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.

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]

* 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]

While we were in line at a coffee shop yesterday, footage from the Anna Nicole Smith case was playing on a television above the counter. The customer in front of us turned around and said: “That judge is CRAZY.”

We agree. Judge Larry Seidlin, of Broward Circuit Court, has to be the most ridiculous judge to preside over celebrity litigation since Judge Lance Ito.

If you haven’t been following the litigation, here’s a good CNN write-up:

Judge Larry Seidlin, with his distinctive Bronx honk, down-to-earth approach and plain language, is as much a part of the show in Broward Circuit Court as the case he is presiding over.

Seidlin is hearing arguments over the status of the earthly remains of recently deceased tabloid fixture Anna Nicole Smith. But arguments over child custody and paternity have made their way into the courtroom.

Some legal observers, and even one of the participants, say Seidlin has allowed the proceedings to become a circus.

E.g., Jeffrey Toobin, of CNN and the New Yorker:

“This may be the most ridiculous legal proceeding I have ever watched,” Toobin said. “This judge is one of the least competent judges I have ever seen. He is letting this thing meander all over creation, mostly because he seems to enjoy being on television.”

Court TV’s Lisa Bloom concurs, observing that it’s all “wearing a little thin.”

But legal affairs reporters aren’t the only ones with low opinions of Judge Seidlin:

According to the Miami Herald, 22 percent of the lawyers responding to the 2004 Broward County Bar poll found Seidlin unqualified.

A blog of the Justice Advocacy Association of Broward concludes that Seidlin is, among other things, a victim of “his inner comedian.”

We’ve all seen judges like this (and we’ve all laughed, with exaggerated loudness, at their jokes). CNN suggests a motive for Judge Seidlin’s hamming it up in the Anna Nicole Smith proceedings:

The judge’s offbeat folksiness combines the directness of a Judge Judy with the touchy-feely common sense of a Dr. Phil. He could be auditioning for his own television show….

“He’s very entertaining, there’s no question about it,” [said Court TV’s Lisa Bloom]. “But it’s not about entertainment. At Court TV we keep in mind that these are real people here.”

This is confirmed by TMZ.com, which reports that “Judge Larry Seidlin’s dream is to become a judge on a TV courtroom show” — and notes that his surname “is extremely similar to Judge Judy Sheindlin.”

Here’s a telling fact: Judge Seidlin is a former New York cabbie. You know when you climb in a cab, with a splitting headache, and just want to sit back with your eyes closed — but the cabbie insists on talking your ear off? Judge Seidlin sounds like he was one of THOSE cabbies, back in the day.

Please, Your Honor — spare us. We’re not interested in your thoughts on the war in Iraq (referenced in a lengthy spiel on Wednesday).

Just drive. Thank you.

P.S. Not all taxicab drivers turned judges are so problematic. See, e.g., Thomas Hardiman (W.D. Pa.) — who drove a cab before going to law school. But Hardiman, of course, is a federal rather than state judge.

If Anna Nicole Smith Case Is a Circus, Judge Is Ringmaster [CNN]
All Rise!!! Judge Seidlin Says He’s Ready for TV [TMZ.com]