Are you really sure you want to go to law school?

That's the message of incoming dean Patricia White of the UM School of Law, in this interesting DBR article on the future of the profession:

Issues affecting the legal industry are serious enough that White wrote incoming first-year law students encouraging them to defer admission for a year, partly because a larger than expected number of deposits arrived from students who plan to attend this fall because of the recession.

White said the letters also were a way to get students to carefully consider why they want to attend law school and if the opportunities when they graduate line up with their career expectations.

“Students graduate with a large amount of debt and sometimes unrealistic expectations of what the job market is going to be,” she said. “They think that everyone is going to earn a lot of money. When you look at the statistics, a relatively small percentage of people make the large salaries.”

Wow -- more students enrolling due to the recession, and the law school is telling them to rethink whether or not they really want to go?

I did like this part of her speech:

The legal industry is still going to need new lawyers, but White said the strongest needs likely will be concentrated in areas like the public sector where the pay isn’t high.

“We do need more lawyers that help the underserved,” she said. “If you want to come to law school to help the underserved and you don’t care about making a lot of money, that’s great. Make that decision with your eyes open, and decide how much you can afford to borrow to do that.”

Wouldn't that be something if difficult economic times forced more lawyers to help those who need it the most?

Related -- does it still count as a mitzvah if you are helping people out of necessity?

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.

Oh boy, so it's Wednesday.

Remember when musicians used to get up on stage and play? And they were pretty good musicians? And we were all entertained by this?

Yep, those were the days.

So I see my friends Rick Freedman and Carlos Martinez are holding a press conference at 11:30 this morning:

On Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Eleventh Judicial Circuit Public Defender Carlos Martinez will hold a joint Press Conference with Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (FACDL) - Miami Chapter President Rick Freedman to announce FACDL-Miami's participation in a Pro Bono Initiative. The Press Conference will take place at the Public Defender's Office.

Beginning this week, more than 35 experienced criminal defense attorneys who are members of FACDL-Miami, will begin accepting felony cases from the Public Defender's office, as part of a volunteer (pro bono) attorney initiative to help Miami-Dade's poor. The initial response to the program has been fantastic and veteran lawyers with nearly 900 combined years dedicated to the legal profession in our community including Eugene Zenobi (39 years), Jack Blumenfeld (42 years), James McGuirk (42 years), Joel Robrish (40 years), William Aaron (37 years), Bruce Fleisher (36 years), Paul Morris (34 years), Bruce Alter (33 years), Richard Sharpstein (33 years), Alan Greenstein (32 years), Leonard Sands (31 years), Samuel Rabin (30 years), Jeffrey Weinkle (30 years), Richard Hersch (29 years), Eric Cohen (28 years), Milton Hirsch (27 years), Dennis Kainen (27 years), Michael Catalano (26 years), Lawrence Kerr (26 years), Rick Freedman (25 years), Faith Mesnekoff (25 years), Phil Reizenstein (23 years), Hector Flores (22 years), Tony Moss (22 years), Roberto Pardo (22 years), Marjorie Alexis (20 years), Robin Kaplan, Beatriz Llorente, Marshall Dore Louis, Mark Eiglarsh, Arthur Jones, Joaquin Padilla, Jackie Woodward, Keith Pierro, Larry McMillan, Elizabeth Perez, Michael Mirer, and others have offered their services to this wonderful program.

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees all accused persons the assistance of counsel for their defenses. If that protection is to have any real meaning, then the Florida Legislature must provide the necessary funds in order for Public Defenders throughout the State to effectively represent their clients.

The Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers - Miami Chapter is aware of the critical situation that exists at the Public Defender's Office in the form of budget cuts and increasing caseloads. The result of this is that the attorneys in that office are handling too many cases and cannot be constitutionally effective in their representation of their current clients.

The legislature's answer to this problem is to create more crimes with new statutes, increase penalties for existing crimes and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build more prisons. All of this results in more defendants being arrested, more cases being filed and an exponentially higher chance that an innocent man's freedom will be taken from him. In order for every accused American to have competent and effective counsel, the second branch of our government must stop ignoring, at budget time, the third branch.

This is a good thing. It's an example of how you can find meaning for yourself as a lawyer, of how you can contribute to being part of the solution instead of being part of the problem. Either that or you can go work for John Ashcroft.

It's no secret we are big fans of Carlos Martinez at this crappy blog, and for good reason: he's reasonably competent at what he does, and his heart is in the right place.

What more do you want from a public servant, particularly in this town?

As a civil litigator I was a strong proponent of his initiative to bring in bored, inexperienced, to-be-fired BigLaw associates to help out with the public defender's caseload. I know Rumpy and his merry crew of Shumified defense lawyers all derided this idea, but I think it's great.

Part of the criticism stems from a perception that criminal law is an elusive beast that can only be mastered by those in the know and who are conversant in the mystic arts.

It's certainly true that to be highly skilled at this speciality takes much talent and years of dedication.

But how about being mediocre or even slightly below average at it? You know what I am talking about.

Seriously, how hard is that?

Another part of the criticism stems from the perception that BigLaw attorneys are lousy trial lawyers and wouldn't know how to find a courtroom, let alone succeed in one.

Ok, fair point.

But the fact is these lawyers got their jobs because they are smart, capable, and quick learners. They succeeded at law school and are for the most part capable of schlepping their way through a motion to suppress hearing, assuming they get some training first.

Why not give them the training, plebes?