What is a Lawyer

What is a Lawyer

Attorney Lawyer Tax Lawyer US Attorney

miami lawyer Criminal-Outside of television shows or movies, you may have no knowledge of what lawyers are or what they do. While fictional depictions can be helpful, they are not always accurate. The following are a few commonly asked questions about lawyers.  

Q.  What exactly is a lawyer?
A.  A lawyer (also called attorney, counsel, or counselor) is a licensed professional who advises and represents others in legal matters. Today’s lawyer can be young or old, male or female. Nearly one-third of all lawyers are under thirty-five years old. Almost half of the law students today are women, and women may ultimately be as numerous in the profession as men.

Q.  I come from another country, and I need to hire a lawyer. Are notaries public lawyers?
A.  A “notary public,” an “accountant,” or a “certified public accountant” is not necessarily a lawyer. Do not assume that titles such as notary public mean the same thing as similar terms in your own language. In some countries, a lawyer is called a “barrister” or a “solicitor.”



Q.  What are a lawyer’s main duties?
A.  A lawyer has two main duties: to uphold the law while also protecting a client’s rights. To carry out these duties, a lawyer should understand the law and be an effective communicator.



Q.  Is most of a lawyer’s time spent in court?
A.  No. Most lawyers normally spend more time in an office than in a courtroom. The practice of law most often involves researching legal developments, investigating facts, writing and preparing legal documents, giving advice, and settling disputes.



Q.  What are the professional requirements for becoming a lawyer?
A.  To understand how laws and the legal system work, lawyers must go through special schooling. Each state has enacted standards that must be met before a person is licensed to practice law there. Before being allowed to practice law in most states, a person must:

    Have a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent.
    Complete three years at an ABA-accredited law school.
    Pass a state bar examination, which usually lasts for two or three days. The exam tests knowledge in selected areas of law. There are also required tests on professional ethics and responsibility.
    Pass a character and fitness review. Applicants for law licenses must be approved by a committee that investigates character and background.
    Take an oath, usually swearing to support the laws and the state and federal constitutions.
    Receive a license from the highest court in the state, usually the state supreme court.



Q.  Once licensed in one state, is a lawyer allowed to practice law in all states?
A.  Not automatically. To become licensed in more than one state, a lawyer must usually comply with each state’s bar admission requirements. Some states, however, permit licensed out-of-state lawyers to practice law if they have done so in another state for several years and the new state’s highest court approves them. Many states also have provisions for lawyers to participate in specific cases in states where they are not licensed. The lawyer in such a case is said to be appearing pro hoc vice, which means “for this one particular occasion.”



Q.  If I have a legal problem, do I have to hire a lawyer?
A.  Not necessarily – you may represent yourself. And, in some specialized situations, such as bringing a complaint before a government agency (for example, a dispute over Social Security or Medicare benefits), nonlawyers or paralegals may be qualified to represent you. (Paralegals are nonlawyers who have received training that enables them to assist lawyers in a number of tasks; they typically cannot represent clients in court.) If you are in this situation, ask the government agency involved what types of legal representatives are acceptable.

There are many matters you can deal with yourself, if you know how to go about it. For example, you can represent yourself in traffic or small-claims court, or engage in negotiations and enter into contracts on your own. But if you are not sure about the consequences of your actions or are uncertain about how to proceed, getting some quick legal advice from a lawyer could be very helpful in preventing problems down the road.



Q. Why does it sound like lawyers speak and write in a totally different language?
A. Lawyers and others trained in the law often use legal terms as shorthand to express complicated ideas or principles. These words and phrases, many rooted in Latin, are often jokingly referred to as a foreign language—legalese. Although some legalese may be necessary in order to communicate certain ideas precisely, a document that is understood by very few of its readers is just plain poor communication.

Since 1978, federal regulations are required to be “written in plain English and understandable to those who must comply” with them. Many states also have laws requiring that insurance policies, leases, and consumer contracts be written in plain English. Of particular importance is the trend in law schools to discourage the use of legalese and to encourage the use of plain, comprehensible English.

HOT WATER

HOT WATER

SAO

Darren Rainey was an inmate at Dade Correctional Institute.  On June 23, 2012, he died while locked in a hot shower.

Almost five years later the Dade State Attorneys Office is giving the guards and staff at DCI a pass.
If you have insomnia and need help falling asleep then read the report. If you want to skip the gobble-gook butt-covering bureaucratic double speak, then just skip to the Dr. Lew's ME's report which is, in our humble opinion, a complete abandonment of an ME's job.

The deceased had atherosclerosis? What 50 year old poor black man in America doesn't have some calcium in his arteries? So that, along with his underlying schizophrenia caused the ME, after much hand-wringing and dithering and Macbeth-like indecision, the ME came to the conclusion that the mentally disabled inmate who was locked in a hot shower for an extended period of time died...accidentally.

Blame the SAO if you will, but the fault dear Brutus, lies in the ME not the SAO. We've never seen an autopsy protocol that screams "decision to fit the facts" like this one. But that's our opinion. You can read the report and arrive at your own opinion.

From Occupied America...Fight the Power!

DarrenRaineyincustodydeathcloseoutmemo 9163712 Ver1.0 by Rumpole21 on Scribd

THE AGE OF IGNORANCE

THE AGE OF IGNORANCE

The author William Manchester named his book about the dark ages "A World Lit Only By Fire". It was an age of ignorance and suffering. 

In Occupied America, ignorance has become a virtue. The President generates huge applause lines when he threatens to "Shut down the National Institute of Health" or gut the budget of the Center for Disease Control. Invectives against global warming and declaring it "fake news" generate even larger applause, while ice caps melt and polar bears drown after swimming hundreds of miles. 

People don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking. Anyone who makes a virtue - a highly intellectual virtue - out of what they know to be their sin, their weakness and their guilt... They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don't know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear...
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. 

In "The Death of Expertise" author Tom Nichols writes "Americans have reached a point where ignorance, especially of anything related to public policy, is an actual virtue."  One need only to see the choices of the president for his cabinet to know this is true. 

Nichols further writes "No longer do we hold these truths to be self-evident, we hold all truths to be self-evident, even the ones that aren't true." ("Obama taped me in Trump Tower.")

People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I’ve learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked…The man who lies to the world, is the world’s slave from then on…There are no white lies, there is only the blackest of destruction, and a white lie is the blackest of all. 
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. 

Scientific facts are "false news". Lies are truth if repeated enough. The President and Republicans scorn "Washington", the bureaucracy, the federal government. "Return the power and the money to the states, to the people" they bellow at populist rallies. 
Then the Asian flu threatens America, and we turn our eyes to a hollowed-out CDC and wonder why we don't have a vaccine? The Zika virus strikes terror in pregnant women, and those Americans who scorn intellect and who voted for the president ask why won't the government do something? 

The government can't. It's been shut down. The best minds run out of town, scorned for their intelligence and professionalism. 

In Ayn Rand's classic Atlas Shrugged, civilization slowly falls apart as the best and brightest mysteriously disappear, unwilling to work for governments that scorn them, and steal their intellectual property. 


Do you know the hallmark of a second rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire. They bare their teeth at you from out of their rat holes,thinking that you take pleasure in letting your brilliance dim them - while you'd give a year of my life to see a flicker of talent anywhere among them. They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don't know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear. They have no way of knowing what he feels when surrounded by inferiors - hatred? no, not hatred, but boredom - the terrible, hopeless, draining, paralyzing boredom. Of what account are praise and adulation from men whom you don't respect? Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?"
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. 


Who is John Gault?

From Occupied America, Fight the Power.

A READER INQUIRES

A READER INQUIRES

A reader has some questions that deserve answers. 

Here are some questions for you my friend Rumpy:

 1. Why does the State e-file discovery notices but not the actual discovery, which they send to you by snail mail? Even Broweird e-files the entire discovery package. Don't they have scanners or copies that scan documents or are they just supporting the U.S. Postal Service? Think of all the money they would save on postage! 

Rumpole says: Excellent question.

2. Do you really believe that KFR refuses to ride the elevator with her assistants? She may be more a politician than a lawyer now but she is not that full of herself. 

3. What is it with judges and their J.A.s, who refuse to accept motions by e-filing or email? I had a motion e-filed with a courtesy copy emailed to the J.A. with a proposed order. They don't respond. When I have my paralegal inquire, she is told that we needed to MAIL a copy of the motion, proposed order (3 copies) and self-addressed, postage paid envelopes for us and the SAO. Are we practicing in the 1950's? Should I send over some carbon paper?

Rumpole says: Another excellent question. We know judges read this blog. Any of them care to answer why they will not accept emails of motions with orders? 

From Occupied America, Fight the Power!

DIARY OF A MAD PRESIDENT HEALTH CASE WIN ISSUE

DIARY OF A MAD PRESIDENT HEALTH CASE WIN ISSUE

Diary Of A Mad President

Dear Diary... another big win this week. Destroyed Obama-care by not passing a new health care bill. Now everyone will see Obama-care fail and we will have a new health care bill. 

I promised to repeal and replace Obama-care on day one...just never said when I would start counting. 

Enemies list: Freedom caucus. Doofus idiots. Wait until they need me...just wait. Oregon. They're so smug up there. I'm sure their behind this health care mess. Also Thailand. The CIA. The FBI. Turns out they were bugging me. Recording me as I spoke with my pal Vlad. 

To Do list: Withdraw from Nato. Ditto the UN. That property on the east side would make an amazing Trump Tower. The best. Call it Trump Tower UN. No one will ever see anything like it. An entire building devoted to cultures from around the world...and only Americans will be allowed to live in it. We'll have a Taco Bell, a Wo-Hops, a pizza joint, a sushi- place, maybe even an Indian take-out. Total world culture...all for us. 

That's enough for now diary. Next week I'm going to get a tax bill passed by failing to make payments on the deficit. Then threaten a nuclear conflagration in Asia, belittle a state legislator in Arkansas because I can, and get my picture taken on a pony on the white house lawn. 

I love being president. So much fun to win. 
DJT.  

THE MIAMI CONNECTION

THE MIAMI CONNECTION

Martin Dardis; Watergate

There was a time in the not too distant past when Miami and the Dade State Attorneys office was one of the premier prosecution offices in the nation. 

And there was a time when, as a nation teetered on the brink of a constitutional crisis and a president was facing impeachment, the Miami SAO was in the middle of the biggest political investigation of the 20th century. 

Watergate is synonymous with all political scandals. When the democratic national committee's (DNC)  offices in the Watergate hotel were burglarized by five men- four of them from Miami- Frank Sturgis, Bernard Baker, Eugenio Martinez, and Virgilio Gonzalez, a Miami connection arose that needed investigation. 

Enter Legendary Miami State Attorney Richard Gerstein and his equally legendary chief investigator Martin Dardis. 

Dardis learned that the burglars had sequentially numbered one hundred dollar bills on them. Dardis traced the bills to a bank in Miami, where he learned that Bernard Baker- one of the burglars- had cashed a check drawn on the account of Kenneth Dahlberg. Who was Dahlberg? Only the 1972 Midwest Finance Chairman for the aptly named CREEP- Committee to re-elect the President. 

All of the sudden Dardis had linked the burglars to the committee to re-elect the President and we had on our hands a full blown national political scandal that brought down a president. 

And at the beginning of it all, and in many ways in the middle of it all, was the chief investigator of the Miami State Attorneys Office, back when the office had a national reputation for investigative and prosecutorial excellence. 

From Occupied America, where we are waiting for the next shoe to fall in the current administration, Fight The Power!

MAJOR CHANGES COMING TO REGJB

MAJOR CHANGES COMING TO REGJB

April 1

A secret proposal to monetize extra-legal services at the REGJB in order to fill budget gaps and prevent layoffs of essential staff is winding its way through the approval of a committee of judges picked by our chief judge. Among the proposals being submitted for approval are the following:

1) The naming and sponsorship of courtrooms by law firms. Big on the list are traffic law firms offering as much as $50,000/year to have their names as sponsors on misdemeanor courtrooms. Other large civil law firms are vying for having their names on the larger courtrooms in the civil and family courthouse. 

2) A valet service for parking and a valet lounge where clients can wait until their case is called. The Valet company will be required to hire 50% of it's staff from defendants on probation for non-violent and first-offense cases. 

3) An upscale organic eatery and juice and wine bar to replace the small cafe on 8 called "Just-Us". Karaoke will be available after 6 pm for lawyers waiting on a verdict. 

4) The instillation of high-speed internet and video entertainment and work stations in the jury room that can be rented for $20/hour for jurors to view videos or perform work while waiting to be called. 

5) A lawyer locker-room where lawyers can rent lockers to store brief cases, and files. No word on steam-room and showers. 

6) A Starbucks cart on floors one, four and nine. 

7) An electronic scoreboard on the first floor listing cases in trial, the charges, and the lawyers. 

Items that were proposed and were rejected included the renting of a small space to a haberdashery that would sell ties, shirts, and small clothing items as well as pens and pads; a series of electronic massage chairs on the end of every floor that charge a dollar a minute; the licensing of the image of Richard Gerstein for coffee mugs; a Janet Reno-Keno game for money; the sale of a self-published book on Amazon entitled "The History of The Justice Building". 

Our courthouse is like a shark- either it keeps swimming or it dies. 

From Occupied America, Fight the Power.