Bondsman in Seminole County – A Timeline of Texas’ 30 Years of School Finance Legal Fights

Source     : ABC News
By            : The Associated Press
Category : Bail Bondsman in Sanford, Bondsman in Seminole County

A Timeline of Texas’ 30 Years of School Finance Legal Fights

A lawsuit challenging how Texas pays for its public schools will soon reach the state Supreme Court — the sixth time since 1984. Here’s a look at major milestones in 30-plus years of legal battles:

— May 1984: San Antonio’s Edgewood school district sues, arguing Texas’ school finance system is inequitable.

— October 1989: The Texas Supreme Court throws out the school funding law after finding “glaring disparities” between districts in wealthy and poor areas.

— June 1990: The Legislature devises a new system meant to better equalize funding, but excludes the wealthiest districts.

— January 1991: The Texas Supreme Court again finds the system unconstitutional.

— May 1991: The Legislature approves 188 county education districts that consolidate property tax bases for wealthy school districts and nearby districts.

— January 1992: The Texas Supreme Court rules levies collected by county education districts are too much like a state income tax, which is unconstitutional.

— May 1993: Days before a court-imposed deadline threatened to close Texas schools, the Legislature forces districts in areas with high property values to share tax money with poorer districts.

— January 1995: The Texas Supreme Court upholds the “Robin Hood” plan.

— April 2001: Property-wealthy school districts sue, arguing the funding system has created an illegal property tax after many districts pushed collections to the legal limit. Nearly 300 other school districts join the case, expanding it to include arguments that the funding system is inadequate and inequitable.

— September 2004: Austin-based state District Judge John Dietz rules the education funding system unconstitutional.

— November 2005: The Texas Supreme Court rules that local property taxes for school funding amount to an unconstitutional statewide tax.

— May 2006: The Legislature cuts local school property taxes by one-third while allocating more state funding to public education. Lawmakers place minimum funding requirements for districts based on a temporary freeze in the amount of per-student money districts spent that year; the freeze is never lifted. The Legislature also caps tax rates at $1.17 per $100 of property valuation.

— May 2011: Facing a $27 billion budget shortfall due in part to the Great Recession, the Legislature cuts $5.4 billion in classroom funding and educational grant programs.

— October-December 2011: More than 600 school districts in wealthy and poor parts of Texas file suit, charging funding is inadequate and unfairly distributed and tax-rate cap constitutes an illegal state property tax.

— October 2012 — Testimony begins before Dietz.

— February 2013 — Dietz rules the school finance system is unconstitutional, doesn’t provide adequate money and the money available isn’t fairly distributed.

— May 2013 — The Legislature restores $3-plus billion in public education funding.

— January 2014 — Dietz reopens the case to hear evidence on the additional funding.

— August 2014 — Dietz again rules it unconstitutional, calling the extra money “plainly insufficient to satisfy constitutional standards.”

— Sept. 1, 2015 — The Texas Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments from school district attorneys and the state.

Read more : abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/timeline-texas-30-years-school-finance-legal-fights-33415408

Bail Bondsman in Sanford – Too Many Law Students, Too Few Legal Jobs

Source     : NY Times
By            : STEVEN J. HARPER
Category : Bail Bonds Sanford, Bail Bondsman in Sanford

Too Many Law Students, Too Few Legal Jobs

Ten months after graduation, only 60 percent of the law school class of 2014 had found full-time long-term jobs that required them to pass the bar exam. Even that improvement over the class of 2013 (a 57 percent employment rate) came with three asterisks: Last year, the American Bar Association changed the job-reporting rules to give law schools an extra month for the class of 2014 to find jobs; graduates employed in law-school-funded positions count in the employment rate; and the number of jobs that require bar passage fell from 2013 to 2014. Amazingly (and perversely), law schools have been able to continue to raise tuition while producing nearly twice as many graduates as the job market has been able to absorb.

How is this possible? Why hasn’t the market corrected itself? The answer is that, for a given school, the availability of federal loans for law students has no connection to their poor post-graduation employment outcomes. Students now amass law school loans averaging $127,000 for private schools and $88,000 for public ones. Since 2006 alone, law student debt has surged at inflation-adjusted rates of 25 percent for private schools and 34 percent for public schools. In May 2014, the A.B.A. created a task force to tackle this problem. According to its recent report, 25 percent of law schools obtain at least 88 percent of their total revenues from tuition. The average for all law schools is 69 percent. So law schools have a powerful incentive to maintain or increase enrollment, even if the employment outcomes are dismal for their graduates, especially at marginal schools.

The underlying difficulty is that once students pay their tuition bills, law schools have no responsibility for the debt their students have taken on. In other words, law schools whose graduates have the greatest difficulty finding jobs that require bar passage are operating without financial accountability and free of the constraints that characterize a functioning market. The current subsidy system is keeping some schools in business. But the long-term price for students and taxpayers is steep and increasing. Paradoxically, the task force chairman was Dennis W. Archer, the former mayor of Detroit, who is also head of the national policy board of Infilaw, a private equity-owned consortium of three for-profit law schools — Arizona Summit, Charlotte and Florida Coastal. These schools are examples of the larger problem. Most Infilaw 2014 graduates didn’t find jobs that required their expensive degrees. Excluding positions funded by the law school, only 39.9 percent of Arizona Summit graduates found full-time jobs lasting at least a year and requiring bar passage. Florida Coastal’s rate was 34.5 percent. At Charlotte, it was 34.1 percent. Yet as the demand for new lawyers continued to languish from 2011 to 2014, the size of Infilaw’s graduating classes almost doubled, to 1,223. These schools are also among the leaders in creating law student debt. Arizona Summit’s 2014 graduates had average law school debt of $187,792. At Florida Coastal, the average was $162,785. Charlotte’s average was $140,528.

The task force report said that some witnesses proposed “capping law student loans, requiring law schools to have ‘skin in the game’ by being responsible for loan repayment in certain situations, and even scrapping the current federal student loan program altogether.” It characterized proponents of such measures as hoping “that a kind of fiscal tough love will force schools to become more financially responsible and reduce cost.” But the task force argued that “there seems to be little need to impose the kind of tough love some want because the market is already doing it.”

Except that the market is doing no such thing. While enrollment did decline to about 38,000 last year from 52,000 in 2010, it has not been falling at the pace necessary to reach equilibrium in a stagnant legal job market. Too many incoming law school students still believe they will be among the lucky few who get decent jobs. The task force, having dodged the issues that should have been the focus of its work, offered four suggestions: law schools should offer students better debt counseling; the Department of Education should develop “plain English” disclosure information about student loans; the A.B.A. should collect and disseminate information about how law schools spend their money; and the A.B.A. should encourage law schools to experiment on curriculums and programs. None of those will make a difference. The crisis in legal education is real. Magical thinking and superficial rhetoric about declining enrollments, better debt counseling for students, and law schools’ experimenting with curriculum changes will not create more jobs. The A.B.A. should treat the challenge seriously and begin to address it with serious solutions. So far, that has not happened. In fact, earlier this month, the A.B.A. House of Delegates missed an opportunity to address this issue by giving its rubber stamp of approval to the task force report. Until student loans bear a rational relationship to individual law school outcomes, law schools will exploit their lack of accountability, the legal education market will remain dysfunctional, and equilibrium between supply and demand will remain elusive. The A.B.A. calls itself “the national voice of the legal profession.” When it comes to the profession’s most urgent problem, it’s long past time to speak up.

Read more here: nytimes.com/2015/08/25/opinion/too-many-law-students-too-few-legal-jobs.html

Sanford Bail Bond – Legal Teams Keep Bending Old Laws to Fit Cybercrimes

Source    :  Network World
By            :  Tim Greene
Category :  Sanford Bail Bond, Bondsman in Seminole County

Legal Teams Keep Bending Old Laws to Fit Cybercrimes

Since cybercrime laws lag behind technology, lawyers are constantly seeking creative ways to stretch old laws to fit new crimes, such as the latest – comparing the movie-sharing app Popcorn Time to a burglar’s tool in order to press criminal charges. Lawyers for an Adam Sandler movie are arguing that Popcorn Time performs the same function as burglars’ tools in order “to commit or facilitate … a theft by physical taking,” language used in an old Oregon law about traditional burglary.

The lawyers say Popcorn Time lets users violate the movie’s copyrights by enabling downloads of pirated copies, and so they are suing for the civil crime of copyright infringement. But they are also suggesting that by merely having copies of Popcorn Time on their computers, users are violating an Oregon criminal law that makes it illegal to possess burglar tools. Popcorn Time is similar to burglary tools, they say, because its only purpose is to commit thefts, and that the app itself fits the legal definition of burglary tool: “For purposes of this section, “burglary tool or theft device” means … [any] instrument or other article adapted or designed for committing or facilitating a … theft by a physical taking,” the law reads. The suit is being brought by Cobbler Nevada LLC, which owns rights to the movie “The Cobbler”. They want to sue 11 Oregon people, identified only as John Does, whom they say have violated the copyright, and that includes bringing the misdemeanor charge of possessing burglary-tools.

The lawyers themselves admit this might be a stretch. “It is acknowledged that the transfer of data, storing of the physical data locally on a hard drive and facilitation and redistribution of the stolen data to others may or may not be a ‘physical taking’ under Oregon law”, the suit says. But they are still willing to give it a try. Their task is complicated by the fact that they don’t know the real names of the 11 John Does, although part of the lawsuit seeks them from their ISP Comcast. Cobble Nevada LLC says it has traced use of copies of “The Cobbler” to IP addresses controlled by Comcast, and it wants the company to provide the names of the customers associated with those addresses. Popcorn Time’s Web site describes the app as a “smart movies and TV Shows player. We are not holding any illegal materials with copyrighting.” Its FAQ says, in part, “Is this legal? Depends on where you’re from, really. Once again: we’re using torrents, so if you really care, you’d better google what the legal situation around these protocols where you live.”

It’s not the first time lawyers filing court action in cyber cases have stretched pre-Internet laws so they could apply them to cybercrime cases. For example, Microsoft pioneered several legal innovations to shut down botnets over the past five years, including a claim that a law allowing seizure of knockoff handbags from their manufacturers could be applied to take over command-and-control servers. Its claim was that under an old law called the Lanham Act the use of Microsoft software and hence its copyright meant that Microsoft could seize the offending servers. A court agreed, and Microsoft used that authority to shut down servers used to support the Rustock botnet. In a different case, Microsoft asserted that it had standing to ask permission to shut down an entire domain in order to get at the Kelihos botnet. The argument was that use of the domain violated the registrant’s agreement not to carry on criminal activity. Since the registrant was performing criminal acts and it was harming Microsoft, then Microsoft could take back the domain.

Read More : networkworld.com/article/2975104/security/legal-teams-keep-bending-old-laws-to-fit-cybercrimes.html

Bondsman in Seminole County – Legal issues could delay statutory inquiry into IBRC

Source    : Irish Times
By            : Cliff Taylor
Category : Bail Bondsman in Sanford, Bondsman in Seminole County

Legal issues could delay statutory inquiry into IBRC

Fresh doubts are emerging about whether the Commission of Investigation into IBRC can complete its work by December. The commission is understood to have started its work and has had contacts with the Department of Finance and the IBRC special liquidators, but the formal handover of information to it is not believed to have yet started, with some legal issues relating to this still to be clarified. The commission, headed by High Court judge Mr Justice Brian Cregan, was established by the Government in early June following a period of controversy over various IBRC transactions, including the sale of Siteserv and claims in the Dáil about interest rates charged to big borrowers, including businessman Denis O’Brien. It is due to complete its work by the end of December. The commission is expected to seek major document releases from the Department of Finance and the IBRC and the preparation of these documents has commenced. However, the commission is not believed to have yet issued formal directions to hand over the documents, the key legal step it must take to start examining them.

No comment
Neither the department nor the special liquidators – Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of KPMG – would comment, beyond both saying they would comply fully with any requests for information and offer all possible co-operation to the commission. One issue understood to have emerged is exactly what information the commission can access and then legally use in making its findings. The commission was established under 2004 legislation, originally drawn up to help the Commission of Investigation into Child Abuse, which had commenced its work in 2000 but did not report until 2009.

Legal rules
The commission will want to ensure that it does not run into any difficulties under legal rules on privacy and that it is able to use the documents it accesses to make findings. Official sources were confident that any legal concerns could be overcome to allow the formal handover of documentation to get under way in earnest. The commission has been asked to look at transactions between January 2009, when Anglo Irish Bank was nationalised to February 2013, when IBRC was liquidated. Its work will centre on 40 major transactions undertaken by the IBRC, but it will also be able to look at any transaction causing “ public concern” or whether any borrowers received preferential interest rates. The timescale for the commission’s work, which will involve reviewing extensive documentation, interviewing witnesses and making findings, now looks very tight.

Read More : irishtimes.com/business/legal-issues-could-delay-statutory-inquiry-into-ibrc-1.2324767

Bail Bondsman in Sanford – Legal challenge to N.C. voter ID could be settled

Source     : Journal Now
By            : Michael Hewlett Winston-Salem Journal
Category : Bail Bonds Sanford, Bail Bondsman in Sanford

Legal challenge to N.C. voter ID could be settled

North Carolina’s voter ID law may not go to trial after all, according to court documents filed Monday. The recent federal trial on North Carolina’s Voter Information Verification Act that ended about two weeks ago did not deal with the state’s photo ID requirement that goes into effect in 2016. It only dealt with other provisions of the law, which reduced the early voting period, eliminated same-day voter registration, prohibited county election officials from counting ballots cast in the wrong precinct but correct county, and abolished preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds. U.S. District Judge Thomas Schroeder decided that the legal challenge to the photo ID requirement would be dealt with later. Schroeder’s decision came after state Republican legislators approved an amendment easing the photo ID requirement.

The amendment allows voters without photo ID to sign a declaration saying they had a “reasonable impediment” to getting a photo ID and also enables voters to use a photo ID that has expired as long as it has not been more than four years. State Republican leaders proposed the changes less than a month before the federal trial was to start. The N.C. NAACP, the U.S. Department of Justice and others charged that North Carolina’s law disproportionately damaged the ability of blacks, Hispanics, poor people and young people to register and vote. The federal trial that ended July 31 was closely watched because North Carolina passed one of the country’s most sweeping election changes soon after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in June 2013. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act required certain states and local communities, including in North Carolina, to seek federal approval for election changes in a process known as preclearance. In court papers filed Monday, attorneys representing the state NAACP and other plaintiffs said that their pending claims “may be able to be resolved through discussion and negotiations with Defendants.” The plaintiffs still believe the photo ID requirement is racially discriminatory and that state Republican leaders had discriminatory intent in passing the legislation, according to court documents.

They also said they have concerns about whether the state election officials have adequately educated the public about the new changes and whether county election officials have gotten the proper training. They also said state officials have not explained how exactly the new changes are going to be interpreted. The Rev. William Barber, president of the state NAACP, said Tuesday that attorneys are still examining the implications of the amended photo ID requirement and the legal options. Nothing has been settled, and plaintiffs said the changes may be even more confusing to people, he said. Barber said the amendment represents a 21st century literacy test because blacks are disproportionately more likely to be illiterate. Some might not be able to fully understand the “reasonable impediment declaration” they would have to sign if they don’t have a photo ID, Barber said. Literacy tests were used during the Jim Crow era to keep blacks from voting. Plaintiffs said in court papers that they plan to present a possible consent decree this week to defendants and raise areas of concerns “with the purpose of settlement discussions.”

“Plaintiffs believe that through a consent decree, Defendants may be able to provide the reassurances needed to resolve the pending claims without further court proceedings and reserve any remaining concerns in a different proceeding, if necessary,” they write in court documents. Attorneys for the plaintiffs said they would report back to Schroeder on Sept. 18. Thomas Farr, one of the lead attorneys for the state, did not return a message seeking comment. Attorneys representing the state and Gov. Pat McCrory filed court papers Monday, saying that the legal challenge to the photo ID law should be dismissed. They also argued that a decision by another federal appeals court striking down Texas’ voter ID law proposed something similar to the amendment that North Carolina passed. Plaintiffs said that’s a misreading of the ruling, which they argued left the ultimate decision on how to fix Texas’ Voter ID law to a lower federal court. Barber said Tuesday that Schroeder should not dismiss the legal challenge because even with the change, the law is still unconstitutional and racially discriminatory. “We’re still fighting and we’re winning,” he said. Schroeder has not issued a decision in the federal trial. He has said it would likely be weeks, and possibly months, before he issues a ruling.

Read More: journalnow.com/news/elections/local/legal-challenge-to-n-c-voter-id-law-could-be/article_ff4da1a0-6c39-5ad9-a068-9645c320159b.html

Sanford Bail Bond – Facebook, Twitter Can’t Keep Up With Pinterest, Instagram

Source     : PC MAG
By            : Stephanie Mlot
Category : Sanford Bail Bond, Bondsman in Seminole County

Facebook, Twitter Can’t Keep Up With Pinterest, Instagram

Everyone and their mother is on Facebook—literally. But has the social network reached its saturation point?
According to a recent Pew Research Center report, Pinterest and Instagram continue to attract new users while services like Facebook and Twitter plateau.

The survey found that 85 percent of adults are Internet users, and 67 percent are smartphone users—many of whom log into Pinterest and Instagram at increasing rates. In fact, the proportion of online adults who use either platform has doubled in three years: 31 percent of people use Pinterest (up from 15 percent in 2012), while 28 percent use Instagram (up from 13 percent in 2012).

And while LinkedIn saw a decline in usage since Pew began tracking social media adoption three years ago, the professional network still attracts people to its site, with 22 percent of respondents visiting daily.

Facebook remains the most popular social media site, Pew reported, with 72 percent of online adults using the service, which is especially popular among women and adults ages 18 to 29. Most use the social network daily—more so than any other platform, including Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

For the first time, meanwhile, Pew asked survey participants about mobile messaging apps. As it turns out, 36 percent of smartphone owners use programs like WhatsApp, Kik, or iMessage; 17 percent use ephemeral messaging services such as Snapchat or Wickr.

These programs are particularly popular among young adults. They also offer more private social interaction than a Facebook News Feed or Twitter timeline. Many also make it easy to stay in touch when overseas or when operating different devices.

“The results in this report reflect the noteworthy and rapid emergence of different kinds of communications tools serving different social needs,” Pew said. “These new tools add to an already complex and varied terrain of online and mobile interaction.”

Read More: pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2489769,00.asp

Bondsman in Seminole County – Innovation Has Failed Big Law, Legal Ops Can Help

Source     : Bol BNA
By            : Dan Currell
Category : Bail Bondsman in Sanford, Bondsman in Seminole County

Innovation Has Failed Big Law, Legal Ops Can Help

“New Law,” “Paradigm Shift” and the “New Normal.” All describe the morphing landscape of the legal profession as law firms and professions adapt, for the first time in more than 100 years, to unprecedented market change. Legal service providers and their clients are experimenting with new agreements, pricing schemes and staffing measures as they strive to innovate the modern practice of law. But history has proven that it’s possible for a major industry to engage in long periods of shallow innovations that don’t help very much, even when deeper, more powerful innovations are possible. It’s helpful to consider the evolution of car manufacturing. In the 1950s, a time when highway death rates were at an historic high, product innovations among Detroit automakers focused largely on appearance. For example, flashy tail fins were all the rage — inspired by the look of World War II fighter aircraft — and sold many automobiles on “cool” looks alone. At the same time, lifesaving seat belts and headrests were generally unavailable. Seat belts weren’t present until the 1960s and 1970s, even though a group of physicians began to install their own lap belts 30 years prior. Meanwhile, 30,000 Americans died every year in car accidents. There were plenty of other so-called “innovative technologies” being applied to cars, but few actually made the product better.

Why did Detroit take decades to make a genuinely safer and better performing car? Because — “Nothing fails like success,” to borrow the words of the influential American author Steven Covey. The Big Three were on top of the world, leader of “the industry of industries,” a phrase coined in specific reference to GM and U.S. car manufacturing. Why try to improve? Big Law can be a lot like the U.S. Big Three automakers. In Big Law’s heyday, particularly the 2000s, firms grew on nearly every measure. Just like the Big Three, much of Big Law made little effort to improve the product while the good times rolled. Law firms offer a service that looks much the same today as it has looked for decades — though the cost has gone up.

Legal media and professionals are quick to tout sincere, meaningful innovation in law today. But lawyers, clients and the legal ops executives leading the charge for true change should ask: Is it predominantly deep or shallow innovation? Answer: Unfortunately for the legal profession, we still see a lot of shallow innovation.  Here are some of the most typical examples of innovation occurring in the profession today:

Alternative Fee Arrangements. AFAs are very popular, but shallow, because clients are accepting discounted and blended hourly rates as AFAs, rather than moving to value-based (non-hourly) fees that align incentives. If there’s relatively little difference in the underlying delivery of services and value, economic or otherwise, for the client, then it may be that the only thing different is how the same fees are packaged. For AFAs to become a deep innovation, the actual legal work would need to be and feel different. There would be significant and noticeable changes in the processes used to deliver them. When a law firm uses alternative fees, do the process and final work product feel different from the client’s perspective? Is the client achieving lower costs, more predictable spending and better outcomes? If not, deep innovation has yet to occur. Staffing Models. When firms push work down to less expensive lawyers, whether staff counsel, contract lawyers or a legal processing outsourcing company, the innovation is often shallow because they rely almost exclusively on labor arbitrage to deliver value. For a staffing model to reflect deep innovation, we would expect very different kinds of people, with a wide variety of expertise and unique skill sets, not just similar people in a different zip code. For example, a new staffing model could include law enforcement experts, investigators, librarians, technologists, data analysts and project managers, many of whom may be more qualified to do certain types of work on a matter.

Project Management. Whether promoted through technology, a legal consultancy or in-firm, PM is often a shallow innovation because professional project managers are rarely fully in charge of a matter. Too often, project management systems and software go unused. If there were deep innovation, another sign would be project managers leading engagements, and lawyers, including partners, contributing their expertise, similar to the commercial construction and aerospace industries.

Good questions to ask law firms or other legal service providers with proposed project management programs are: Who runs the projects? Is the scope defined at the outset? Are the specific metrics for the schedule, budget and status of matters defined and shared weekly? If not, deep PM innovation has not evolved. In short, innovation is almost always shallow when a law firm, in-house department or other legal service provider hasn’t precisely defined its processes. Toyota Motor Corporation revolutionized the motor vehicle industry with the Toyota Production System — the leading example of lean production in the world. This system shifted the focus from individual machines and their utilization to the flow of product through the total process. The result was a better car — not on the shallow measure of appearance, but on the deep measures of reliability, safety and total performance. Toyota did not simply promote technology, different parts, nor smarter people. It had better process: a vastly, constantly and relentlessly better process. With it, Toyota kicked off a spasm of industry-wide competition on deep innovations that changed the world.

In 1950, the American automobile death rate was 8 deaths per 100 million miles. Now, it hovers just above 1 death per 100 million miles. That is the result of deep innovation – an undeniable improvement in core product performance. The legal profession has not experienced improvements of this kind in the past 100 years, if ever. That’s because law has never truly taken process (the intersection of science and art) seriously — until now. Law can experience deep innovation because legal processes are now being defined so that they can be transformed. As a result, legal services are being designed to better identify and meet customer needs. With this development, law’s “tail fin” period is nearing its end and process innovation has begun, with legal ops executives and new types of legal service providers on the vanguard. For those who know how, and whose business models will permit it, let the deep innovation begin.

Read More: bol.bna.com/innovation-has-failed-big-law-legal-ops-can-help/

Bail Bondsman in Sanford – When Is Something NOT Worth $0? When It’s A Scholarship To Indy Tech Law

Source    :  Above The Law
By            :  Elie Mystal
Category :  Bail Bonds Sanford, Bail Bondsman in Sanford

When Is Something NOT Worth $0 When It’s A Scholarship To Indy Tech Law

Indiana Tech Law School, having failed to secure accreditation from the ABA, is offering a full scholarship to all of its 57 students. Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog also reports that the school will offer a free ride to anybody who matriculates in the fall. The school is really hoping to get 20 additional 1Ls.

It’s a nice gesture for the 57 kids who were unlucky moronic hopeful enough to enroll at the school in the first place. The entire story of Indy Tech (follow along with our previous coverage here and here) could be a case study on everything wrong with legal education. The school has no reason to exist other than the fact that there will be students uninformed enough to attend. But the school opened right at a time when prospective students (and their parents) became more aware about the dangers of legal education. I can only assume that the kids who are there are people who really want to go to law school but don’t know how to use Google. Letting these guys chase the dragon for free seems like the least Indy Tech can do.

That said, Indy Tech students should quit. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Just fold up the board and go home. I know that sounds harsh. I know telling people to give up on their hopes and dreams makes me sound like a “hater.” But as Al Pacino says in the Devil’s Advocate: “I’M A FAN OF MAN!” I don’t want to see these kids waste any more time on a dead end.

Indy Tech isn’t going to charge them any more money, but is it going to give them the years back? Is Indy Tech going to give them back THE TIME that they could be spending developing other marketable skills? Opportunity costs are real costs too. Spending another year chasing a degree that costs less than the paper it will be printed on is another year wasted. And let’s remember that the pursuit will still cost Indy Tech students money. The kids still have to live, still have to eat — it’s not like Indy Tech is paying them to go to law school. Just because something is free doesn’t mean that it doesn’t cost something.

Think about all the other things Indy Tech students could do with that year of their lives. They could learn refrigerator and air conditioner repair. They could learn how to code in Javascript. They could build up a year of seniority at the Applebee’s. Don’t laugh: fixing appliances or making malware or serving drinks are real skills — skills that you can make a living with. Nobody cares where you went to school to learn to snake a toilet, but clients do care if you went to an unaccredited law school with the Google footprint of a port-o-potty.

Instead of offering free tuition at Indy Tech Law, the administrators should offer a free transfer to Indiana Tech College. Go get your associate’s degree in Recreation Management and go run a Little League. That’s a career Indy Tech can help you with. Staying at Indy Tech Law is just throwing time down the drain. And time is money.

Read More: abovethelaw.com/2015/07/when-is-something-not-worth-0-when-its-a-scholarship-to-indy-tech-law/

Sanford Bail Bond – Cuts to Legal Services Commission could result in more Aboriginals being incarcerated

Source    :  ABC Net
By            :  Candice Marcus
Category :  Sanford Bail Bond, Bondsman in Seminole County

Cuts to Legal Services Commission could result in more Aboriginals being incarcerated

More Aboriginal people are likely to be incarcerated as a result of $10 million worth of cuts to South Australia’s Legal Services Commission, the Law Society of South Australia has warned. The society said the funding cuts mean it will not be sustainable for legal services to travel to the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands and between the communities to meet with their clients face to face. The Magistrates Court holds a circuit court in the lands six times a year. Due to the budget cuts legal representation will increasingly be delivered remotely through audio visual links. Law Society president Rocco Perrotta said not as many clients would be covered and their chances of going to jail would increase. “What we can see happening is that more Aboriginal people end up incarcerated and there’s already a significantly high proportion of Aboriginal people in custody,” Mr Perrotta said.”Something has to be done to cut that rather than taking action which has the effect of raising that figure.”

Mr Perrotta said the Government had begun to look at proposals to ensure less people are in custody as well as looking at different sentencing options. While Mr Perrotta welcomed those moves, he said it all needed to be part of a holistic look at the criminal justice system to ensure that people are not missing out on legal representation.
“As a result of effectively having to cut back services to the APY Lands, people will not be able to access a lawyer,” he said.

“The attempts to overcome that via audio visual links just won’t be able to cover the same ground that people would be able to cover by attending in person.” Mr Perrotta said the significant funding cuts, which are being delivered over four years, have put even more pressure on the service. “The Federal Government cut $4 million and the State Government $6 million, so that’s a total of $10 million. If that sounds like a lot of money you should also bear in mind the fact that they were operating at very, very low levels of funding – in any event they were under-funded as it was,” he said.

“They’re going to have to look at different ways to make the dollar go further, but the victim of all this will be that there will be people who are charged with offences that won’t be represented.” Mr Perrotta said due to cultural sensitivities Indigenous clients benefited from face-to-face interactions, and remote communication would not be as effective. “It’s not just the language barrier, although the language barriers themselves will be significant, but it’s the cultural aspect of it as well,” he said. “Culturally there needs to be a great deal of understanding and sensitivities to people from the APY Lands, and also how our Aboriginal population are treated so they can have a real appreciation of their role in the process. “Just getting on the other end of the telephone or an audio visual link won’t cut it.”

Read More: abc.net.au/news/2015-08-17/cuts-legal-services-could-result-more-aboriginal-incarcerations/6702386

Bondsman in Seminole County – No legal protections for religious baker’s discrimination

Source   :  Colorado Independent
By           :  Bree Davies
Category:  Bail Bondsman in Sanford, Bondsman in Seminole county

No legal protections for religious baker’s discrimination

The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled today that Masterpiece Cakeshop and its owner Jack Phillips violated Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act by refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple in 2012. The evangelical legal giant the Alliance Defending Freedom has championed Phillips and a handful of other bakers and florists in a national fight to protect what evangelicals claim is their constitutional right to discriminate based on religious beliefs.

The American Civil Liberties Union legal director Mark Silverstein argued that discrimination is not a so-called religious freedom. It is a violation of constitutionally protected equality. “It’s a great day for equality under the law,” said Silverstein. “The court held that a business that supplies wedding cakes to heterosexual couples but refuses to provide wedding cakes to same-sex couples discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation and is in violation of the Colorado public accommodations act. “The court said that the business can’t use religion as an exemption to the law, can’t use religion as an excuse to discriminate. I think that might set a precedent.” Many conservative evangelicals view that precedent as a governmental assault on Christianity. “Americans are guaranteed the freedom to live and work consistent with their faith,” wrote Jeremy Tedesco, Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior legal counsel, in a statement. “Government has a duty to protect people’s freedom to follow their beliefs personally and professionally rather than force them to adopt the government’s views.

“Jack simply exercised the long-cherished American freedom to decline to use his artistic talents to promote a message with which he disagrees. The court is wrong to deny Jack his fundamental freedoms.” Phillips and the Alliance Defending Freedom may take further legal action by bringing his case to the state Supreme Court. In the meantime, Masterpiece Cakeshop is legally bound to serve all customers regardless of their sexual orientation, age, race or nationality.

Read More: coloradoindependent.com/154882/no-legal-protections-for-religious-bakers-desire-to-discriminate