Attorney Matthews Bark Orlando
Orlando Criminal Defense Attorney – Supreme Court Considers Voting-Rights Case
SOURCE : Onilne WSJ
BY : Jess Bravin
Category : Attorney Matthews Bark Orlando, Orlando Criminal Defense Attorney
The Supreme Court appeared divided Wednesday over whether Alabama can draw its election map with predominantly black legislative districts that effectively limit racially diverse areas where Democrats can compete. The case could have implications for redistricting across the country, but particularly in the South, where racially polarized voting has produced legislative majorities of white Republicans and significant numbers of black Democrats, but left little room for white Democrats, whose numbers have dwindled in recent decades. It is the court’s first major review of Voting Rights Act requirements since last year’s 5-4 decision scaled back federal enforcement of the 1965 law. Following the 2010 census, the Republican-controlled Alabama Legislature resolved to maintain black supermajorities in a handful of districts, over objections from Democrats who believed having racially diverse districts could help white Democrats hold seats. While Alabama Republicans said they were ensuring that blacks retained the seats they currently held, civil-rights groups challenged the move and accused lawmakers of turning voting-rights laws on their head with the goal of undermining Democratic power in the state.
The high court’s four liberal justices, who dissented from last year’s decision reining in the Justice Department’s power to enforce the Voting Rights Act, appeared sympathetic to the challengers. Conservative justices were more skeptical, but some, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy , sharply questioned both sides. The state “obviously had to move new voters into the majority-minority districts because they were all underpopulated, and they need to move enough so that the minorities have an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice, but they can’t move too many because that would be packing, correct?” said Chief Justice Roberts, questioning Richard Pildes, a lawyer for challengers. “Your honor, we understand that states are in a bind in this situation,” Mr. Pildes said. But when Alabama’s solicitor general, Andrew Brasher, said the Legislature simply maintained the status quo, Chief Justice Roberts challenged him, too. “The other side says it was impermissible for you to preserve the status quo because the opportunity for minority voters in the majority-minority districts to participate in the electoral process had improved,” he said, alluding to arguments that black- voter registration and turnout has risen in recent years, thus requiring a lower percentage of African-Americans in a district to ensure they could elect their candidate of choice. By those lights, “maintaining the status quo would be characterized as packing” the district, the chief justice said. The 14th and 15th amendments, ratified after the Civil War to protect newly free blacks, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which helps implement them, largely have been interpreted to protect minority districts. When Democrats controlled the Alabama Legislature, lawmakers created districts with African-American supermajorities. Republicans, who since took over the Statehouse, maintained nearly identical percentages by moving more blacks into those districts, Mr. Brasher said.
He argued that if the percentages were lawful when Democrats adopted them, they should remain so for Republicans. “The whole point of this plan was to preserve the status quo because the Republican Party had won a majority in the Legislature for first time in 130 years,” Mr. Brasher said. U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, appearing on behalf of the Obama administration, said it was improper to use race as a proxy for political party. “You’re stereotyping in that situation,” Mr. Verrilli said, adding there was evidence such assumptions had motivated the Legislature, which split up voting precincts to move black neighborhoods into the districts. While precinct voting information is available, “you don’t know how people in the census block voted. What you know is their race,” he said. The court also heard arguments in a case from Maryland over whether states can tax all of the income of residents when a portion of those earnings had been taxed in another state. The justices were considering how Maryland taxed the out-of-state income earned by a resident who was a part-owner of Maxim Healthcare Services Inc., a national health services company. Maryland’s tax scheme is not the norm. Other states generally allow residents to take tax credits on income earned in and taxed by other states. However, the case could affect income taxes imposed by some local jurisdictions, including New York City. The outcome of that case was unclear from Wednesday’s arguments, but Maryland’s lawyer faced the most persistent barrage of questioning from the court, which could be a sign the state faces an uphill climb.
SOURCE : online.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-considers-voting-rights-case-1415838948
Attorney Matthews Bark of Orlando – “Are Most New Technology Products Just Fashion Items?”
Source – Economic Times
By – ET Bureau
Category – Attorney Matthews Bark of Orlando, Matthews Bark Criminal Defense
You will no doubt have heard about Glass, the computer in a pair of spectacles. It’s an attempt to focus on the next wave of computing: the wearable, immersive stuff they were getting all excited about at the vast Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas at the start of the year. My encounter with Glass was not a showcase event, but real life. I tried it out round a boozy south London dinner table. An unfair test because nobody was concentrating on using it properly, but fair because random use is when consumer electronics get interesting. You put on the glasses, adjust them a bit – which is fiddly because you can’t quite see what you’re doing – and then marvel at the clarity of the tiny screen picture in front of you. It adds information culled from the internet to your field of view; tech people call this augmenting reality. But to do that interfacing properly (and hands free) you have to either have your brain waves wired into the machine, or be able to talk to it. At that fairly fundamental threshold, Glass became hugely frustrating. Simple verbal commands addressed to Glass failed to register or were misunderstood. One or two round-the-table photos were eventually taken, and transferred to people’s smartphones. Cute, clever, and clunky. And very frustrating.
Prophetic failure’
Now it is wrong to judge technology by its first iteration. The Apple Newton palmtop computer was a miserable bust 20 years ago, but it turns out to have been a very significant advance in the way people use computers, long before the smartphone, which it kind of heralded. Now they call it a “prophetic failure”. Then they laughed at its feeble attempts to recognise the user’s handwriting. The tech early adopters who are plonking down $1,500 (£900) for a Google Glass device are not ordinary consumers, of course. They want to see how a new interface is going to change the way we use the internet. They want to start devising apps that will turn Glass and the new interactive watches (and their competitors) into must-have products, because you will be able to do so much with the applications they enable. They will probably start as highly specialised responses to working in difficult circumstances which demand hands-free communications… in hospital operating theatres and tricky industrial surroundings, for example. Fun and games and personal communications will come later. But the voice recognition has to work pretty seamlessly to make it all happen. I don’t doubt that at some stage Google Glass or something similar will become part of the ubiquity of computing, the point at which the internet as the electronic nervous system of the world begins to merge with the human nervous system in a very intimate way. But not yet, and maybe not using this sort of display and interaction at all.
Fly-by-night fads
My Glass-eyed encounter got me thinking about technology advances in general. Everybody says that change is getting ever faster and that tech is at the heart of economic and social advance. More and more creative effort is going into less and less. The buzz at the Consumer Electronics Show concentrated on curved screens for smartphones and television tweaks, which produce the next must have device for jaded consumers, but are trivial in terms of innovation. I am writing this on a plane on a tablet computer, but actually it’s not that much of an advance on pen and paper. The futile economy is all around us. Technology has been turned into a fashion item. The point of a new feature or a new app is churn, not technology advancing. Tech pioneers who changed our world now cater for the fly-by-night fads of consumers. There are all-night queues of impulsive buyers outside Apple stores when the company unveils its latest iteration of the iPad or the iPhone, with marginal but much heralded improvements to the display. And the demand for the new product actually produces an observable surge in the US economy as measured by GDP in the month in question, legitimising all this futility in the eyes of those who are only satisfied if things can be “monetised”, as the Americans put it. Unmonetised, huge global problems go unresolved or untackled. Beware of the belief that the technology curve is an inevitable advance for good. More and more economic activity is now derived from things that simply do not matter. Futility beckons.
Deathly amusement
In the subway in Seoul the other day, everyone, but everyone, was glued to their smartphone. But look over their shoulders, and those enthralled users are mainly playing games or watching TV, with the action augmented with Twitter type comments and captions littering the screen. In the words of the New York University professor the late Neil Postman they are “amusing themselves to death”. When television was the latest technology, he put it like this: “We’re turning on TV to eat up our lives.” Entertainment has moved to centre stage. It was the poet Wordsworth who wrote of the power of the mind suspended “in vacant or in pensive mode”. A vanishing condition as technology crams our waking hours with distraction. Yet it is in this seemingly empty state of mind when thoughts are mulled over and ideas mature. It is something vital we are now missing as we embrace the futile economy. The agile thumb is replacing the mind. Trivia rules OK.Historians tells us that one of the contributory factors to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was the crippling expense of the state-organised circuses that distracted the populace from the tiresome realities of life in Rome. I wonder whether we are now embarked on a similar trajectory, in our new futile economy.
Source : bbc.com/news/business-26336736
Attorney Matthews Bark of Orlando – “Legal Opinions On Milwaukee County Administrator Pay Cuts Differ”
Source – JS Oonline
By – DAN ABRAMS
Category – Matthews Bark, Attorney Matthews Bark of Orlando
The Milwaukee County comptroller must implement pay cuts ordered by the County Board for seven top administrators, according to an opinion from a law firm hired by the board. The board’s power to adjust pay ranges was not diminished by last year’s state law curbing County Board powers, according to advice from the Milwaukee law firm Hawks Quindel. Comptroller Scott Manske’s decision to disregard the County Board’s cuts to hold most administrators’ pay to a maximum of $120,000 was “unlawful,” according to a Hawks Quindel memo. “The comptroller is legally obligated to implement the budget as it was enacted by the board,” the memo from attorney Timothy Hawks says.
Manske did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. The advice is at odds with county Corporation Counsel Paul Bargren’s take on the same issue. Bargren said Act 14, the state law limiting the board’s authority, took away its role in determining pay levels for managerial-level employees. Hawks wrote that the board’s constitutional powers of budgeting were not affected by Act 14’s prohibition of county supervisors “exercis(ing) day-to-day control of any county department or subunit of a department.”
In any case, setting salary maximums is not the sort of day-to-day activity the state law intended to ban, Hawks says. Hawks’ firm has been paid more than $66,000 under a contract approved by the board last June for outside legal advice on Act 14. The initial contract limit was $25,000, but that was quietly raised to $100,000 in November by Board Chairwoman Marina Dimitrijevic. At issue are pay cuts to seven department heads and other top administrators ordered by the board as part of the county’s 2014 budget. Among those targeted for cuts were Administrative Services Director Don Tyler, who would lose $22,100 a year; Human Resources Director Kerry Mitchell, losing nearly $12,000; and Transportation Director Brian Dranzik, down almost $7,000. County Executive Chris Abele vetoed the provision, but the board overrode the veto. Abele ignored the board’s veto action, based on Bargren’s advice.
Abele has accused the board of plotting staff or pay cuts “out of anger and spite” over Act 14. Abele lobbied the Legislature for the limits on the board’s power. The law also cut the board’s budget by two-thirds and required an April referendum on cutting county supervisor pay in half. Supervisor Theo Lipscomb Sr. said Monday he hoped Bargren would change his mind about his legal interpretation based on Hawks’ analysis. He also suggested that the Hawks opinion might encourage Abele to negotiate some middle ground on the issue. Hawks’ memo also calls for a mediation session between the board and Abele. Abele on Monday again rejected the idea of mediation. “If supervisors want to get changes to a state law, they can work with lawmakers in Madison,” Abele spokesman Brendan Conway said. Supervisors should spend more time working with the county executive and “less time trying to find ways to get around state law,” Conway said. Bargren said Monday he hadn’t changed his mind on the issue.
Source : jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/opinion-would-allow-pay-cuts-to-chris-abeles-top-administrators-b99207415z1-245857931.html#ixzz2teODJ3Xb
Matthews Bark – “Belgium Set To Extend Euthanasia Law To Children”
Source – Fox News
By – Associated Press
Category – Matthews Bark, Attorney Matthews Bark of Orlando
Belgium, one of the very few countries where euthanasia is legal, is expected to take the unprecedented step this week of abolishing age restrictions on who can ask to be put to death — extending the right to children for the first time. The legislation appears to have wide support in the largely liberal country. But it has also aroused intense opposition from foes — including a list of pediatricians — and everyday people who have staged noisy street protests, fearing that vulnerable children will be talked into making a final, irreversible choice. Backers like Dr. Gerland van Berlaer, a prominent Brussels pediatrician, believe it is the merciful thing to do. The law will be specific enough that it will only apply to the handful of teenage boys and girls who are in advanced stages of cancer or other terminal illnesses and suffering unbearable pain, he said.
Under current law, they must let nature take its course or wait until they turn 18 and can ask to be euthanized. “We are talking about children that are really at the end of their life. It’s not that they have months or years to go. Their life will end anyway,” said Van Berlaer, chief of clinic in the pediatric critical care unit of University Hospital Brussels. “The question they ask us is: `Don’t make me go in a terrible, horrifying way, let me go now while I am still a human being and while I still have my dignity.”‘ The Belgian Senate voted 50-17 on Dec. 12 to amend the country’s 2002 law on euthanasia so that it would apply to minors, but only under certain additional conditions. Those include parental consent and a requirement that any minor desiring euthanasia demonstrate a “capacity for discernment” to a psychiatrist and psychologist. The House of Representatives, the other chamber of Parliament, is scheduled to debate on Wednesday whether to agree to the changes, and vote on them Thursday. Passage is widely expected. King Philippe, Belgium’s constitutional head of state, must sign the legislation for it to go into effect. So far, the 53-year-old monarch and father of four has not taken a public position, but spokesman Pierre De Bauw said that is not unusual. “We never give any comment on any piece of legislation being discussed in Parliament,” De Bauw said Tuesday. Though one opinion poll found 75 percent of Belgians in favor, there has been a vocal opposition. “We are opening a door that nobody will be able to close,” Andre Leonard, the archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and chairman of the Episcopal Conference of Belgium, told The Associated Press. “There is a risk of very serious consequences in the long term for society and the meaning we give to life, death and the freedom of human beings.”
Etienne Dujardin, 29, a notary employee and father, has been among those staging protests as the debate in the House of Representatives nears. He doesn’t believe safeguards proposed under the new law are watertight enough to protect youngsters who may be incapacitated by disease. “If you take three psychiatrists, one of them will end up approving (euthanasia),” Dujardin said. “In the name of promoting freedom for children, we’re letting someone else decide.” This week, an “open letter” carrying the names of 160 Belgian pediatricians was issued to argue against the new law, claiming there is no urgent need for it and that modern medicine is capable of soothing the pain of even the sickest children. The doctors also said there was no objective way of providing that children possess the “discernment” to know what euthanasia means. Van Berlaer, 45, was not one of the signatories. Very sick children who are surrounded by other ill and dying people are not like other youngsters, and mature quickly–too quickly, he said. They may look on as friends or neighbors in their ward die because they can no longer breathe or swallow, and come to realize what lies ahead for them. In such cases, Van Berlaer said, a child may want to say goodbye to classmates and family, and ask if he or she can stop living. “The thing is that it is an ultimate act of humanity and even love for the patients, minors in this case, that we at least listen to this question and think about why they would ask such a difficult thing,” Van Berlaer said. “And it will never be easy, even if the law changes now, things won’t be easier.” By his estimate, only a handful of Belgian children, all in the teenage years, would be able each year to make use of the lifting of age restrictions. “If there is still a possible medical treatment, they will not be allowed to ask for euthanasia,” the Brussels pediatrician said.
The discernment clause, he said, should bar the law from applying to young children. Dr. Marc Van Hoey, a general practitioner who is president of the Right to Die Association in the region of Flanders, also is in favor of the legislation. Euthanasia, he said, sometimes becomes the kindest and most caring option. “I’ve seen quite a lot of persons dying in — how do you say in proper English — agony?” said Van Hoey. “If you see somebody who died in pain, you see his face completely with a kind of expression where you see the pain on the face. “I never saw that when I gave someone euthanasia he or she asked for,” the doctor said. Besides Belgium, the only other countries to have legalized euthanasia are the Netherlands and Luxembourg, said Kenneth Chambaere, a sociologist and member of the End-of-Life Care research group at the Free University Brussels and University of Ghent. In Luxembourg, a patient must be 18. In the Netherlands, children between 12 and 15 may be euthanized with parents’ permission, while those who are 16 or 17 must notify their parents beforehand.
SOURCE : foxnews.com/world/2014/02/11/belgium-set-to-extend-euthanasia-law-to-children/
Matthews Bark Attorney – “Law 101: Service > Business”
Source : Lawyerist
By : Matt Spiegel
Category : Matthews Ryan Bark, Matthews Bark Attorney
Of the many changes in the legal profession in recent years, perhaps the most seismic shift has concerned our relationships with our clients. Clients no longer face limited options when choosing an attorney. Any client seeking legal representation these days can turn to Google, which gives them a staggering number of options. Lawyers are so numerous these days that clients can afford to be selective – and when you consider the number of law students and recent graduates, it’s clear that trend will only intensify in the near future. As a result, the legal profession has experienced a commoditization of sorts. Legal services are now viewed by many clients as the same as other services, and they tend to approach finding representation just as they would looking for a good realtor. If that sounds far-fetched, contrast the expectations between visiting a doctor and visiting a lawyer. When visiting a physician, the patient is at the mercy of the doctor’s schedule and generally accepts the inevitability of delayed appointments. That’s not at all the case with law firms. Today’s clients feel empowered to express more autonomy and expect higher standards of service, and many will change attorneys at the first feeling of dissatisfaction. This naturally has driven an increase in competition between firms, who must now find new ways to differentiate themselves in a very crowded marketplace.
Yet the solution for distinguishing oneself as an attorney does not have to be complicated. It is, in fact, quite simple: a new direction that can help firms rise above the competition while improving the legal profession overall. Stellar customer service. By exemplifying the best of client service, firms can accelerate their market visibility, please their clients, and drive referrals and repeat business. If you think that sounds too simple, remember this: poor client-attorney communication and substandard service are problems that have dogged the profession for decades. Consider the following ways most law practices can improve their service, thereby accelerating their businesses as well.
Courtesy
No doubt every law firm believes they offer courteous service, but many clients would disagree. Consider how many lawyers share this experience: a client calls to find out her next court date but you’re tied up in court and can’t take her call. From there, perhaps you head to a deposition, then another meeting, with the result being that the client doesn’t receive a return call or answer until the following day. Then there’s the matter of answering calls from prospective clients. Many clients make a list of lawyers they found on Google and begin dialing numbers until they speak with a live human — and that person becomes their attorney. Busy lawyers without support staff will innocently lose out on significant business, thanks to simply being busy and possibly understaffed. There are basic standards of good customer service that time and again, harried attorneys fail to meet. You can leave your clients waiting in a reception area while you finish a call or you can greet them on time and offer them a beverage. It’s a small difference, but it tells new clients that they are valued and respected from the start. Think of it from your perspective; what kind of treatment would you like to receive upon walking into a restaurant, car dealership or Apple store? No doubt you’d like to receive exceptional attention that tells you the business genuinely cares about your satisfaction. Offer excellent customer service and your clients will know they are in the hands of world-class experts — security that is especially appealing to people who are confused and anxious over their legal case.
Communication
It used to be that attorney-client communication involved significant work, from multiple phone calls to mailing cumbersome documents. Even communicating something as simple as a new court date meant typing up a letter, printing and signing it, then getting it in the mail and verifying its receipt. In fact, these communication and administrative tasks have traditionally been so time-consuming that attorneys have often been forced to hire paralegals to handle it or reduce their caseloads while managing it themselves. Even when the communication using these antiquated methods was effective, it still posed a burden on law practices. The good news is that today’s attorneys have technology to communicate swiftly and securely. Where many fall short nowadays, though, is in making the effort to communicate enough. Set aside a dedicated hour to make phone calls, instead of returning calls while driving from a meeting to the office, so clients have your full attention. Remember that their case might be their first experience with the legal system, so taking the time to explain basic processes and terms in order for them to understand every step of their case trajectory can go a long way. Clients may not even know enough to ask the right questions, which means that overcommunicating is always a smart idea. The amount of interaction will vary from case to case and by type of law, but the general rule of thumb is to make sure your clients feel informed and supported at all times. This isn’t just part of the rules of professional responsibility, it’s the baseline of a client-friendly practice.
Transparency
This goes hand-in-hand with communication. A client who has put his legal matters in your hands is entrusting you with more than just a piece of business; this may well be a life-altering financial and lifestyle matter for him. To honor that trust, you must provide full transparency as a matter of course. Too many attorneys assume their clients only want to know major developments and omit details that their clients care about. By making all case developments available, the client has the power to choose whatever level of awareness he desires. Ultimately it helps to think of your client as a collaborative partner who can assist you in achieving the best possible outcome in the case. Just as you would like your client to provide as much helpful information as possible for you, your client deserves visibility into all ongoing developments and decisions. Again, think of this partnership in terms of visiting your physician. Just as you’ll provide your doctor with detailed descriptions of your symptoms, you’ll probably be anxious to hear a test result or diagnosis as soon as possible. Provide that same transparency to your client.
Engagement
Before software systems made case statuses available in the cloud, many clients wanted to hear from their lawyers every day, whether or not there was vital information to communicate. Simply hearing their attorney’s voice reassured them that they hadn’t been forgotten and were receiving dedicated legal service. Today’s software platforms make a new version of that possible; clients can log in to view their case developments around the clock. But while that’s undeniably a positive thing, clients still want personal attention. Letting them know of their next court date is good, but reaching out to truly connect with them is exceptional. Be attentive and available, and you’ll build a client-attorney relationship that extends beyond this immediate case to their future legal needs. Again, remember that what may be viewed as business as usual to you can be a highly emotional and major life event for a client. By truly engaging with each person, you’ll earn trust as well as glowing referrals.
Setting Expectations
Even promising attorney-client relationships can go awry because of mismatched expectations. Let’s face it: we live in a world where Hollywood courtroom dramas and crime shows have created skewed ideas about everything from trial outcomes to DNA testing to settlements. A client inexperienced in the legal system will need you to set realistic expectations. That means not creating a sense of false hope when defending someone in court and explaining legal policies that may surprise a client.
Your relationships will also benefit by taking into account the differences between clients. When representing an organization that regularly uses lawyers, you’ll often find it has defined strategy policies on working with outside counsel. Everyday clients, on the other hand, will often require more education and hand-holding if they’ve never hired a lawyer. Remember that these clients often lack foresight into the processes and strategic decisions that can arise in a case; preparing them in advance can give them time to brace for all outcomes.
Conflict Resolution
Clients today are much more likely to insist on having a say in their case decisions and direction. While this is understandable, good communication will go far in avoiding most disputes. Establish case objectives up front and thoroughly analyze the case before agreeing to pursue it. If you disagree on taking a case to trial, make the cost benefit of an early case resolution clear to your client, compared to the expense of a long trial and appeal. Always explain your reasoning when formulating a strategy and be sure the client understands the rationale for your decisions. Ultimately you will benefit from drawing clear lines on authority. By identifying who is responsible for what, you’ll be able to avoid a significant number of attorney-client disputes. Generally speaking, attorneys have implied authority over legal and tactical matters, while the client has the right to make strategic decisions on factors such as expenses or calling witnesses. Rule 1.2 provides firm guidelines on who has the right to decide to settle cases, enter pleas, call witnesses, testify, and waive jury trials; communicate authority to your client and the beginning and there will be fewer surprises and disagreements.
The Latest Technology
One of the most advantageous recent developments in the legal field is availability of practice management software. With the right platform, attorneys can offer their clients a full-service digital resource that lets them pay bills, view their accounts, answer questions on court dates and case developments, and review documentation — all at their convenience. Secure emails can be sent, tracked and received from mobile devices and stored for future consultation; clients can also receive notifications to stay on top of important alerts and appointments. This is especially appealing in our fast-paced world. Clients with unpredictable schedules will appreciate the round-the-clock availability of their case information; in our digital age, most people expect the convenience of online payments and accounting. Offering a tech-friendly practice suggests to clients that you have your finger on the pulse of our times and are likely to be on top of intelligent legal strategies as well. While winning cases will indeed help build a positive reputation, providing stellar customer service is just as important in building a successful practice. Combine the best of legal representation with excellent personal service and you’ll make a name in your market as one of the most popular — and well-respected — attorneys in town.
Source : lawyerist.com/law-101-service-business/
Matthews Bark Attorney – Old Justin Bieber’s Club Outings Are Legal In Miami
Source – lawnewsflorida.com/
By – JULIE K. BROWN
Category – Matthews Bark Attorney
Miami Beach may be best known as one the world’s most lavish and sexy playgrounds, a place where, for the right price, almost anyone has a shot at spotting someone rich, famous — or both — sipping $100,000 bottles of champagne and dancing in VIP lounges with other movie stars, basketball players and hip-hoppers.
To some degree, celebrities are a club owner’s best advertisement. The recipe is simple.
The more famous the better.
It’s no secret that Miami Beach’s clubs have welcomed even the youngest of Hollywood’s A-List stars, even from the golden era of the 1950s, when a 17-year-old ingénue named Elizabeth Taylor graced the cocktail bars of some of the beach’s first iconic hotels.
So when teenage heartthrob Justin Bieber was arrested on DUI and resisting arrest charges in Miami Beach on Thursday morning, hardly an eyebrow was raised in South Florida, even though reporters across the country began asking questions about how the 19-year-old pop star was able to toss dollar bills around a strip joint and hang out at some of South Beach’s most exclusive nightclubs.
It’s legal because he allegedly wasn’t drinking anything harder than Red Bull — and his 38-year-old father was chaperoning him.
Bieber joins a long list of teenage stars who’ve made the Magic City their home-away-from-home party destination, endlessly soaking in the beach’s wild nights until the wee hours of the morning. From Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton to Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears, plenty of young celebs have made the rounds of South Beach clubs and have been photographed doing so.
“The news isn’t that Bieber got into a club, the news would have been if he didn’t get in,’’ said one fixture of Miami Beach’s club scene.
Unlike many other jurisdictions, it is not against the law in Florida for someone under 21 to be inside a club that serves alcohol. And even though Miami Beach has an ordinance prohibiting anyone under 21 to be in its clubs, most celebrities take advantage of the local law’s loopholes, as Bieber apparently did this week.
Someone under 21 is permitted, for example, to be inside a Miami Beach nightclub if they are in the company of a parent, or if they are employed by the club. Still, the exemptions do not allow Bieber — or anyone under 21 — to drink alcohol, even if they are in the club legally, said Miami Beach Police Chief Raymond Martinez.
“We have no evidence of him drinking inside the club,’’ Martinez said, adding that because Bieber was accompanied by his father, and was scheduled to perform at SET, one of the clubs, there’s no evidence that he violated any state law or the city’s ordinance.
Bieber, considered one of the world’s richest pop stars, was arrested shortly after 4 a.m. Thursday on Pine Tree Drive as he was racing his rented yellow Lamborghini northbound about 55 to 60 miles per hour, police said. The other driver, R&B artist Khalil Sharieff, 19, sped next to him in a red Ferrari.
Police heard the peeling cars and pulled them over near 41st Street. Bieber initially refused to get out of his car, and upon doing so was flushed, in a stupor, smelled of alcohol and was incoherent, the police report said. He kept fumbling his hands in his pockets before police finally placed him in handcuffs. He was booked at Miami Beach police headquarters, transported to Miami-Dade County jail and eventually posted bail about 2:30 p.m. Thursday. He faces charges of DUI, resisting arrest, drag racing and driving without a valid license. Sharieff was also charged with DUI and released after posting bail.
Police said that Bieber failed a field sobriety test and admitted he had taken anti-depressants, smoked marijuana all day and had had a few beers.
In Florida, the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, regulates the licenses of businesses that serve alcohol. For the most part, Martinez said, the clubs, bars and restaurants are responsible for ensuring that they don’t serve anyone under 21. If they do so, the club, the club owner and the bartenders are considered to have broken the law.
“It’s their responsibility to screen who comes into their clubs,’’ Martinez said. “If a 16-year-old comes up to bar and orders a drink, it’s on them to card that person and make sure she is 21.’’
They don’t get off the hook, either, if someone else is able to purchase a drink for someone under age.
David Wallack, owner of Mango’s, a South Beach restaurant/nightclub, said that bar owners and their employees have to be vigilant.
“We card everybody,’’ Wallack said. “And it’s everybody, even if it’s a celebrity.’’
Bieber hasn’t always had an open door to Miami Beach clubs.
Last June, after the Miami Heat won the NBA title, Bieber was denied entry to Club Story, where the team and other celebrities held a victory bash. Media reports said that Bieber, a fan of the team who sometimes is seen sitting courtside, asked to come to the celebration, but the club’s management and the Heat told them he was too young.
Wallack, who has been in business for 23 years, said his club, which has an outdoor café that serves dinner and then transforms into a nightclub at 10 p.m., doesn’t cater to the same clientele as some of the other South Beach clubs that depend on celebrities to attract customers. The formula involves a bit of social engineering on the part of club owners, who use famous faces to lure regular customers who, in turn, tell others they saw celebrities, attracting even more customers. Sometimes, the clubs will invite celebrities they know are in town.
“What other clubs do is probably a world different than the way I look at it. In an ultra nightclub, celebrity is everything, because it’s all about glamour and rightfully so,’’ Wallack said. “It’s the reason people go there.’’
Miami Herald Correspondent Lesley Abravanel contributed to this report.
Matthews Bark Attorney – ‘Fastest Ever’ Broadband Speeds Achieved In Fibre Test
Source – smh.com.au/
By – James W. Manning
Category – Matthews Bark Attorney
The “fastest ever” broadband speeds have been achieved in a test that hit 1.4 terabits per second – enough to transmit 44 high-definition movies in just one second.
British Telecom (BT) and French networking equipment company Alcatel-Lucent conducted the test on the existing fibre network in London, with the hope of maximising the efficiency of the current infrastructure and avoiding costly upgrades.
“It’s a reaction to the growth in demand for video content,” the managing director of technology analyst firm Telsyte, Foad Fadaghi, told Fairfax Media. “It’s about reducing the cost of carrying vast amounts of data over the coming years.”
The chief executive of broadband analyst firm Point Topic, Oliver Johnson, agreed, telling the BBC: “BT and Alcatel-Lucent are making more from what they’ve got … It allows them to increase their capacity without having to spend much more money.”
Researchers used what is known as “flexigrid” infrastructure, creating an “alien super channel” made up of seven 200 gigabits per second (Gbps) channels. These channels – the paths that data travel between two nodes on a network – were combined to give a total capacity of 1.4 terabits per second.
The gaps between these transmission channels were reduced, thereby increasing the channels’ density, resulting in a 42.5 per cent increase in the efficiency of data transmission compared with current standard networks.
Alcatel-Lucent optical marketing leader Kevin Drury likened the technique to decreasing the space between lanes on a busy freeway, allowing more lanes of traffic to travel on the same road.
BT said the test, which was conducted on a 410-kilometre fibre link between central London and Ipswich in October and November, could help it to meet consumer and business demand for increased bandwidth.
Far from being just an excuse to stream endless hours of high-definition video, high-speed broadband can increase access to and productivity of healthcare, education and business, according to CSIRO studies.
However, it is important to note the test was conducted on the backhaul, or core, network and does not equate to the speeds users would receive at home.
In Australia, most internet connections still run on copper rather than fibre-optic cable.
The Coalition government’s fibre-to-the-node national broadband network (NBN) is under review, but will probably use a combination of copper and fibre. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull promised during the 2013 federal election that this would deliver minimum speeds of 25 megabits per second (Mbps), although NBN Co executive chairman Dr Ziggy Switkowski has since withdrawn that guarantee.
A strategic review of the NBN late last year claimed the fixed-line portion of the Coalition’s NBN could achieve speeds of up to 250 Mbps by 2025 and 1 Gbps by 2030.
The average internet speed in Australia for the second quarter of 2013 was just 4.8 megabits per second, according to the Akamai State of the Internet report.
A separate government report released in December found more than a third of Australian premises with access to fixed broadband never achieved more than moderate speeds of 9 Mbps, while there was limited or no access to fixed broadband in many regional areas.
Mr Fadaghi said the kind of technology tested in Britain was likely to be of interest to Australian infrastructure owners such as Telstra, Optus and NBN Co.
“At this point in time it really is only a demonstration of the capability, but it shows that fibre technology is advancing in the backhaul networks,” he said.
Meanwhile, South Korea announced on Thursday it would spend $1.7 billion rolling out next-generation 5G mobile broadband fast enough to download a full-length film in seconds.
Source – smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/fastest-ever-broadband-speeds-achieved-in-fibre-test-20140123-hv9lf.html
Matthews Bark Attorney – Supreme Court to Hear Cell Phone Privacy Cases
Source – jurist.org/
By – Matthew Pomy
Category – Matthews Bark Attorney
The US Supreme Court [official website] on Friday granted review [text, PDF] over the issue of police authority to search the contents of an arrested individual’s cell phone. The court accepted two cases on the matter to review. The first, Riley v. California [SCOTUSblog backgrounder], is a state court case that involves a challenge to searching an arrested individual without a warrant. After being arrested, police examined Riley’s cell phone, which was described as more of a hand-held computer. In granting certiorari, the court amended the question presented to: “Whether evidence admitted at petitioner’s trial was obtained in a search of petitioner’s cell phone that violated petitioner’s Fourth Amendment rights.” In the federal case, United States v. Wurie [SCOTUSblog backgrounder], the court will examine a similar fact pattern, but the cell phone was an ordinary flip-phone. After arresting Wurie on suspicion of dealing drugs, police inspected his cell phone and retrieved phone numbers that were repeatedly calling his phone. Police traced the calls back to Wurie’s home where they found drugs and guns. Even though these cases address the same constitutional issue, the court chose not to consolidate the cases. The court also agreed Friday to rule in Lane v. Franks [docket; cert. petition, PDF] to determine (1) whether the government is categorically free under the First Amendment to retaliate against a public employee for truthful sworn testimony that was compelled by subpoena and was not a part of the employee’s ordinary job responsibilities; and (2) whether qualified immunity precludes a claim for damages in such an action.
Cell phones have cause significant legal controversy. In July, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that warrants were not required to track cell phones. The week before, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled [JURIST report] that police must obtain search warrants before obtaining tracking information from cell phone providers, marking the first time a state supreme court has recognized a Fourth Amendment protection for cell phone location data. In May the Florida Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] that police need a warrant [JURIST report] to search a defendant’s cell phone at the time of arrest. Last December, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled [JURIST report] that data stored on personal cell phones is not protected by the Stored Communications Act (SCA) [text]. The Senate Judiciary Committee that November approved a bill [JURIST report] that would prevent police from searching e-mails and other electronic content without a warrant.
Source – jurist.org/paperchase/2014/01/supreme-court-grants-cell-phone-privacy-case.php
Matthews Bark Attorney – Daily Coffee Might Enhance Memory
Source – lansingstatejournal.com/
By – Mary Brophy Marcus
Category – Matthews Bark Attorney
Swarms of morning commuters clutch cups of coffee to kick-start the workday. But a new study suggests caffeine might do more for the brain than boost alertness — it may help memory too.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University looked at caffeine’s impact on memory while excluding its other brain-enhancing factors. The study showed that caffeine enhances certain memories for up to 24 hours after it’s consumed.
“The finding that caffeine has an effect on this process in humans — the process of making memories more permanent, less forgettable — was one of the big novelties,” said study author Michael Yassa, an assistant professor of neurobiology and behavior at the University of California, Irvine.
The study included more than 100 participants who were “caffeine naive,” meaning they were not big coffee, tea or cola drinkers, Yassa said.
“We picked people who were getting less than 500 milligrams of caffeine a week,” he said. “Most weren’t coffee drinkers. Most had a soda once or twice a week.”
Coffee’s caffeine content varies greatly. Most average-size cups contain 160 milligrams. But a 16-ounce cup of Starbucks coffee packs 330 milligrams of caffeine.
A dose of at least 200 milligrams of caffeine was needed to enhance memory consolidation, the researchers said.
For the study, which was published online Jan.12 in the journal Nature Neuroscience, the researchers asked the participants to look at hundreds of common, everyday images on a computer screen: shoes, a chair, a rubber duck, etc.
“We asked them to tell us if it was an indoor or an outdoor object, but we didn’t really care about what they said,” Yassa said. “We just wanted them to attend to the object, to get that object into their brains.”
Five minutes after the participants looked at the images, half were given 200 mg of caffeine and half received a placebo. They returned 24 hours later, after the caffeine was out of their system, and looked at more images of objects. They were asked to label the pictures as either old, new or similar to the original images they’d seen (for example, a picture of a duck they viewed the day before, but taken from a slightly different angle).
Source – lansingstatejournal.com/article/20140113/NEWS01/301130042/Study-Daily-coffee-might-enhance-memory
Matthews Bark Attorney – Georgetown Law And Peer Monitor Release 2014 Report On The State Of The Legal Market
Source – law.georgetown.edu/
By – Press Release
Category – Matthews Bark Attorney
Is bigger always better? As major law firms continue to fixate on expansion as a strategy for success, the Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at Georgetown University Law Center and Thomson Reuters Peer Monitor explore this and other key questions in their 2014 Report on the State of the Legal Market. Their conclusion: staying competitive in today’s market requires much more than simply growing headcount.
“Law firms need to think more carefully and systematically about what is necessary to build sustainable organizations over the long term,” said Georgetown Law Professor Mitt Regan, co-director of the Center for the Study of the Legal Profession. “That means giving serious thought both to how they provide services to clients and how they can provide opportunities for lawyers that elicit commitment and afford professional satisfaction.”
Though 2013 was a record year for law firm mergers and the pace of lateral acquisitions remained strong, the extensive research conducted for the 2014 Report shows that growth, especially rapid growth, often leads to serious problems for firm leaders. Not only that, a comparison of the number of lawyers in AmLaw 200 firms with the profits per partner of those firms reveals there is no correlation between size and profitability.
The 2014 Report also examines areas of focus that may be far more relevant to the success of law firms than their size. With clients increasingly concerned with efficiency, predictability, and cost effectiveness — and less concerned with a firm’s brand or prestige — researchers conclude that firms must rethink and revise the basic organizational, pricing, and service delivery models that have dominated the market for decades. Though such innovations are imperative to remaining competitive in today’s legal market, researchers found that few firms have made meaningful changes to the traditional models.
Georgetown Law’s Center for the Study of the Legal Profession conducts research into trends and developments in law practice, and provides education on leadership and the legal profession to both students and practicing lawyers. Thomson Reuters Peer Monitor is a benchmarking program that provides any-time access to critical firm assessment information and allows comparison against selected peers, with details for practice performance.
Source – law.georgetown.edu/news/press-releases/2014-report-state-of-the-legal-market.cfm
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