Many of us have hired these guys as experts over the years, and I see the firm is merging and changing its name:

South Florida's eighth-largest accounting firm, Rachlin LLP, is merging with Marcum & Kliegman LLP, the largest accounting firm on New York’s Long Island.

Newsletter Inside Public Accounting ranked Marcum & Kliegman the nation's 23rd-largest accounting firm for 2008, with net revenue of $123.26 million. It had a 28 percent growth rate.

Miami-based Rachlin ranked 81st, with $36 million in net revenue and a 3 percent growth rate.

After the June 1 merger, the combined firm will be known as Marcum in the Northeast, and Rachlin will change its name to MarcumRachlin, a division of Marcum LLP.

Laurie Holtz, Barry Mukamal, all good guys who have helped many of us out on plenty of occasions.

Congrats, fellas!

Switching gears but I couldn't hold this for Friday, what do you make of this discussion at a recent 7th Circuit Bar Association meeting:

Noting that there weren't many women in the audience to hear her message, Lefkow suggested that lawyers address the "delicate issue" with female colleagues at their firms.

As it turned out, one of the male judges on the dais with her, and the male lawyers in the audience at the Indianapolis meeting, had plenty to say right away about the issue. It had been bothering them, too, perhaps in a slightly different way.

Women come into court wearing "skirts so short that there's no way they can sit down and blouses so short there's no way the judges wouldn't look," said Judge Michael McCuskey, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois and a panel member.

Murmuring in the audience quickly rose into loud comments and laughter, with one female voice calling for someone to help save McCuskey from himself. Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar, who presides in the Northern District of Illinois, came to his rescue from the audience, saying that McCuskey shouldn't be made to keep quiet about the matter because he too considers the issue "a huge problem." Sometimes it's so difficult that Goldgar said he wishes he could tell the female lawyer standing before him: "I'd really like to pay attention to your argument."

"You don't dress in court as if it's Saturday night and you're going out to a party," said Goldgar from the audience. "Dress as a serious person who takes the court seriously."

First of all, I've been to plenty of bar lunches and judicial events, and I've never heard talk like that at our conferences here in South Florida. Step it up, people!

Second, how many male lawyers do you know who have crappy suits, mismatched ties, or sometimes barely put on a jacket and scruffy shoes to shuffle down to Flagler? Yet these folks are fashion arbiters for women attorneys?

I'd like to pay attention to your argument too, but honestly you look like a total schlub who just woke up from a weekend bender.

And we all know the 7th Circuit has an oddball bench, but come on, guys.

A women is entitled to include whatever elements of their femininity they elect to incorporate into their overall professional appearance. Or not.

Same is true for a guy.

Of course some outfits are inappropriate in a professional context, no matter who is wearing it.

But a hint of our masculinity or femininity has long been a part of dressing for success.

Don't fear it -- embrace it.

I usually read Herald editorials purely for their comic and/or sleep-inducing values.

So I was a bit surprised to see one today about our own federal blogger uber-lawyer:

U.S. District Judge Alan Gold used that term, ''win at all costs,'' to describe the egregious misconduct of three U.S. prosecutors in an exhaustive 50-page reprimand last week. The judge was justifiably outraged by the way prosecutors Sean Cronin, Karen Gilbert and Andrea Hoffman handled a narcotics case against a Miami Beach doctor.

The prosecutors conducted a secret investigation of the defendant's attorneys, using informers to try to entrap them into bribery. They taped the defense attorneys' conversations, but all they got was lawyers saying No to the informers' invitations to commit bribery.

Becoming vengeful

The prosecutors then used their informers as witnesses in the trial, asserting that they were impartial and neutral, which could hardly be the case since they had tried to help set up the defense team. The prosecutors neglected to tell the judge or their boss, the U.S. attorney, about their extra-curricular venture. When the defense team wasn't cooperative enough, the prosecutors became vengeful. They increased the original 26 charges to 141.

None of this worked. A witness revealed the bribery entrapment scheme on the stand. The defense used this to argue that the prosecutors had a weak case. The jury agreed, and the defendant was found not guilty on all counts.

Now Judge Gold has ordered the U.S. attorney's office to pay the former defendant, Ali Shaygan, $600,000 as a fine for the prosecutors' bad behavior. The fine will reimburse Dr. Shaygan for his legal fees.

(psst, wake up little SFL, you have been dreaming again of Diora Baird as an Orion in the new Star Trek movie.....)

Sheesh, could you write any more boring? These guys could make reporting on the Normandy invasion seem like a snoozefest.

And thanks John Pacenti for finally covering the Tom Tew story we wrote about six days ago.

Don't worry, it's ok that you didn't mention this crappy blog for breaking that story -- I do it all for love, my peoples.

I don't know, I'm starting to get sick of writing about the law all the time. Are you folks getting sick of reading about it?

A friend passed along Judge Tjoflat's recent spankdown of Judge Cooke the other day. My reaction -- why be so personal? You don't agree with her ruling, fine, but no one needs to go overboard or embarrass anyone, particularly when you are in a position of power as an appellate court. It's just not necessary.

(Judge Schwartz, are you listening?)

And another friend passed along this spankdown of Tom Tew and Rachlin Cohen -- what the hail?

I guess Tom is the Receiver and was trying to get Rachlin paid for some tax work, but it kinda went off the rails, big time.

The opinion needs to be read in full, but this snippet gives you a flavor:

Through emails, memoranda, revised, re-revised, and thrice-revised invoices, the Receiver and Rachlin offered a stream of unresponsive and obsfucatory answers to the Monitor's inquiries reminiscent of the "Who's on First?" Abbott and Costello comedy routine.

Oy.

The opinion ends with a finding of an actual conflict of interest and a strongly worded show cause order.

Maybe my age is showing, but I don't recall that bit in the Abbott and Costello routine.