feeder. “I think it’s the water,” joked Judge Marilyn Milian (whom you may recall from this video of her reaming out a hapless 2L from the University of Miami).

More information about the Florida court layoffs, plus discussion of how state attorney and public defender offices are avoiding layoffs through attrition, is available here.

State court layoffs begin, 222 jobs to be eliminated [Daily Business Review]

* “Lawyers’ writing skills still bad.” [National Law Journal]

* We should have included him in our Lawyer of the Day poll: While in Tallahassee filing papers to run for Broward County public defender, criminal defense attorney Gary Ostrow got arrested for cocaine possession. [JAABlog]

* Loro Piana’s new tactic for protecting their intellectual property rights. [Fashionista]

* Former judge (and SCOTUS nominee) Robert Bork settles slip-and-fall suit against Yale Club. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Professor Laura Appleman supplements the list (previously noted here) of “Classes My Top-Tier Law School Should Have Offered as Warnings About the Profession.” [The Faculty Lounge]

* A popular (but unsurprising) beneficiary of unclaimed class-action funds: law schools. [Point of Law]

* Before she was famous. [Althouse]

* Not really law-related, but interesting: top colleges are admitting lots of students from wait lists this year. [New York Times]

You gotta love South Florida. It’s such a fun, crazy place. It has South Beach, the nightlife, the fashion, the wild news-making Broward judges… Joining the ranks of Judges of the Day from Broward County (Jay “Soul Glo” Spechler, Cheryl “Beelzebub” Aleman, and Jeffrey “Wide Receiver” Levenson) is Circuit Judge Ana Gardiner.

The Broward-Palm Beach New Times has a story accusing Gardiner of flirting, partying, and getting it on with defense attorneys and prosecutors.

Defense attorney John Cotrone stood before Broward Circuit Judge Ana Gardiner in her marble-laden courtroom and dropped in what seemed like a jab at her honor.

It came after Gardiner, the chief criminal judge for the 17th Judicial Circuit, asked for an amended file on Cotrone’s case. The lawyer pointed out that she had asked for the file “every time I’m in court on this.”

Gardiner, a petite woman whose dark hair is tinted an artificial red, might have been displeased at being shown up by Cotrone. But instead she looked away and smiled.

“Is there a point to reminding me of that?” she asked Cotrone in her slight Cuban accent.

Gardiner shuffled through some papers on the bench before smiling again and goading Cotrone: “I may not have as good a memory as you — even though you are older than me.”

It sounded almost like… flirting.

Like awkward high school flirting.

Neither Gardiner nor Cotrone was willing to comment for the piece, but one of Coltrone’s friends stepped in to “help out:”

[W]ell-known defense attorney Fred Haddad, a longtime friend of Cotrone’s, contacted New Times in an attempt to dissuade the newspaper from publishing the story. He claimed he was calling of his own volition. “She’s one of the good ones,” he said of Gardiner. “This is going to cause [Judicial Qualifying Commission] investigations, and nobody needs that.”

He didn’t deny that his friend was involved in a romance with the judge. Instead, he argued that judges and prosecutors and defense attorneys have been drinking together and having sex with one another for years in Broward County.

“What’s the big deal so long as it doesn’t affect their decisions?” he asked.

This guy is a “well-known defense attorney,” and that’s the best defense he could come up with. Really?

Judging Ana [New Times via JAABLOG]

The fabulous Monica Goodling — if you’re on Facebook, join her fan club — isn’t the only person being accused of anti-lesbian bias these days. From the Daily Business Review (via JAABlog):

A longtime Broward County judge resigned after he was reassigned to hear traffic cases in a satellite courthouse and barred from entering the main Fort Lauderdale courthouse.

Courthouse sources said County Court Judge Jay Spechler’s reassignment came after he got into a verbal altercation with fellow County Court Judge Peggy Gehl and made disparaging comments about her sexual orientation.

Rumor has it that he called her a “robe muncher.”

It seems that Judge Gehl wasn’t the only colleague who had issues with Judge Spechler. According to JAABlog, Judge Spechler had something of a “reputation for bullying his colleagues.”

Being reassigned to handle traffic and parking cases, in a satellite courthouse, didn’t make Judge Spechler very happy. One colleague quipped, “He was reassigned to his car, essentially. He didn’t like it.” So he decided to accept a lucrative offer in the private sector, from a North Miami mediation firm.

If you have a vague sense that south Florida judges misbehave a lot, it’s not without foundation. Per the Daily Business Review: “[Former Chief Judge Dale] Ross resigned following a series of controversies involving Broward judges accused of everything from pot smoking in a park to insensitivity on the bench. The incidents came to a head last March when Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice R. Fred Lewis flew to Miami to meet with minority bar leaders.”

Daily Business Review Deciphers Spechler Riddle [JAABlog]
UH OH! [JAABlog]
Spechler reassignment, resignation came after disparaging remarks about fellow judge’s sexual orientation [Daily Business Review]

*Covington & Burling’s Lanny Breuer gets profiled for being the “go-to guy” for Sandy Berger, Roger Clemens, and Charles Prince (not to be confused with Prince Charles). [The Washingtonian]

*If you were disappointed by your law school’s ranking this year in U.S. News and World Report, perhaps you’d prefer a 14-year-long historical perspective. [TaxProf Blog]

*Huh? Yesterday was April Fools’ Day? Okay, yes, Fantasy Baseball post was a joke (more details at the ABA Journal), but sadly our Blackberry post was not. [ABA Journal]

*As we had hoped, cross dressing bankruptcy judge Robert Somma is rethinking his decision to resign. [The Boston Globe]

*The Broward County courts sound like they are ready to host a reality TV show: pot-smoking, insensitivity on the bench, slurs about sexual orientation… Now for some musical chairs. [Daily Business Review]

*DOJ is investigating whether sexual orientation played a part in attorney firings. “To some people, that’s even worse than being a Democrat.” [TPMMuckraker]

*When deciding which law job to take, you may want to factor in the number of opposite sex singles living in the cities you’re considering. [Jezebel]

A very strange story, from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel (via David Markus):

A private attorney has been charged with physically assaulting a federal prosecutor in a Fort Lauderdale courtroom by shaking her hand up and down so hard that it injured her shoulder.

Kathy Brewer Rentas spent Thursday night in solitary confinement at the Miami Federal Detention Center. She was released on a $100,000 bond on Friday morning and ordered to get a psychological evaluation to see if she needs counseling or anger management training.

Jailed over a handshake. Seriously?

Update: The charges were subsequently dropped, in July 2008. See here.

Read the rest, after the jump.

Despite her attractiveness, Judge Cheryl Aleman is not our favorite Floridian judge. That honor would have to go to Judge Mary Barzee Flores (with Judge Ursula Ungaro a close second).

But Judge Aleman still sounds pretty delish. Tomorrow she goes on trial before the state’s judicial ethics commission. From the Daily Business Review:

In February, the JQC [Judicial Qualifications Commission] filed formal charges against Judge Aleman for incidents when she:

• Threatened to hold two assistant public defenders in contempt in a first-degree murder case for not filing a motion quickly enough.

• Held a contempt hearing for a defense attorney when she knew he was out of town, and then sentenced him to 60 days in jail for missing two hearings.

• Refused to release a man allegedly dying of AIDS from jail and then issued an order releasing him once a negative article was published about the incident.

• Served on cases involving a defense attorney with whom she had conflicts.

A little bit more, after the jump.

Actually, as it turns out, Judge Jeffrey Levenson DID say he was sorry — immediately after making the ill-considered gay football / “wide receiver” crack that made him our Judge of the Day. And he apologized repeatedly during the course of the hearing, too.

But that hasn’t stopped the hue and cry. From the Daily Business Review:

Bar leaders and the public defender issued new calls Thursday for sensitivity training for Broward judges after Circuit Judge Jeffrey Levenson made an off-color joke in his courtroom about a teenage boy who allegedly had sex with an adult male defendant.

“If this incident doesn’t scream loudly how desperately we need diversity and sensitivity training in this circuit, then I don’t know what will,” said Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein. “In a matter of a year or two years, we had a judge insult Haitian-Americans, another insult African-Americans, had a third judge insulting blacks, Hispanics and Catholics, and a fourth judge insulting gay people.”

Maybe Judge Levenson should skip the sensitivity training and become a television judge. After all, TV judges get PAID to insult the litigants.

Food for thought: Why does Florida produce so many TV judges? It is because of their penchant, noted by PD Howard Finkelstein, for being rude and abusive?

The following are former Floridian jurists who left the state bench for the boob tube: Marilyn Milian, of the People’s Court (previously discussed here); Alex Ferrer, a/k/a “Judge Alex”; David Young, the gay TV judge; and the notorious Anna Nicole Smith judge, Larry Seidlin (not on air yet, but rumored to arrive in fall 2008).

Broward Courts: New chief’s honeymoon over [Daily Business Review]

Earlier: Judge of the Day: Jeffrey Levenson

One of the perks of being a judge is that everyone has to laugh at your jokes. Except when they’re in poor taste and arguably offensive.

If you’re going to make an attempt at humor in the courtroom, proceed with caution — even if you’re the one wearing the robe. From Rumpole (via S.D. Fla. Blog):

Well, those fine folks North Of the Border have done it again.

This time it is Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Levenson, who put his robed foot in his mouth by making an inappropriate joke about the Defendant in a sexual battery case during the charge conference….

To summarize, apparently the Defendant is a high school football player, and the case involved the allegation of illegal sexual contact with another male. Judge Levenson asked what position the defendant played. He was told “linebacker” and another person in the courtroom said “Tight End” at which point Judge Levenson said “Wide Receiver?”

A little bit more, after the jump.

Judge Larry Seidlin is best known for tearfully presiding over the Anna Nicole Smith proceedings in Florida state court. But perhaps it’s the American people who should be shedding tears right now. From the Daily Business Review:

Broward Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin – the weeping probate judge who presided over the recent legal fight for custody of Anna Nicole Smith’s body – announced today that he is leaving the bench at the end of this month.

“It is now time for me to devote more of my daily life to my own young family and to pursue the many opportunities that have been offered to me outside the judicial system,” Seidlin wrote in his resignation letter to Gov. Charlie Crist.

So why should we shed tears over the departure of this fine jurist?

It has been rumored that Seidlin has a television show in the works.

Update: The rumors appear to be true. Seidlin reportedly has reached a deal with CBS.

Judiciary: Judge Seidlin resigns [Daily Business Review]
Anna Nicole Smith Judge Larry Seidlin Cuts Deal With CBS [Fox News]