Well, your academic record was much more distinguished than mine, but I was basically going just to get my credentials, since I was a mid-career student (started law school when I was 43), had learned to balance work and family (wife and three kids) and refused to sacrifice family for work, and had nothing to prove and no need for grades because I knew I was going straight into private practice so didn't need to worry about getting a job. So I drifted through enjoying myself and getting fine grades, but not law review quality.
Didn't take Admiralty and know absolutely nothing about it. Only client I had that came close was the national jet ski association which was fighting a jet ski ban in San Juan County. We lost, which saddened me as a lawyer but heartened me as a local resident. Actually they didn't trust me so they brought in a high powered Seattle firm to lead the case, and they ignored most of my advice becasue it was NIH (not invented here) and after we won it in the trial court they decided on what I though was the wrong approach in the supreme court but they wanted to do it their way, and they lost. They were taking a very statutory based approach (because jet skiers pay vessel taxes to the state there is an implied right to use the craft on state waters, and local governments could only regulate, not ban.) I wanted to take a constitutional approach, that there was a historic right to use the navigable waters of the state that was well established in state law and, I argued, enshrined in our state constitution and local government couldn't deny that right to the navigable waters. I think I would have won it, but they thought the court would not want to address a constitutional issue where it could find for them on a statutory construction issue, so they prevailed, and lost.
But that was a facial challenge to the statute, so I'm still waiting for the first arrest so I can do an as applied challenge. But the sheriff and prosecuting attorney know I'm champing at the bit on this one so they haven't charged anyone in the past three years -- just keep giving warnings. So I wait. But some day I SHALL prevail, if the county ever has the guts to charge anybody and give me a crack at it.
Oh well. The practical aspects of the law have always intersted me more than the academic aspects -- I am first, last, and always a trial lawyer at heart.
But I agree with you, this situation in Florida is a blast for those of us who understand and appreciate the underlying issues. |
