Florida Bar Journal articles from January 2002

Florida Bar Journal archives from January 2002

Case of the Year: Strasser v. Yalamanchi.(spoliation of evidence)
January 1, 2002... Every so often a case comes along that fans a lawyer's embers. The best of these are notable not for the celebrity of the parties or the opinion writer's prose, but for their facts. Journalists will prefer the sensational case, and legal...

Florida homestead: a difficult post-mortem estate tax planning property.
January 1, 2002... As many estate planners have found, Florida homestead property can be a difficult asset to use in post-mortem planning. This is particularly true in situations where the surviving spouse, who owns a life estate in the homestead, is not the...

The Sandoval decision and its implications for future civil rights enforcement.(private right of action to enforce federal law)
January 1, 2002... In a narrow 5-4 decision issued on April 24, 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court significantly curtailed the scope of one of our nation's most important civil rights laws and eliminated a long-standing weapon for battling discrimination. Section 601...

A primer on motions to withdraw and attorney liens.
January 1, 2002... In a perfect world, we win every case, the client is always happy, and we always get paid for the work we have done. In reality, we don't win every case, the client is not always happy, and we don't always get paid for the work we have done, or...

The recovery of attorneys' fees and costs for the unsuccessful offer of a will for probate: counsel must give close attention to the substantive and procedural aspects of the statute in order to obtain an award of attorneys' fees and costs from the estate.
January 1, 2002... This article will examine Florida law concerning the recovery of attorneys' fees and costs from an estate for unsuccessfully offering a will for probate. The article will also offer practical suggestions for obtaining such an award. ...

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001: estate, gift, and generation-skipping Transfer Tax Law changes: practitioners should review their clients' estate plans and consider modifying existing documents to provide additional flexibility in this uncertain time.
January 1, 2002... Pursuant to the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (the "act"), significant changes have been made to the estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as...

For whom the filing tolls - beware of hidden traps: time limitations and court supervision in class actions under the FLSA and the ADEA: plaintiff's counsel who make class allegations should cover themselves at the outset of the case by filing consents of the named plaintiffs with the complain.(Fair Labor Standards Act)(Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967)
January 1, 2002... Generally an attorney is justified in believing that any statutory time limitation on the filing of an action is tolled when the complaint is filed with the clerk of court. This belief may not be justified where the complaint is filed pursuant...

Grandparents have rights after all: no area of custody law is more fraught with conflict between the rights of a child and the legal rights of a parent than the area of third party custody involving grandparents.(Florida)
January 1, 2002... Just when thought grandparents' rights, or the lack thereof, was a settled issue, it has become apparent that one area has not been settled. Do grandparents who have once been awarded custody have the same fights, in an action for modification,...

Sovereignty lands in Florida: it's all about navigability.(part 1)(lands lying below or adjacent to waterways)
January 1, 2002... Controversies involving the ownership of so-called "sovereignty lands" lying below or adjacent to our nation's waterways have been raging for as long as our country has existed. They have involved issues ranging from border disputes between...

Practicing Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Law as a Helping Profession.
January 1, 2002... 9-11 was aptly-dated. It was an urgent wake-up call to all of us. Many of us made grave promises to overhaul our lives and talked about perspective, "what really matters," and honoring our fellow man. But how many of us can say that we...

Courtroom Evidence.
January 1, 2002... Anderson Publishing has published its annual Florida Courtroom Evidence Manual. The 2001 manual contains up-to-date rules of evidence through the 2000 regular session of the Florida Legislature and volume 757, Southern Reporter, second series...

The Bounds of Advocacy.
January 1, 2002... The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers -- an organization of 1,600 of the nation's top divorce and family law practitioners -- recently released a new, revised set of aspirational ethical goals for divorce lawyers handling the emotionally...

Good Counsel.
January 1, 2002... Tim Junkin, a longtime Washington, D.C., lawyer, has authored his second novel, Good Counsel, published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Good Counsel follows a lawyer -- Jack Stanton -- on his moral journey from a D.C. public defender who...