Quiet blogging

There hasn't been a new post here in a couple of days simply because I've been busy with important matters, both professional and personal. That is not to say that there have been no developments in the ongoing process of putting together the new Regional Counsel system.

I'll have more comments soon on the 15 candidates for the Regional Counsel slots after some more gathering of information.

The DependencyDefense.com site proper is almost ready to move toward my vision for it. I intend it to be a place with resources for those in Florida who are involved in dependency defense. I'm putting together a library of case law of particular interest, and already have a message board ready to go as soon as I think there are enough people who want to join it. The message board will be password protected and sections will not be visible by the public so that private defense attorneys and even employees of the Regional Counsel can trade ideas on dependency defense.

A handful of private lawyers have asked to be included in the directory, which is not yet part of the website. I'm encouraged by that, since the website is not advertised in any way and yet some have found it and responded.

On another note, I was talking with one of the attorneys who had been on our local rotation list who is moving on, and it really started to hit home that the loss of a large pool of legal talent and experience has already happened under this new system. Locally, most of the really good attorneys (with exceptions, of course) have decided to do something else and no longer defend parents in dependency cases. It was never really lucrative to begin with, and something that took an almost inexplicable enthusiasm for an undervalued specialty in the law.

I think that once that talent and experience is engaged in other work in order to save what most often are small practices, it will be lost for good. That's the point of DependencyDefense.com, and not just this blog: I want to help preserve what's left.

I'll have more interesting posts up by the end of the weekend about some reports I've gotten about the JNC interviews and items of interest about some of the remaining nominees.