Hi Again:
What a mess!
Our Court Administrator sent an email to the Court's saying that the Regional Counsel was not to take ANY cases because Judge Davey lifted the Stay.
Wow.
To make it even more frustrating, it took me days to get the JAC to respond to my request for a review of our Order of Appointment after January 1st. Last week appointments were made but the Regional Counsel was not operational. I finally heard from Attorney Presnell yesterday. He said:
Dear [helpful DependecyDefense.com tipster]:
JAC has been informed by Philip Massa, Regional Counsel, Fourth District, that his office began accepting appointments to dependency cases in St. Lucie County (Fort Pierce) on January 7, 2008. Counsel appointed to a dependency case before that date are considered “properly” appointed and may be compensated.
Stephen
Stephen M. Presnell
General Counsel
Justice Administrative Commission
First let me talk about that. I've read the legislation creating the Regional Counsel offices, and it deals with appointments of private counsel, at least when the Regional Counsel office itself has a conflict. Please read the post at this link if you have not already. This is what we've been doing in Orange County since January 2nd. We're just trying to comply with the law, nothing more nor less.
The email cited above seems to suggest that JAC is taking the position that no private counsel appointed by a dependency court judge will be compensated, period, once a RC begins operation. Again, by simply reading the law creating the RCs, that cannot be true. Really, read this post.
As I said to my emailer, this website has been far more interested in keeping good dependency defense from becoming irrevocably gutted in the Great State of Florida than in preserving the practices of dependency defense attorneys like your author. I mean that; it would be far easier to recover and rebuild the latter than the former.
To sum up. Do I have this straight? 1) The Regional Counsels are not to accept any more cases, and at the same time 2) no private counsel is to be compensated for accepting any cases.
I am certain that is not the way it will work out, particularly if y'all consider using the forms. But still. Chaos.
1 comment:
I found a link on http://jaablaw.jaablog.com of a letter from JAC to the Chief Judge of 17th Circuit (Broward) stating that they would not contest any appointment of private counsel post Jan.1 if Philip Massa indicated to the court that his office was not ready and available to take those cases.
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