Welcome to 2012! We are all glued to our BigScreens – watching the Republican Debates and Primaries, including our favorite wrestling match: Newt vs. Mitt,
Quick Quiz: How many Governors of the great state of Illinois, Land of Lincoln, have been charged with crimes? How many have done prison time
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana, Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense, Scribner’s, 1905, page 284) ———————-
“Jessep: You want answers? Kaffee (Tom Cruise): I think I’m entitled to them. Jessep: You want answers? Kaffee: I want the truth! Jessep: You can’t
“There’s somethin’ happenin’ here What it is ain’t exactly clear… I think it’s time we stop, children, What’s that sound Everybody look what’s going down”
As October vanishes into your pile of discarded calendar pages, it is just a bit over one year until the 2012 national elections. Congress’ approval
"Take this message to my brother You will find him…everywhere Wherever people live together Tied in poverty’s despair Are you…telling me the things you’re gonna
"Some folks just need killin’." – Sling Blade (1996) ————————– Our nation’s finest killed U.S.-born, al Qaeda preacher and propagandist of hatred and murder extraordinaire, Anwar al-Awlaki,
LA Superior Court has announced more severe staffing and budget cuts coming this year and next. SF Superior Court has already forecast that civil cases will slow down to pre-‘Fast-Track’ (just what it sounds like) glacial swiftness, and that litigants will not enjoy waiting 5 years to get to trial here in the 21stC, just like we didn’t enjoy it back in the ‘80’s. The quality of justice is being strained by economic realities to the breaking point.
It’s high time (over-time, some would say, and I would agree) to simplify this California legal system – Already! – Before we slip into David Copperfield’s Bleak House-land, or resemble a legal system like in India, where civil cases drag on, literally, through generations of lawyers; let’s just STOP . . . . .. and think, for a minute.
I will enter my 35th year practicing law as a litigator in the courts of the LA Superior Court in a few months – I started back when you could park at the Music Center for $2; there were not nearly as many high-rise office buildings downtown – perhaps the air was more foul then than it is now. I have watched the legal system slowly become overloaded, underfunded, and now largely abandoned by most popular judges after they reach retirement age, for the Golden Fields of private judging, or, by it’s more dignified name, Alternative Dispute Resolution.