The McTexLaw Email Alert for April, 2004
| With the Texas school finance issue front and center as the Legislature meets in special session, what other topic could we talk about? In this issue, my colleague John Brusniak, shareholder of Brusniak, McCool and Blackwell, PC, has looked into his crystal ball and written an article about his reading of the smoke signals originating in Austin. Mr. Brusniak’s firm limits its practice to Texas property tax matters, and since the current funding of public school finance is property tax revenue, who better to prognosticate? New on The McTexLaw Business Owner’s Resource Center and The McTexLaw Commercial Real Estate Resource Center:
Over the past 6 months, the Texas Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on Public School Finance conducted 9 public hearings and produced a final report. After all that work, the committee made NO recommendations on how to finance public education in the absence of “Robin Hood,” but it did list several revenue raising alternatives for consideration. It’s impossible to state how large the effect may be with any particular option, other than to say it may be “Texas sized.” Similarly, it would be impossible to describe the feeding frenzy of lobbyists and special interests to protect their various turfs. But suffice it to say that any change in public school finance may affect what business entities we lawyers recommend to our clients, and how we structure and restructure business operations and real estate transactions to exploit each and every new loophole. And let’s not forget that it may very well affect how much more of a business owner’s hard earned money has to be sent to Austin. So click the headline to read this article, written by my very knowledgeable colleague John Brusniak, shareholder of Brusniak, McCool and Blackwell, PC, with his insight into the issues, and his best guess as to what is going to happen to the manner in which Texas funds public education. This is a “must read” article for all of us. Lawyer Worth $150 an Hour Less Brian Puricelli took on the case of John Devore, a former Philly police officer who claimed he was fired in retaliation for reporting that his partner had stolen a cell phone. His “smooth” and “artful” presentation won a verdict of $430,000 for his client. And then the court held a hearing on how much attorneys fees to approve and award against Philly. Turns out, this particular judge is rather, ah, “particular”, about grammar and spelling. While the court approved Puricelli’s $300 per hour rate for his courtroom work, the judge cut that rate in half for all Puricelli’s work on pleadings. Perhaps Puricelli got off on the wrong foot with the judge when he misspelled even the judge’s name, “Jacon Hart” instead of “Jacob Hart.” Said the judge in his written opinion, “I appreciate the elevation to what sounds like a character in The Lord of the Rings but alas, I am but a judge.” Defense lawyers fussed about the “epidemic” of typographical errors in Puricelli’s work. In a brazen display of continued ineptitude, Puricelli responded: “As for there being typos, yes there have been typos, but these errors have not detracted from the arguments or results, and the rule in this case was a victory for Mr. Devore. Further, had the Defendants not tired [sic] to paper Plaintiff’s counsel to death, some type [sic] would not have occurred. Furthermore, there have been omissions by the Defendants, thus they should not case [sic] stones.” Talk about people who just don’t get it. And then it was the court’s turn to cut loose: “Mr. Puricelli’s complete lack of care in his written product shows disrespect for the court. His errors, not just typographical, caused the court a considerable amount of work. Hence, a substantial reduction is in order. We believe that $150 per hour is, in fact, generous......If these mistakes were purposeful, they would be brilliant. However, based on the history of the case and Mr. Puricelli’s filings, we know otherwise.” The court then awarded Puricelli 209 hours at $150 per hour, plus 470 hours at $300 per hour, plus 56.8 hours at $350 per hour for Puricelli’s co-counsel. That’s $192,230 in total, and it would have been $31,350 more but for the court’s reduction. Which County is the Hi-Tech Hammerhead of Texas? Guess which Texas county is the first to electronically record titles, mortgage documents and other property records? Here’s a clue–it’s an urban county. Did Dell help out Travis County? Nope. Think cows. Think Chisholm Trail. Think Tarrant County. Yep, laid back Cowtown, Fort Worth. Tarrant County uses eRecording, part of the Anthem system by Hart InterCivic. eRecording allows folks to electronically submit for recording real estate documents from any location, at any time. The system accepts all electronic documents that meet standards established by the Property Records Industry Association, regardless of the format used. More Lone Star Electronics Advances The Texas General Land Office is constitutionally charged with taking care of more than 35 million documents containing information about Texas land grants and land transactions dating back to the 18th Century. And take care of them they have, now making more than 45,000 of them available electronically on-line. Interested? Just surf on over to www.glo.state.tx.us/archives.html. .....And the Federal Govt. Gets in on the Action, Too Need detailed demographic and business information for cities? How about information on births, deaths, income, poverty, housing, crime, employment, retail sales, education levels, travel time to work, minority owned firms, weather, and many other “community indicators” all in one place? The Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, FedStats and the U.S. Census Bureau have all combined efforts to improve the MapStats section of the FedStats website. If this information would be helpful for your business, or if you are just curious, check out www.fedstats.gov. REFERRAL NETWORKS Your new client referrals are a big part of our continued success, and the same is true about this newsletter. Please take a moment to think about friends and colleagues you know who might enjoy receiving our Email Alerts and forward this to them. Individual subscription information is below. ARCHIVES This Email Alert and all prior McTexLaw Email Alerts, are archived at www.mctexlaw.com/emailalerts.asp for your convenience. Feel free to browse through any newsletters you may have missed. SUBSCRIPTION MANAGEMENT
COMMENTS This is a "send only" communication. Please send any comments about this Email Alert to the author at mark@mctexlaw.com. Close
Window |