- Quickdraw McLaw
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As you may recall from a post earlier this year, Judge Bruce A. Markell, affectionately known as BAM, is resigning on July 10 to go teach in Florida. Judge Markell, never known to tread lightly, is not going out quietly. The RJ has an article on the recent benchslap he gave local attorney Anthony Deluca. Although we have not seen the order (if someone has it online, feel free to put the link in the comments), the RJ says it weighs in at 91 pages and lectures on bankruptcy code and the Rules of Professional Conduct.
Without having seen the full order, it’s hard to determine how appropriate or inappropriate it was. What do you guys think? Do we like it when BAM gives us a good old fashioned benchslap? Did Deluca deserve it? (That answer is “no” according to a comment on the RJ article attributed to Anthony Deluca, and which mentions he has represented over 20,000 bankruptcy clients-unwittingly supporting the notion of a bankruptcy mill.) Is this judicial activism or a judicial technician at his finest? Will those poor law students even know what hit them?
All three parties here have lost their minds: BAM had some good goals but has jumped the shark imo; Deluca is a crazed narcissist (who will read this soon because of said narcissism); and the clients seem like real pieces of work. They all deserve each other's company.
I read the whole 90+ page Order. It is such a targeted effort by BAM to go after consumer attorneys before he leaves the bench that it boggles. The client lied to the attorney. The client admitted that he knew fraud was not covered and that he was not getting representation in nondischargeability actions for his flat fee. The client got a discharge of 70 of 71 creditors and would not have gotten a discharge of his fraud judgment no matter what DeLuca did.
The Order implies more a message of "I dont like the way you do business" as it does really that DeLuca did something wrong. The Order reads not like an Order but a law review article (which I suspect it may become within the next 12 months).
From where did you get the order? JAM's article said it's been removed from availability.
This made me chuckle. Mighty fine reporting LV Sun:
"Bare said the trial was the longest he had presided over in lengthy long career."
Bare's lengthy long career of presiding over trials is what, two years?
I suspect they got the order from the same place JAM did: Pacer. JAM just said that DeLuca filed a motion to stay the publication of the order, not that the order itself was withdrawn. "Publication" just means that Westlaw will have to assign it a WL number instead of an F.Supp.3d number, until it gets put into the "for publication" pile.
Found it. All of the sanction motions and transcripts were filed in the base bankruptcy case but there was no opinion there. The opinion was filed in the adversary case.
More importantly, who is going to replace BAM? I heard that Candace Carlyon and Augie Landis are the top applicants….not sure about their judicial demeanor though…
any thoughts out there?
My bet is on Natalie Cox. She made it to the finals and a former BAM prodigy.
BAM's Order is available on PACER. Go to the Case File and its right there, which I think is another complaint that DeLuca had which is that BAM appears to have stayed publication and yet the Order ends up in the newspaper.
My understanding is that Laurel Davis has already been selected for BAM's seat, that she was originally selected to take over for LBR but because BAM is leaving before LBR that she was moved into his position.
I think your right, Laurel Davis is going to take over BAM's caseload, but the opening is technically for BAM's seat.
What we need is civility in the Courtroom, we need someone with judicial demeanor.
Most likely candidates/nominees are Augie Landis, Brian Shapiro, Jim Shea and Candace Carlyon (and most likely in that order). Natalie is decent (and very nice by the way), but just way too young and inexperienced compared to all of the above.
Laurel Davis (a BK Hottie in a past life) will be much better than any of the others. Shapiro would be cool. Candace Carlyon would be a frickin nightmare.
Imagine a cross dressing Doug Smith with NO sense of humor.