Free Republic

It’s now up to the Florida Supreme court to decide whether undocumented immigrants are allowed to be lawyers in the state. Regan McCarthy reports the Florida Board of Bar Examiners is asking the Court for its opinion. Jose Godinez-Samperio came to the United States on a visitors’ visa with his family as a young boy. When the visas expired, the family stayed. He became an Eagle Scout and graduated top of his class from high school. Now, as a Florida State University law school graduate, he wants to be a lawyer, but there are questions about whether he can be...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fourteen states and the District of Columbia raised cigarette taxes in 2009, but none of the new money went to programs to cut smoking and prevent tobacco-related disease, U.S. health officials said on Thursday. Higher cigarette taxes can substantially curb smoking but states can make an even bigger dent by investing the new funds in programs to help people quit, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. "None of the 15 states dedicated any of the new excise tax revenue by statute to tobacco control," lead author Karen Debrot of the CDC's Office on Smoking...

In recent months the satellite TV giant has filed nearly 9,000 federal lawsuits against people who've purchased signal piracy devices. But some of those devices have legitimate uses, and innocent computer geeks are getting caught in the crackdown, writes Kevin Poulsen of SecurityFocus. In 2000, Texas-based physician Rod Sosa says he had the entrepreneurial notion that medical offices might pay a premium for a secure workstation -- one better suited for housing sensitive patient information than an off-the-shelf PC. A long time computer geek and tinkerer -- as well as a medical doctor and internist -- Sosa began working on...

AUSTIN -- Former Texas Attorney General Dan Morales entered a guilty plea in federal court today to two counts including mail fraud and a tax-related charge. Morales, 46, had pleaded innocent in April to charges that he and Marc Murr, a friend, tried to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees for Murr resulting from the state's $17.3 billion settlement with the tobacco industry in 1998. Morales has agreed to a four-year prison term, which has to be accepted by a federal judge, said Daryl Fields, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton. All other counts against Morales...

"Shakespeare Was Right About Lawyers" Posted by Doc Farmer Saturday, June 07, 2003 This article must start with a premise we can all agree upon. There is one belief that is almost universal: That all blasted lawyers are evil, and deserve a long, slow, painful and humiliating death. Actually, I don't really say ''blasted'' lawyers. I use another term in quotations. But for some reason, my editor here won't print THAT particular word. Anyway, blasted lawyers have been a thorn in society's side for centuries. Don't believe me? Check out William Shakespeare. Bill knew what was going on, even way...

Doctors from across New Jersey walked off the job on Monday in the first statewide physicians' strike over rising medical malpractice insurance premiums, organizers said. The work stoppage, likely to be one of the largest ever by U.S. doctors, was intended to disrupt nonemergency medical care for patients who could be forced to visit hospital emergency rooms for treatment of routine medical complaints. But the state's 22,000 doctors continued to perform emergency surgical operations and handle critical care procedures such as kidney dialysis and cancer treatments. "The conservative estimates are that probably about half of the physicians in the state...

A liberal friend recently took up defense of trial lawyers. No, he is not a trial lawyer lobbyist or a Democrat politician in the pocket of the Trial Lawyers Association. He was responding to an article that appeared in SFGate.com, The case against trial lawyers View from the right. His view from the left is this, "Trial lawyers are capitalists. They are using the current system to their best possible lawful advantage, just like any person in business would." He summed up his defense by asking, "Are corporations 'greedy' when they use every possible legal loophole to avoid paying as...

<p>ALEXANDRIA, Va.  — Accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was inadvertently given classified FBI interview reports by the government, and authorities had to go into his cell and recover them, according to court papers released Thursday.</p> <p>The government initially said two classified documents were in Moussaoui's possession, then acknowledged there were seven before finally determining there were 48.</p>