Bondsman in Seminole County – Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Texas Death-Penalty Rules

Source     : Wall Street Journal News
By             : JESS BRAVIN
Category :  Bail Bondsman in Sanford , Bondsman in Seminole County

Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Texas Death-Penalty Rules

The Supreme Court appeared skeptical Tuesday of Texas legal rules that permit execution of convicts who are considered intellectually disabled under current medical standards. The factors that Texas courts employ “are really intended to limit the classification of those persons with intellectual disability as defined by an almost uniform medical consensus,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said at legal arguments in a case involving a Texas man condemned to death. That remark could spell defeat for Texas, as Justice Kennedy typically casts the deciding vote in death-penalty cases. In 2002, he joined a 5-4 majority to rule that executing the intellectually disabled violated the Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Two years ago, he wrote the majority opinion invalidating as too rigid a Florida rule that automatically defined defendants with an IQ score above 70 as possessing adequate intellectual ability to be executed. Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, offered withering criticisms of the Texas system, which they characterized as relying more on a state court’s guess about what “a consensus of Texas citizens” might believe constitutes intellectual disability than the professional judgment of psychiatric experts.

Two other liberals, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, have suggested that the death penalty may be so riddled with unfairness and error in its application as to be unconstitutional. Justice Breyer indicated that Tuesday’s case supported such concerns, saying subjectivity that affects deciding “borderline” cases of intellectual disability could lead some states to execute a defendant whom other states would exempt. “Point me to something that will tell me how a district judge should go about making this determination in borderline cases,” Justice Breyer said. “My suspicion is that there is no such thing.” Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative supportive of the death penalty, said the lack of a scientific precision in defining mental capacity suggested that it was a decision best left for states to clarify. “You’re saying the state is obligated as a matter of constitutional law to follow the organizations?” he asked Clifford Sloan, the lawyer representing Bobby James Moore, who is sentenced to die for killing grocery store clerk James McCarble during a 1980 robbery.

Mr. Sloan said that if the state departed from the professional consensus, it needed “a sound reason for doing so.” He argued that Texas uses a narrow definition “only in the death-penalty context, in no other intellectual-disability context.” Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller said that while the state didn’t feel obligated to adopt current psychiatric standards “wholesale,” Texas courts used legitimate factors to determine who has the mental capacity to be eligible for execution. “It is valid for a state to have a different definition of when someone is morally culpable under the Eighth Amendment versus when someone should be able to get social-services benefit,” he said. The Texas appellate court has set the standards for assessing intellectual disability based, in part, on a 1992 professional manual. The most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, known as DSM-V, was published in 2013.

Read more : wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-hears-arguments-on-texas-death-penalty-rules-1480460485

Seminole County Bail Bonds – Supreme Court candidate steers clear of social media

Source     : Florida Politics
By             : MICHAEL MOLINE
Category : Bail Bonds Sanford , Seminole County Bail Bonds

Supreme Court candidate steers clear of social media

Count on this if Seminole County Circuit Judge Michael J. Rudisill lands on the Florida Supreme Court: He won’t be tweeting about rulings or anything else. “I tend to stay away from Twitter,” Rudisill said Monday, during his interview for a high court vacancy. “Twitter’s dangerous. Stay away from it. I don’t use Twitter, and virtually no good can come of it.” Rudisill and Osceola County Circuit Judge Patricia L. Strowbridge were the final applicants of 11 interviewed by the Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission to replace Justice James E.C. Perry, who departs the bench Dec. 30. The nominating panel will forward six names by Dec. 13 to Gov. Rick Scott, who will then name Perry’s replacement.

Virtually to a person, the applicants described themselves as strict conservatives who would follow the examples of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia or Florida Supreme Court Justice Charles Canady. Finally, late in the day, somebody asked Redistill whether he could point to any other judge he’d emulate. “My fantasy football team is actually named The Fighting Scalias,” Rudisill replied. Then he turned to Justice Clarence Thomas.

“His work ethic and constitutional originalist judicial philosophy, while slightly different from Antonin Scalia’s, probably would be a close second for me,” he said. The differences between Thomas and Scalia’s textualism “are rather nuanced, I guess,” he said, but he personally tries to read laws according to the plain meaning of their words as generally understood. “I definitely would not be tempted to breath new life and meaning” into those words, he said. Rudisill was asked about Chief Justice John Robert’s opinion upholding the Affordable Care Act. Roberts interpreted the law’s financial sanctions against people who don’t buy insurance as a constitutionally permissible tax — to the consternation of movement conservatives.

Rudisill replied that he agrees with Roberts that courts should find laws constitutional when they can. “Deference is always going to be appropriate,” but not if “you have to torture” statutory language to abide by the constitution, he said. “The law is clear that you err on the side of finding something constitutional. But if it’s clearly not, you have to do your job.” Rudisill posited his relative youth as an advantage — he was born in 1976. “It’s a form of diversity that I would bring to the bench.” It makes him more at ease with useful technology than are some of his fellow jurists. “These are things that I’m comfortable with,” he said.

Strowbridge has specialized in family law including adoptions and child dependency as an attorney and judge. She disavowed any concern for trying to decipher the legislative intent of laws. That stance, she said, was informed by her experience early in her career helping to lobby the Legislature. She witnessed considerable horse-trading for votes. “A lot of people” who supported her measure “didn’t know what was in the bill,” Strowbridge said. “I don’t believe there’s anything called legislative intent,” she said. “Words have meaning. … Give those words the meaning that they have.”

If appellate courts increasingly face political pressure, it’s their own fault. “When judges wander into legislating, that’s when the political pressure ramps up on them,” Strowbridge said. As for coming to speed on the unfamiliar legal areas she would confront as a justice, “I study. I read,” she said. In fact, she considers The Florida Law Weekly good bedtime reading. “I believe I am capable of learning what I need to learn,” Strowbridge said. She was asked about two ethics proceedings against her when she was an attorney, and which she disclosed on her application. One involved a misdirected fax that she neglected to return to the sender, not realizing that the Florida Bar had recently issued a rule requiring her to do that. She was required to take an ethics class. The other involved a Bar grievance filed by a birth mother who’d given her child up for adoption and who later wished she’s chosen a more open form of the process. Strowbridge was not the woman’s attorney, but agreed to be more careful in communicating her role to mothers in the future.

Read more : floridapolitics.com/archives/227987-supreme-nomnations

Bail Bond Seminole County – The Nuclear Path To Legal Sports Betting

Source     : Business Insider
By             : THE LEGAL BLITZ
Category : Bail Bond Seminole County , Bail Bondsman in Sanford

The Nuclear Path To Legal Sports Betting

The other Sunday something happened I thought was only possible in dreams — my wife actually asked me to watch football. I owe this small miracle to sports betting. The night prior we were at Delaware Park Casino playing poker when I decided to take advantage of the only legal sports betting East of the Mississippi, albeit a severely limited form. Delaware offers NFL parlay “lottery” cards due to an exception under the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (“PASPA”) that grandfathered in existing sports betting laws in Nevada, Oregon, Montana, and Delaware when enacted in 1992. New Jersey also had an opportunity to legalize full-scale sports betting under PASPA, but bungled doing so in true Jersey fashion.

After filling out a variety of parlay cards, I asked my wife if she wanted to take a crack. She wisely went with the Patriots -6.5 over the Bills, Saints +3.5 over the Seahawks, and Packers +2.5 over the Falcons for a 5.5 to 1 payout. The first two picks hit fairly easily, but the Packers/Falcons game was heading toward a tight finish. With my Steelers on a bye and my fantasy team cruising to a victory, I was milling about the house pretending to be useful when I heard those glorious words: “Steve, come watch the end of this game.” You don’t have to ask me twice. We watched the entire fourth quarter together and celebrated the narrow Packers cover.

Paging Roger Goodell. If you want to pull the NFL’s ratings out of the gutter, here is a great way to do it. Americans are already wagering $149 billion annually on sports through bookies and offshore websites according to the American Gaming Association. By comparison, only $3.3 billion is wagered legally in Nevada sportsbooks. Fortunately, legal sports betting is slowly becoming a matter of “when” rather than “if.” A Congressional committee is now reviewing the incoherent patchwork of federal gaming laws including PASPA, the Wire Act of 1961 and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA). Pennsylvania passed a resolution urging Congress to lift the federal ban on sports betting, New York Assemblyman J. Gary Pretlow is planning a legal challenge to PASPA in 2017, and Mississippi is eyeing a way to grab a piece of the potential tax revenue from legal sports betting.

Yet the best way to finally legalize sports betting, might be the craziest way. Despite dropping the ball in the 90s, and a series of recent federal court losses stemming from attempts to legalize sports betting, New Jersey is back at it with its most genius move yet – the so-called nuclear option. Introduced by Assemblymen Ralph Caputo and John Burzichelli, Assembly Bill 4303 would completely repeal New Jersey’s prohibition on sports betting. Doing so would allow anyone to open a sportsbook. In other words, the corner bookie could literally be on every corner.

The Bill has almost no chance of ever passing, but it is an attention-grabbing middle finger to PASPA that might just force Congress’ hand. PASPA prohibits “a governmental entity to sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license, or authorize by law or compact, . . . a lottery, sweepstakes, or other betting, gambling, or wagering scheme based, directly or indirectly (through the use of geographical references or otherwise), on one or more competitive games in which amateur or professional athletes participate, or are intended to participate, or on one or more performances of such athletes in such games.” By completely removing all laws pertaining to sports betting, such as the seemingly necessary regulation of sportsbook operators, limiting sportsbooks to existing casinos, enforcing taxes, and monitoring wagers for signs of corruption, New Jersey could render PASPA useless. It is also a direct nod to the unintended consequences of a flawed Third Circuit decision preventing the Garden State from legalizing sports betting.

Read more : abovethelaw.com/2016/11/the-nuclear-path-to-legal-sports-betting/

Bail Bondsman in Sanford – Florida Supreme Court denies motion for legal filings against Amendment 1

Source    : PV – Tech News
By            : Danielle Ola
Category : Bail Bondsman in Sanford , Bondsman in Seminole County

Florida Supreme Court denies motion for legal filings against Amendment 1

The Florida Supreme Court has denied the motions put forward by Floridians for Solar Choice and the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association (FSEIA) to declare the ballot summary for Amendment 1 as materially misleading. “We are disappointed by today’s decision from the Florida Supreme Court as we know Amendment 1 to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Patrick Altier, president of FSEIA. “We strongly believe the proposed ballot measure is deceptive, and call upon the citizens of Florida to vote no [to] Amendment 1.” Stephen Smith of Floridians for Solar Choice echoed this disappointment: “We wanted to give the Court an opportunity to clean up the mess they have made by approving this amendment for the ballot. Now its game on: we have a Solar Uprising happening in the Sunshine State. We ask everyone to Vote No On 1 and we look forward to Tuesday when we will kill this once and for all.”

In last-ditch efforts to gain support momentum for the Amendment, chief architects of the movement, Consumers for Smart Solar, have spent a further US$4.3 million. Consumers for Smart Solar spent more than US$3.6 million on advertising between 22 October and 3 November. The group spent another US$526,508 on “consulting and advertising”, and US$91,520 on polling, according to reports. This brings overall spending on the anti-solar campaign that aims to prohibit third-party ownership, to more than US$26 million.

Minor setback

Whilst the Supreme Court decision is a considerate blow to pro-solar interests, recent news suggests a sunnier outcome could be in store for the Sunshine State. Polls last week indicated a sharp momentum shift; with support for the amendment down by more than 20% since the James Madison Institute scandal broke. Published by Saint Leo University, a new poll found that around 59% of voters support the amendment; down from around 84% last month and 81% in August. The measure would have to win 60% of the vote to become law.

New data does show that the result of the amendment vote is still too close to call, but things are looking less bleak than once assumed. “I think it is amazing that with US$26 million dollars being spent on this campaign, that that is where it is today,” said former Florida governor Bob Graham, in a press conference. “It appears that support for Amendment 1 is declining because people are looking behind the false statements that are being made and they are seeing what the reality is. Fortunately, newspapers and other means of public opinion influence are weighing in on the negative aspects of Amendment 1 and that appears to be having an impact. It’s going to be a very close election. I anticipate that there will be even more advertising done over the next week. And those who are for solar need to redouble their efforts in opposition to Amendment 1.” In addition, on Friday, the Florida Professional Firefighters issued a statement withdrawing their endorsement of Amendment 1, citing the need to protect local government’s right to regulate the safety of solar energy production.

Read more : pv-tech.org/news/florida-supreme-court-denies-motion-for-legal-filings-against-amendment-1

Bail Bonds Sanford – Denis O’Brien set to attack TDs in evidence to High Court

Source    : Irish TImes News
By            : Peter Murtagh
Category : Bail Bonds Sanford , Seminole County Bail Bonds

Denis O’Brien set to attack TDs in evidence to High Court

Businessman Denis O’Brien expects to spend 12 hours giving evidence in person to the High Court next week in his challenge to the legal privilege enjoyed by members of the Oireachtas. In what observers expect will be a robust and uncompromising attack on TDs Catherine Murphy and Pearse Doherty, together with an equally staunch defence of his own position, Mr O’Brien is likely to be in the witness box across three days if he takes all the time he has indicated to his legal team that he believes he will need. When the hearing of the case begins next Tuesday, Mr O’Brien is expected to argue that absolute privilege does not exist for members of the Oireachtas, and that TDs and Senators do not have a right to, as he will argue, usurp the role of the courts.

Legal argument
It is believed lawyers for the Oireachtas may decide not to cross-examine Mr O’Brien, preferring to rely instead on legal argument. This will centre on article 15, section 13, of the Constitution, which states that TDs and senators “shall not, in respect of any utterance in either House, be amenable to any court or any authority other than the House itself”. In effect, this means that a TD or senator cannot be sued for anything they say in the Oireachtas. Mr O’Brien objected when, on several dates in May and June 2015, Social Democrats TD Ms Murphy and Sinn Féin’s Mr Doherty questioned his purchase of Siteserv (a company involved in the installation of water meters and now known as Actavo) and his banking arrangements with Anglo Irish Bank, later renamed the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC).

Injunction
He argued that remarks in the Dáil were in breach of a High Court injunction against RTÉ, and which he said applied to all other media as well, preventing publication of his banking arrangements with IBRC. These included Mr O’Brien’s contention that a verbal agreement he said he had with the bank on an interest rate to be applied to his Anglo loans, and subsequently IBRC, should be honoured by the liquidator of IBRC. Following Ms Murphy’s Dáil comments, lawyers for Mr O’Brien threatened other media that they would be in breach of the injunction if they reported what she had said. This was later clarified by the High Court not to be the case.

Conduct
Lawyers for Mr O’Brien complained about Ms Murphy and Mr Doherty to the Ceann Comhairle and Leas Cheann Comhairle, who are responsible for the running of the Dáil. On June 15th, 2015, he was told that the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, which rules on the conduct of TDs, found that Ms Murphy had not breached standing orders as her comments were made “on the floor of the House in a responsible manner, in good faith and as part of the legislative process”. On July 3rd, 2015, Mr O’Brien’s lawyers were told the committee had concluded Mr Doherty’s “exercise of his constitutional freedom of speech” in the Dáil fell outside the scope of, and did not contravene, the standing order regulating debate in the House. Mr O’Brien alleges that, as far as he is aware, the committee received no submissions from either TD about his complaints before making its findings and, if it had, he was given no opportunity to respond to such submissions. This, he alleges, breaches his right to fair procedures.

Right to privacy
He also contends that the original Dáil comments also breached his right to privacy. The Oireachtas legal team’s eschewing of cross-examination of Mr O’Brien may change if he makes what either TD regards as outlandish claims about them or questions their integrity.

Read more : irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/denis-o-brien-set-to-attack-tds-in-evidence-to-high-court-1.2879833

Bail Bonds in Sanford – California’s top court will review major public pension ruling

Source     : LA Times
By             : Maura Dolan – Contact Reporter
Category : Bail Bonds in Sanford , Seminole County Bail Bonds

California’s top court will review major public pension ruling

The California Supreme Court decided Tuesday to review a ruling that would give state and local governments new authority to cut public employee pensions. The court, meeting in closed session, unanimously accepted labor unions’ appeal of a decision that said government pensions were not “immutable” and could be trimmed. But the court will not review further arguments in the case until a court of appeal resolves another pending pension dispute. That could take months. The case now before the state high court was decided in August by a three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco.

The other pension case, which raises similar issues, is pending before a different panel of judges in the same court. That panel has not yet scheduled a hearing on it. The court of appeal’s August ruling amounted to a major change in California pensions law, scholars said. For decades, California courts have ruled that state and local employees were entitled to the pension that was in place on the day they were hired. Pensions could be cut for current employees only if an equivalent benefit were added, making it difficult for governments to cut costs. If upheld, the ruling could be a vehicle for reducing a shortfall of hundreds of billions of dollars in public pensions in California. Other states grappling with pension debt also could follow California’s lead.

The court agreed to take the case in a brief order that did not reveal the justices’ thoughts. A decision in the case is likely to be issued in several months. The ruling stemmed from a pension reform law passed in 2012 by state legislators. The law cut pensions and raised retirement ages for new employees and banned “pension spiking” for existing workers. Pension spiking has allowed some workers to get larger pensions by inflating their pay during the period in which retirement is based — usually at the end of their careers. Employees have done this by cashing in years of accumulated vacation or sick pay or volunteering for extra duties just before retirement. The practice in some cases has given employees pensions that exceeded their regular salary.

The Marin County retirement system, relying on the new law, decided that pay for various on-call duties and for waiving health insurance could no longer be counted toward pensions. Unions objected. They said many employees had been counting on the long-promised benefit and may even have accepted their jobs because of it. In a ruling written by Justice James A. Richman, appointed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the appeals court said the Legislature can alter pension formulas for active employees and reduce their anticipated retirement benefits. “While a public employee does have a ‘vested right’ to a pension, that right is only to a ‘reasonable’ pension — not an immutable entitlement to the most optimal formula of calculating the pension,” wrote Richman, joined by Justices J. Anthony Kline and Marla J. Miller, both Gov. Jerry Brown appointees.

A trial judge in the other pension case, brought by employees of Contra Costa, Alameda and Merced counties, upheld the anti-spiking provisions but allowed some employees to count pay for regular and required on-call duties toward their pensions. Written arguments in that case were completed months ago, and the panel’s failure to schedule a hearing prompted speculation that it was waiting for the California Supreme Court to decide the Marin County dispute before ruling. Instead, the state high court’s order amounted to a “you go first” message, said Arthur Liou, an attorney who represents unions in both pension cases. He said the Supreme Court may have decided to wait for a decision in the second case because the justices assumed they would have to review it later anyway. “Maybe the court wants to hear and resolve all the issues together,” Liou said, noting that both cases raise similar issues.

David P. Mastagni, who represents Alameda County deputy sheriffs in the pending case, said the Supreme Court’s decision to wait for a ruling “really to me signals they understand the gravity and significance of the issues.” Given the complexity and importance of the dispute, he said, he was not surprised that the court of appeal has yet to schedule a hearing. The court is required to issue a decision within 90 days of a hearing. David E. Mastagni, the elder lawyer’s son and law partner, said it was not uncommon for the California Supreme Court to postpone a decision until a lower court acts first in a similar case.

Read more : latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-court-pension-20161122-story.html

Sanford Bail Bonds – Upcoming High Court Patent Decisions May Not Affect Stocks

Source    : Law 360 News
By            : Press Release
Category : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bonds

Upcoming High Court Patent Decisions May Not Affect Stocks

The enterprise values of businesses with technology-rich products and processes are often tied to their patent portfolios. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. concerning the recovery of an infringer’s profits for design patent infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 289. During the next several months, the court will also consider the case of Life Technologies Corp. v. Promega Corp., and decide if the extraterritorial reach of 35 U.S.C. § 271(f)(1) covers the export from the U.S. of just one component of multicomponent products. Legal reporters and financial analysts alike have asserted that these two decisions could have a “significant” and even a “massive” impact on U.S. businesses. There is no doubt that Supreme Court decisions can influence the enterprise values of U.S. businesses. However, our research shows that, although the Supreme Court has issued 15 opinions since 2006[1] that negatively influence patent rights and related values, the impact of these decisions on the stock prices of patent-rich companies is not readily apparent.

Next, we considered the relative influence of each decision in terms of the scope of legal issue(s) addressed, and the importance of the technology area(s) affected. Based on this criteria, we ranked from 1 to 4 each decision that positively influences patent values, and from -1 to -4 each decision that negatively influences patent values. The higher the absolute number of the ranking, the more influential the decision. As reflected in both Figure A and Figure B, 11 of the 23 decisions were assigned a ranking of -4, reflecting their negative impact on patent values, the broad legal issue(s) addressed, and the importance of the technology area(s) affected. We then analyzed the performances of the Ocean Tomo 300 (OT300) and the Standard & Poor 500 (S&P500) indices on the days these decisions were issued. The Ocean Tomo 300 (OT300) is a diversified portfolio of 300 companies that own the most valuable patents relative to their respective book values.[2] Figure A reflects the performance of the OT300 on the day the court issued 22 of the 23 patent-related decisions.[3] Positive numbers indicate that the index rose that day. Negative numbers indicate that the index declined that day. On only three days did the OT300 index decline when the court issued a negative-patent-value decision with an Ocean Tomo rank of -4. On six other days, the OT300 index actually rose.[4]

The S&P 500 is considered an accurate gauge of the performance of large-cap U.S. stocks, and is also considered representative of the market as a whole because it includes a significant portion of the total value of the market. The performance of the S&P 500 on the days the Supreme Court issued each of the 23 patent-related decisions was similar to the OT300, and is likewise reflected/ On only three days did the S&P 500 decline when the court issued a negative-patent-value decision with an Ocean Tomo rank of -4. The S&P 500 actually rose on seven of the days these relatively broad, negative-patent-value decisions were issued. On only five of the 15 days on which the Supreme Court issued a negative-patent-value decision (with any Ocean Tomo ranking) did the S&P 500 index decline. The influence of several of these decisions, such as Bilski v. Kappos, Alice v. CLS, and Cuozzo v. Lee, cannot objectively be viewed as somehow less influential than those of the impending Apple v. Samsung or Life Tech v. Promega. The previous decisions unquestionably addressed broad legal issues and affected important technology areas.

Read more : law360.com/articles/858311/upcoming-high-court-patent-decisions-may-not-affect-stocks

Bail Bond Sanford- Apprenticeships are new route into legal world

Source      : Financial Times News
By              : Jane Croft
Category  : Bail Bond Sanford , Sanford Bail Bonds

Apprenticeships are new route into legal world

The legal profession has long been criticised for its lack of social mobility and its deployment of traditional recruitment methods. Many trainees at top law firms are drawn from a narrow slice of universities: a recent survey into social mobility at law firms by Byfield Consultancy found that more than 80 per cent of legal trainees at the top 50 firms were from the Russell Group of top UK universities. In the Russell Group, private school pupils are over-represented: they form 25 per cent of students, when only 6.5 per cent of schoolchildren attend private schools. But there is a growing number of alternative routes into law. One recent initiative to help promote diversity in the profession has been apprenticeships for would-be paralegals and solicitors. This year Eversheds, the law firm, introduced an apprenticeship aimed at those with A-levels, the school-leavers’ exams taken by English pupils at age 18, which allows them to qualify as a solicitor after six years.

“It means you can come out debt-free and qualify as a solicitor and get a degree whilst you earn,” says Catherine Knight, graduate recruitment manager at Eversheds. “Many of the apprentices had excellent A-levels with As and A*s and could have gone to university but chose to do this instead.” Starting on a salary of up to £17,200, the apprentices work full-time and study part-time, eventually gaining an LLB (bachelor of laws) degree as well as work experience — a big plus for those worried about racking up student debts. The first eight apprentices who started in September were selected from hundreds of applications. The apprenticeship route is being championed by the government. In September, Lord Chancellor Liz Truss was asked about how she would ensure a more diverse legal profession given the costs of a degree. She replied that she was a “huge fan of apprenticeships” and the government’s plan to create 3m apprenticeships “brings a big opportunity for some of our large legal services firms”. Law firms like Horwich Farrelly and even elite Magic Circle firm Freshfields have been among those which have taken on apprentice paralegals from school. Freshfields is partnering with the University of Law to launch a new paralegal apprenticeship scheme in its legal services centre in Manchester. Olivia Balson, head of the legal services centre at Freshfields, says the scheme ensures that the firm “has access to as wide a talent pool as possible”.

A related, but more radical, change is that the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the legal regulator, is now allowing individuals to be admitted as solicitors under its “equivalent means” system, provided that they have the right quality and quantity of experience. In 2015 Robert Houchill became the first paralegal to be admitted as a solicitor without doing a training contract after working for a number of years and demonstrating “a considerable amount of evidence” of his standard, according to Bates Wells Braithwaite, his employer at the time. By contrast, the more traditional route to becoming a solicitor in England and Wales is largely academic, involving a three-year law degree, followed by a year’s Legal Practice Course and then two years’ in-house training. This can be expensive and the Legal Practice Course alone can cost more than £15,000. Trainee solicitors are signed off as competent to practise at the end of their training contracts by one of about 2,000 law firms but there is no mechanism for firms to compare standards.

The SRA is now looking at overhauling legal training by creating a new Solicitors Qualifying Examination — a final two-part exam. This would also make it easier for training providers to develop flexible courses — including non-degree or work-based routes — to widen access. Crispin Passmore, executive director of policy at the SRA, says the creation of one two-part exam would improve diversity by giving confidence that all new solicitors have reached the same standard. This is hard to assess while 100 universities offer law degrees and thousands of law firms offer training contracts. The new exam would also allow able students who had not attended an elite university or who had come up through a work-based route to shine, says Mr Passmore. “If you are the first in your family to go to university and go to a modern university, then if your marks on the SQE show off your skills you will be able to show that around potential employers.”

Read more : ft.com/content/507aa6f6-9ace-11e6-8f9b-70e3cabccfae

Sanford Bail Bond – 9 Trump Supreme Court Prospects at Conservative Legal Parley

Source    : NBC Washington News
By            : Mark Sherman
Category : Bail Bond in Sanford , Sanford Bail Bond

9 Trump Supreme Court Prospects at Conservative Legal Parley

Two Supreme Court justices and nine judges on President-elect Donald Trump’s list of potential high court picks are among more than 1,000 people expected at a gathering of conservative lawyers that has suddenly turned into an impromptu job fair for spots in the new administration. The Federalist Society’s national lawyers’ convention begins Thursday in Washington as a tribute to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, an early supporter of the group and a hero to many of its 40,000 members.

But since Trump’s surprising victory in last week’s presidential race, the meeting has turned into a public audition of sorts for nearly half of the list of 21 people that Trump put forward earlier in the year as prospective Supreme Court nominees. “The mood has changed. Everyone is going to be thinking, ‘Maybe someone here is going to be filling Justice Scalia’s shoes,’ ” said Abbe Gluck, a Yale Law professor who is not a member of the group but who will take part in the conference.

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, familiar figures at these annual meetings, also will speak on Thursday. The Federalist Society got its start on college campuses when Ronald Reagan was in the White House as a way to counter what its members saw as liberal domination of the nation’s law-school faculties. Its influence was pronounced during the presidency of George W. Bush, when its leaders helped rally support for Senate confirmation of Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. The group was so successful that it spawned copycat liberal organizations.

Speaking at a Federalist Society event in the Bush years was akin to an out-of-town preview of a Broadway show for conservative lawyers who were looking for administration jobs or judgeships, author Mark Tushnet has written. Over the past eight years, the group provided a forum for opponents of President Barack Obama’s court choices and policies, although the Federalist Society itself does not endorse candidates or take policy positions. Some of its leaders backed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s refusal to act on Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill Scalia’s seat. That political strategy paid unexpected and huge dividends for conservatives with Trump’s election.

The society’s star again appears to be on the rise. “Anytime there’s a major shift in the power of government, it’s an enormous opportunity for what is probably the collection of the smartest, most talented and most publicly minded lawyers in the country to roll up their sleeves and help advance the cause of constitutional government,” said Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society’s executive vice president. Leo met with Trump in New York on Wednesday and said afterward that Trump has yet to pare down his long list of names of Supreme Court hopefuls.

Among those candidates are nine who will take part in panel discussions in the next few days: state supreme court justices Allison Eid of Colorado, Joan Larsen of Michigan, David Stras of Minnesota and Don Willett of Texas, and federal appellate judges Steven Colloton, Thomas Hardiman, Raymond Kethledge, William Pryor and Diane Sykes. The group says 90 percent of its money comes from individuals and foundations, the rest from corporations. Charles and David Koch, Google and Microsoft are among donors who gave $100,000 or more, according to the society’s annual report for 2015. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and her husband, George, gave between $50,000 and $100,000. George Conway is a New York lawyer and Federalist Society member.

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Bondsman in Seminole County – Fantasy Sports Goes Legal! New Site Lets You Predict Supreme Court Decisions

Source     : Law Newz
By             : Ronn Blitzer
Category : Bail Bondsman in Sanford , Bondsman in Seminole County

Fantasy Sports Goes Legal! New Site Lets You Predict Supreme Court Decisions

Fantasy sports have taken the nation by storm over the years. Fans of the NFL, NBA, and MLB have spent decades trying to predict how players will perform — and profit in the process. The phenomenon has spread outside the sporting world, with fantasy leagues based on reality shows like Survivor and The Bachelor. It was only amount of time before the highest court in all the land joined the fray.

FantasySCOTUS allows Supreme Court followers to predict how the Court will decide individual cases, down to how many justices vote to affirm or reverse a decision, as well as who will vote which way. If sounds incredibly nerdy, it is. But it’s a nerdy habit that could earn you money. While it’s free to play, the site has $10,000 in prizes up for grabs for the most accurate prognosticators.

But the predictions themselves could prove most valuable. Most users will likely be law students, professors, practicing attorneys, and others with a watchful eye on the legal issues presented before the Supreme Court, and the justices who decide them. Each listed case shows how users in general are expecting a given case to go. With such expertise, it could be a solid indicator of how the judicial branch will behave (for example, the recently argued Samsung v. Apple case is expected to be reversed in an 8-0 decision, as is last week’s Wells Fargo v. Miami. Of course, like all fantasy leagues, there are bound to be many participants who stop paying attention mid-season (er, mid-term), and guess randomly, which could taint the data.

FantasySCOTUS is sponsored by LexPredict, a legal analytics and service provider, founded by law professors Michael J. Bommarito and Daniel Martin Katz. LexPredict has also developed their own algorithm that predicts Supreme Court outcomes. According to the FantasySCOTUS homepage, the algorithm has 70% accuracy.

Read more : lawnewz.com/high-profile/fantasy-sports-goes-legal-new-site-lets-you-predict-supreme-court-decisions/