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April 1, 2015 Letters

Letters

Letters

Lawyer Suicide

As a recently retired Florida lawyer with an active license to practice but no office, I recently had a few letters to the editor published in The Florida Bar News and the Tampa Bay Times about the decline and eclipse of the legal profession, citing several reasons like legal documents and legal advice on the Internet, lawyer overpopulation, etc.

Lawyer suicide touched a nerve because several lawyers I didn’t even know called me after reading my letters to the editor to relate their depression and frustration with practicing law and how lost and helpless they felt about their futures.

Most disconcerting and disturbing was having fellow professionals introduce themselves to a stranger and then promptly bare their souls to me. The term “spill their guts to me” is more accurate.

It eerily reminded me of office conferences with grieving people who had lost a loved one or suffered a severe personal injury. Those clients I could help, but the lawyers who called me, well.. . .

David P. Carter
Seminole

_______________________

The Bar and Dr. Weinstein should be commended for his March 1 article to help identify the risk factors for sufferers and their friends. The article suggests resources such as Florida Lawyers Assistance and others.

After losing a law school classmate and another friend to suicide, I have wondered, “What if I had….” Most assuredly others have had similar thoughts about a lost friend or family member.

In addition to the many alternatives listed, there are also faith-based groups for those so inclined, including 12 step programs such as AA (“Trust God, Clean House, Help Others”), Celebrate Recovery programs, and house of worship counseling, if available (“Come Unto Me, all of you who are weary and heavily burdened, and I will give you rest”). They may not meet immediate or emergency needs, but can help with long term issues. But, most importantly, know the symptoms of depression, and then intervene.


Kerry H. Brown
St. Petersburg

Inactive Lawyers
Two articles in the March 1 News were entertaining and informative. “Lawmakers talk access,” about major modifications to the profession being considered by the Commission on Access to Civil Justice, and the Bar’s far-reaching program Vision 2016 seemed, however, to ignore even discussing the closely related complex problems discussed in the article on “Educating ‘seasoned’ lawyers about their options.”

Perhaps the Senior Lawyers Committee should insist that the current limitations on lawyers classified as “inactive” by The Florida Bar are unrealistic, especially in trying to fill the needs of the public for even minimal legal assistance.

Maybe the Senior Lawyers Committee should demand a seat at the table on Vision 2016, and an invitation to provide input to the Commission on Access to Civil Justice.

Does it really make sense that so called “inactive lawyers” are absolutely prohibited from any kind of practice of law?

Bill Wagner
Tampa

Public Records

This letter responds to Jan Pudlow’s February 1 story titled “A New Scam: Public Records Shakedown.” Pudlow makes the unsubstantiated claim that public records lawsuits are a “scam” because the public records requests are allegedly not “legitimate.” Pudlow does not cite any law or precedent that explains why such claims are not legitimate.

Pudlow also implicates my firm, by association, with the O’Boyle Law Firm. It is true that the O’Boyle Law Firm is under investigation, but Pudlow conveniently fails to mention that the investigation is in connection with other ethical violations unrelated to the conduct described in the Lutheran case.

My client, Jeffery Gray, is a civil rights activist and volunteer journalist for the organization Photography Is Not a Crime. In the course of his activism, he became concerned about the lack of transparency in government. He spot checks various government contractors to ensure they are complying with open government laws. Shockingly, about 70 percent of the entities he checked on were not compliant with our constitutional and statutory rights to access public records.

Private entities receive our hard-earned tax dollars to grow their businesses and should be held accountable. Further, Mr. Gray does not endeavor to bring suit to anyone unless he believes they are subject to the Public Records Act and they are in violation thereof. In fact, in the Lutheran case, Judge Schemer found “contract between LSS and the Department of Children and Family Services puts LSS on notice that it is subject to the Act.”

As for the allegation that Mr. Gray is taking advantage of an ambiguity in the law, this is not the case. Section 119.0701 clarifies who is subject to the law, not confuses. As for the fee-sharing allegation, the Lutheran case was my first case with Mr. Gray, making fee-sharing impossible.

The Florida Bar News never reached out to myself or to Mr. Gray regarding their story on us. It is disturbing that it would describe the constitutional rights of a citizen of Florida as a “scam.”

Abraham Shakfeh
Tampa

( Editor’s Note: It was Fourth Circuit Judge Jack M. Schemer who wrote: “The means to request public records under Chapter 119, Florida Statutes, utilized by Gray were unreasonable and a flagrant abuse of the statute. Gray, in an effort to ambush LSS, purposely denied LSS any advance or written notice of his demands, purposely failed to provide any contact information, and purposely appeared on a busy work day in hopes of manufacturing an attorneys’ fee, to be shared with Gray. It was nothing more than a scam,” in his December 1 Final Order Denying Relief Under Public Records Act in the case of Jeffrey Marcus Gray v. Lutheran Social Services of Northeast Florida, Inc. The decision is being appealed.)

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