The Lord And A Million Serfs

"At the same time, law firms are instead expressing a “growing enthusiasm” for a staffing alternative—contract lawyers, according to an Altman Weil press release. Last year, 39 percent of the law firms used contract lawyers. This year, 53 percent will or might do so, while 52 percent expect that contract lawyers will become a permanent part of their staffing plans."

And the TTT schools love them, too! After bilking 40,000 kids out of $150,000, why not dump them onto your grubby biglaw partner friends who can exploit them in cockroach infested basements and not have to worry about contributing towards those pesky health/dental plan and 401K things? They will be so desperate to ward off Sallie Mae that they won't mind slaving away for 80 hours a week in unventilated, superheated basements. Meanwhile, you can share in the loot with your skeletor Joan Wexler look-a-likes and enjoy obscene, record profits and jacked up tuitions in the worst economy since the Great Depression.

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/law_firms_express_growing_enthusiasm_for_contract_lawyers/

Gifted and Talented Programs in NYC 2010 - Increase in High-Scoring Students

The number of students qualifying for gifted kindergarten programs in New York City public school districts rose by 10 percent this year, and those qualifying for the elite citywide program jumped by a third, raising the possibility that parents and their children have begun to master an admission process that was retooled three years ago.

According to figures released Friday by the Department of Education, the spike in students eligible for gifted programs occurred despite a 16 percent drop in the number who took the exams. The city described the decrease as a “leveling off” after an increase in test-takers last year, which they attributed to a publicity campaign.

Of the 12,454 in New York City who took the test this winter, 3,542 (or 26 percent) scored at or above the national 90th percentile, up from 3,231 the year before, qualifying them for one of the 70 gifted kindergarten programs spread through the city’s school districts. But the most striking increase occurred in the number of children scoring at or above the national 97th percentile: 1,788, up from 1,345 last year. Those students qualify for one of the five citywide gifted programs, which have only about 300 seats in all, meaning the competition for them this year will be even fiercer.

Already, the bar for admission to at least one of the citywide programs, the Anderson School on the Upper West Side, has been raised to the 99th percentile for most of its 50 seats. Almost 300 parents whose children scored that high attended recent daytime tours.

Anna Lewiston of the Upper East Side was determined to send her daughter, Lena, to Anderson but was told that the girl’s 97th-percentile score would not make the cut. Lena will go to a private school. “It’s really too much pressure for preschoolers,” Ms. Lewiston said of the test.

Another citywide program, the Brooklyn School of Inquiry in Gravesend, allowed 540 parents on tours before turning others away. The principal, Donna Taylor, said she noticed growing anxiety among them when they saw the odds of getting one of her 56 slots.

“It’s heartbreaking,” she said. Children who are not selected for citywide programs are eligible for district-based gifted programs; students may also enroll in regular kindergarten classes at their neighborhood schools.

The cause of the higher passing rates was not clear, but increased preparation might have been a factor. Hundreds of parents hired tutors or bought commercial test preparation materials before taking this year’s test, a mixture of the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, a reasoning exam, and the Bracken School Readiness Assessment.

At the Perry School, a preschool in the West Village, children spent an hour a day in a “think tank program” designed to expose them to the reasoning and materials they would see during the test. They also had professional tutoring. Of the five students who took the gifted exam, “we got two 99s, a 98, and two 97s,” said Dawn Ifrah, the founder.

Bright Kids NYC, the tutoring company that worked with those children, reported that 80 percent of the 120 children for whom it had results had scored over the 90th percentile, and 60 children had scored in the 99th.

Department of Education officials acknowledged that preparation may have played a role but said they were confident that most children who passed belonged in accelerated classes. They added that the city was trying to increase the number of full-day preschools in poor, black and Hispanic neighborhoods, which are underrepresented in the gifted programs.

Anna Commitante, who heads the gifted and talented program, said the city “may very well think about something different” after next year, when its contract with testing companies expires. But officials later said no policy change was under consideration.

Susan K. Johnsen, the president of the Association for the Gifted, a division of the Council for Exceptional Children, recommends the use of many measures to assess giftedness, like observation, recommendations and student work, not simply tests. “Any test is susceptible to test preparation, and that’s why you start to invalidate those assessments,” Dr. Johnsen said.

The increase in high-scoring students was concentrated in the middle- and upper-middle-class districts of Manhattan and Queens. In the Bronx, fewer students qualified this year.

In District 3, which includes the Upper West Side, 455 children, a full 47 percent of those who took the test, scored at or over the 90th percentile, and 250 scored at or over the 97th, compared with 218 last year. In Manhattan’s District 2, 44 percent of the test-takers qualified, and 341 pupils got top scores, a 42 percent increase.

In the past, the city’s 32 school districts used diverse criteria for gifted admission, but the city made the test the sole factor in 2008, in part to address allegations of favoritism and the overrepresentation of white children in the programs. Yet nearly 70 percent of students in the programs are white or Asian, the reverse of the racial composition of the school system as a whole.

FBI Art Program Presentation in NYC

Theft, Fraud, and Forgery: Cultural Property Crime in the U.S. and the FBI Art Theft Program

When: Thursday, July 22nd, 2010, 2:00 - 5:00 pm
Where: Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, 51 West 52nd Street, New York, New York 10019

Description:
Art crime is a multi-billion dollar endeavor that affects collectors, dealers, galleries, museums and artists world-wide. The FBI has investigated these crimes for many years, and five years ago established the Art Crime Team to develop a cadre of Special Agents trained specifically in art crime investigations. Although spectacular thefts from major museums capture the headlines, most art thefts in the U.S. are residential burglaries and art fraud is even more rampant. This talk will cover federal jurisdiction, elements of the U.S. criminal statutes, international treaties and conventions, as well as case studies of recent investigations. Basic strategies for protection of collections will also be covered.

Lecturer:
Bonnie Magness-Gardiner
Bonnie Magness-Gardiner is Manager of the Art Theft Program at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Art Theft Program was established after the looting of the Baghdad Museum in 2004. Dr. Magness-Gardiner coordinates the work of 13 special agents assigned to various geographic regions, and manages the National Stolen Art File. She received her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Archaeology from the University of Arizona. After teaching archaeology for five years, she entered government service as program manager for the Archaeology Program at the National Endowment for the Humanities then became a program manager for the American Memory Project at the Library of Congress. For eight years she was the Senior Cultural Property Analyst for the Department of State, implementing the 1970 UNESCO Convention against illicit traffic in cultural property. She also served as the program manager for cultural heritage restoration projects in Iraq. She has been with the FBI since 2005.

Registration Fees:

VLA Member Attorney or Arts Professional: $200
Non-Member Attorney or Arts Professional: $250

Attendees must register before July 20th and be on the security list to attend. Seating is limited to 30 people. (There is an additional $25 fee if you register after July 15th.)

*3.0 CLE credits, 1 Professional Practice, 1 Skills and 1 Ethics (Approved for Non-Transitional and Transitional Attorneys)


To register and for more information, please see this registration form, or register via phone at 212.319.2787 x1. For more information please contact VLA's Kathleen Mallaney at 212.319.2787 x12, or via e-mail at kmallaney@vlany.org.

This event is organized and sponsored by Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts.

The Youth DWI and Y.O. (Youthful Offender) Status

Often people in Ithaca City Court are confused by the jargon being spewed around the Courtroom. The defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judge love to use an assortment of acronyms and numbers. These abbreviations are not without deeper meaning. They often allow the process to occur more smoothly and quickly. Sometimes the Court has over a 100 cases on the docket between the hours of 9:30am and 12:30pm. Shortcuts prove helpful to successfully go through each and every case.

In many DWI cases we have the numbers 710.30. These are statements (either written and/or verbal) that the prosecutor attends to use against you. Hence, from your Miranda warnings, "anything you say can and will be used against you in a Court of law." A 710.30 Notice means that you (and your attorney) have received a document showing these statements.

When a Court discusses a Y.O. that means a Youthful Offender (the defendant/the accused) is 19 years of age or under. Youthful Offender Status (Adjudication) under New York State law, is for people who are 16 years old but less than 19 years old who are charged with a crime (misdemeanor or felony). They may be eligible for a "youthful offender adjudication." These are also called a Juvenile Offenders.

This is covered under Section 720.20 of the New York Criminal Procedure Law which sets forth the circumstances under which a court may make a finding that a person is classified as a youthful offender. For misdemeanor convictions, such as first time DWIs, CPL § 720.20 states:

Upon conviction of an eligible youth, the court must order a P.S.I. (pre-sentence

Investigation) of the defendant. After receipt of a written report of the investigation

(interview) and

at the time of pronouncing sentence the court must determine whether or not the eligible

youth is a Y.O., youthful offender. Such determination shall be in accordance with the

following criteria:

Where the conviction is had in a local criminal court and the eligible youth had not prior

to commencement of trial or entry of a plea of guilty been convicted of a crime or found a

youthful offender, the court MUST find he is a youthful offender.

So in summary, no prior criminal convictions and no prior status as a Y.O.

CPL § 720.20(d) provides that when an individual is found to be a youthful offender, " the court must direct that the conviction be deemed vacated and replaced by a youthful offender finding; and the court must sentence the defendant pursuant to section 60.02 of the penal law."

It also means that the Court orders the records to be sealed to the public. Please note that public school officials will be notified (only the notice of adjudication). This notice is kept apart from all other school records and documents. Y.O. status also means that there is no conviction of a crime or any other offense.

Section 60.02(1) of the Penal Law limits the maximum sentence that may be imposed upon an individual adjudicated a youthful offender who otherwise would have been convicted of a misdemeanor to "a definite or intermittent sentence of imprisonment with a term of no more than six months…”

A weird benefit of being a YO for a DWI is that it is more beneficial to plead guilty to the criminal misdemeanor VTL 1192 (2) or (3) than to have a lower traffic violation of the DWAI VTL 1192 (1). This is true for a number of reasons:

1. The loss of license will be the same under 21 years of age, one year.

2. The government (the prosecutor) cannot use the DWI against you for future enhancements of DWI. So no use of the DWI as a predicate offense.

3. Sentencing guidelines for the DWI will be restricted by the YO status.

The only negative in my opinion for a YO DWI is the increased fines for a DWI than for a DWAI.

Toro! Ole! HireCounsel Deflates The Rate!

"HIRE COUNSEL SPANISH LANGUAGE PROJECT IN WESTFIELD, NJ

Hire Counsel is currently seeking candidates admitted in at least one US jurisdiction for a Spanish Language Project in Westfield, NJ. The project should interview next week and start shortly thereafter. It is a document review project which should run for 4 to 6 weeks, involve 40 hours per week (no overtime) and will pay $32.00 per hour. The rate is on the low end for foreign language work but our client is not requiring any prior document review experience, just fluency in Spanish and admission to at least one US Jurisdiction. For candidates seeking to obtain experience working on a document review project this may be a good opportunity to do so."

Frozen!

"TTT, I was just staffed on a project overseen by a cold blooded reptile. She would literally BLAST the AC like you wouldn't believe, and would constantly bitch to the maintenance men about how supposedly "warm" it was. Can anyone say early onset menopause? It's no fun standing at the bus stop in the sweltering early summer heat wrapped up like Nanook of the North in your winter coat. Thirty people are absolutely fucking miserable, but nobody has the courage to stand up and say anything. Market is so rotten, so-called professional admitted attorneys are afraid of rocking the boat and being blacklisted and frozen out of low rate $20 an hour temp gigs. We all rather spend our summer days hauled up in a windowless supply closet, cryogenically frozen like Walt Disney, praying that we don't come down with pneumonia lacking health insurance. We should all kill ourselves now."

People v Frederick - on the unspecified powers of the court and consecutive sentences after bench trials

People v Trevor Frederick, decided June 10th, is an odd set of facts. Defendant was found guilty of attempted murder as to his former girlfriend, but the jury hung on felony murder regarding the death of the man she was with. The prosecution obtained a new indictment adding Manslaughter in the first degree. On this basis, the original indictment was dismissed by the court. On motion of the defendant, the court dismissed the new indictment because Manslaughter first had been a joinable, uncharged offense to the first indictment, and therefore was improperly added to the superseding indictment. The court then un-dismissed the original indictment. The Court of Appeals said this was fine: “Although the Criminal Procedure Law does not expressly provide for reinstatement of an indictment under the circumstances presented in this case, it does not preclude what Supreme Court did either.” Curiously, there is nothing in the CPL which prohibits trial courts from performing open-heart surgery using obsidian knives either, and a great many other things. There is a trend of sorts at the Court of Appeals, granting powers to trial courts simply because the power in question is not explicitly prohibited (see e.g. People v Wrotten decided 12/15/09).

This case also stands for and additional proposition: after a bench trial, the trial judge has greater scope to impose consecutive time, because “this was a nonjury trial where the judge, as factfinder, would have known when he sentenced defendant what facts he had found. There is no uncertainty about whether the facts supported a consecutive sentence owing to a lack of specificity in the jury charge”. Facts under which concurrent time would have been mandatory, had there been a jury, will permit consecutive time after a bench trial, on the theory that the trial judge would only have imposed a consecutive sentence if the verdict was based on conclusions which would permit such a sentence. Twenty-five to life consecutive: another reason never to waive a jury trial without a very good justification.