WILLARD MITT ROMNEY AND THE CAPITAL STRIKE OF 2009-2012: DID ROMNEY, 1%, PARTICIPATE IN ILLEGAL BOYCOTT IN VIOLATION OF ANTITRUST LAWS?

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY AND THE CAPITAL STRIKE OF 2009-2012: DID ROMNEY, 1%, PARTICIPATE IN ILLEGAL BOYCOTT IN VIOLATION OF ANTITRUST LAWS?

2100 words
Copyright © Ed Slavin 2012 All Rights Reserved.
Ed Slavin
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998
EASlavin@aol.com

Investor and Investors Place columnist LAWRENCE MEYERS,  wrote in June 2012:
Here’s the ugly truth the left-wing doesn’t want you to know about: There has been an ongoing capital strike in this country, and that’s one of the reasons why unemployment remains high and why two million people have given up looking for work. Of course, there’s a reason why there’s a capital strike at all. For that, you can thank the anti-business, anti-capitalist President Barack Obama.....  Ask yourself why public companies have record amounts of cash on their balance sheets (as of Q1, 2012):
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL): $97 billion
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT): $51.7 billion
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG): $45 billion
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN):  $9.5 billion
Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A, BRK.B): $37.5 billion
Dell Computer (NASDAQ:DELL): $13.8 billion
General Electric (NYSE:GE): $137 billion
And ask what happens if Mitt Romney –- of Bain Capital, a businessman –- wins in November?
The capital strike ends.
http://investorplace.com/investorpolitics/a-romney-win-ends-the-capital-strike/


Ipse dixit. (“He said it”).  Do tell.

In July 2010, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer reported that wealthy investors and reporters have written that there is an ongoing “capital strike,” with companies angry at government regulation withholding their investments.   http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/07/13/krauthammer_we_are_having_a_capital_strike.html

There’s more than a trillion dollars in idle Fortune 500 cash, sitting out of our economy.

The 1% are betting against our country – they are betting that by being misers, that by not creating jobs and not investing in our future, they can coerce voters into voting against President Obama.  It almost worked.  Then WILLARD MITT ROMNEY confessed to the plan, on May 17, 2012.  Thanks to Mother Jones Magazine and President Jimmy Carter’s grandson and namesake, we now have irrefragable evidence: WILLARD MITT ROMNEY acknowledged seeking to benefit from the anti-Obama “capital strike” – in his infamous 47% speech to $50,000 contributors on May 17, 2012. stating “we’ll see capital come back” that is – “ if-- if-- if if” -- he is elected, “without” his “actually doing anything.”   Talking to the 1% in a nearly 16,000 square foot South Florida mansion, ROMNEY stated:
if it looks like I'm gonna win the market-- markets will be happy.  If it looks like the president's gonna win, the markets should not be terribly happy.  It depends on, of course, which markets you're talking about.  Which types of commodities and so forth.
But my own view is that if we-- if-- if-- if we win on November 6th there will be-- a great deal of optimism about the future of this country.  And we'll see capital come back and we'll see-- without-- without actually doing anything, we'll (CHUCKLES) actually get a boost in the economy.
If the president gets reelected, I don't know what'll happen.  I can't-- I can never predict what the markets will do.  Sometimes it does the exact opposite of what I would I ex-- would have expected.  But I-- my own view is that-- that-- if we get a tax-- a Taxageddon, as they call it, January 1st, with this president-- and with a Congress that can't work together and I-- it's-- it really is frightening.  It's really frightening in my view.

Be afraid, be very afraid.  We know that MITTENS thinks “corporations are people, my friend”: note how ROMNEY talks markets as being “happy” with him.

“We’ll see capital come back?” So where did all the capital go?

“We’ll see capital come back?”   Sounds like a plan.

Banks are refusing to lend to small businesses, although they sit on hordes of cash.  One St. Augustine, Florida businessman says it is the tightest credit market he has seen in some 40 years.
One blemish on a credit application is enough for banks to turn down small business loans.

Banks are sitting on our money, while small businesses die, towns are destroyed and American workers lose our jobs.  (As Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis said, banks need to be reminded that they hold and invest “Other Peoples’ Money.”)
 
Some disgruntled American employers openly brag they’re not hiring because they want to see President Obama defeated with poor numbers.  

This is a strike by capital – this is not like a labor strike.  It is unAmerican and may be illegal under our antitrust laws, which must be enforced.

Today, noisome right-wingers funded by the likes of the petrochemical-emitting, government corrupting KOCH BROTHERS are peddling smear and fear, using extremist anti-Obama rhetoric resembling the Old Confederacy – talking about “taking back America” (e.g., from the 99%, who at last have some leaders who care about us).  That’s not all folks.

Fortune 500 companies report holding on to more than one trillion dollars in cash – a “capital strike” perhaps inspired by Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Today, while emitting perverse crocodile tears and projecting with cries of “class warfare,” the 1% are destroying our Nation.  The 1% are truly engaged in a “capital strike” – economic behavior that could mildly be described as unAmerican.

This “capital strike” may violate antitrust laws, which make it a crime and allow triple damages and attorney fees for  “every contract, combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade.” (15 U.S.C. § 1, Sherman Antitrust Act of 1990).

In an antitrust case, FTC v. D.C. Superior Court Trial Lawyers Assn., 493 U.S. 411 (1990), the Supreme Court ruled against a strike by capital intended to achieve economic and political ends.
http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/493/493.US.411.88-1393.88-1198.html

Underpaid lawyers for low-income criminal defense lawyers engaged in a horizontal conspiracy to withhold their services until their compensation was increased by the D.C. government.  The FTC won its case before the Supreme Court, which rejected the D.C. criminal defense lawyers’ putative free speech justifications and found that they were engaged in a strike by capital, not a labor strike, and that their conspiracy in restraint of trade violated our antitrust laws.  In that case, the defendant criminal defense lawyers agreed in haec verba:
“We, the undersigned private criminal lawyers practicing in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, agree that unless we are granted a substantial increase in our hourly rate we will cease accepting new appointments under the Criminal Justice Act."

Within ten days, the D.C. criminal justice system was “on the brink of collapse.”  FTC charged "a conspiracy to fix prices and to conduct a boycott" and concluded that they were engaged in "unfair methods of competition in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act."  An FTC Administrative Law Judge and the United States Court of Appeals said “no harm done.” But the commissioners of the FTC and the United States Supreme Court found an unlawful conspiracy in restraint of trade and issued a Cease and Desist Order.

The Supreme Court found that economic self-interest guided the criminal defense lawyers, and that unlike a prior case where Mississippi citizens boycotted businesses because of race discrimination, “[n]o matter how altruistic the motives of respondents [the D.C. criminal defense lawyers]  may have been, it is undisputed that their immediate objective was to increase the price that they would be paid for their services.”

It is undisputed that in the current self-confessed admitted “strike by capital,” 2009-2012, the explicit agreement is not to invest in jobs or companies until President Barack Obama is defeated and WILLARD MITT ROMNEY is elected.  The purpose is to make money at others’ expense.  Thus, the U.S. Supreme Court has already rejected any putative free speech defenses by the 1%.

So is WILLARD MITT ROMNEY in pari delicto with the 1% and their capital strike?

Owners of capital are withholding their gazillions and not creating jobs because they want President Barack Obama to fail.

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY recently admitted the existence of the capital strike, even as he targeted the 99% this way: as perceiving we are “victims,” “dependent” on the government.  His “47%” number includes the physically and mentally disabled, the unemployed and some16 million senior citizens who pay less in taxes through federal tax breaks.

To tape-recorded 1% “CHUCKLES (sic),” WILLARD MITT ROMNEY stated on MAY 17, 2012 that the capital strike would end upon his election, “without” his “actually doing anything.”  This a stunning, irrevocable admission of his being the knowing beneficiary of a planned economic attack by Benedict Arnold corporations with no loyalty to the United States of America.

Background: On MAY 17, 2012, surrounded by one-percenters at the home of MARC  J. LEDER, Republican presidential nominee WILLARD MITT ROMNEY covertly practiced class warfare: every person attending (except the formally-dressed waiters) had to pay $50,000.  WILLARD MITT ROMNEY, the quarter-billionaire, lugubrious goober gave it away with his remarks about the “47%” of Americans whom he considers “dependents” and “victims,” whom he claims don’t pay federal income taxes and are incapable of taking “responsibility” to care of themselves.  The speech was at the home of a “private equity sex party boy,” MARC J. LEDER.

The time and the place: The home of MARC J. LEDER, at 18249 Long Lake Drive, Boca Ratón, Florida, consists of  15,865 square feet, on 1.08 acres.  LEDER mansion’s April 2002 a purchase price: $4,450,000.00.  (Those were the days).  2012 Palm Beach County Appraiser’s  appraisal: $2,925,179 (down from $3,161,815 in 2010).  The LEDER castle includes a boat dock, fountain, pool, patios, decks.  A former Vice President of Lehman Brothers, LEDER has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the WILLARD MITT ROMNEY campaign.    LEDER co-owns SUN CAPITAL PARTNERS, which has $8 billion in investment assets and specializes in buying and selling small- to medium-sized companies, and has invested in some 305 companies with combined sales in excess of $45 billion.  SUN CAPITAL’s Global Reach embraces offices in Boca Ratón, New York, Los Angles, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Shanghai and Shenzhen.  MARC LEDER is the recipient of BUYOUT MAGAZINE’s PRO OF THE YEAR AWARD for 2003.

This reminds me of a story.

During the American Civil War foolish Confederate leaders staged an informal cotton boycott to coerce and pressure cotton-dependent England and France into recognizing the slaveocracy south of the Mason-Dixon line.   Confederates burned 2.5 million bales of cotton.  It didn’t work.  It was one of the most foolish decisions in the history of modern economic warfare. Great Britain turned to British colonies in Egypt and India and to independent Brazil for its cotton needs,  pushing them to produce more.  Confederates figuratively cut off their noses (trade) to spite their faces (any chances of formal British diplomatic recognition and alliance).  The Confederates lost the Civil War.

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY and his funders have sold out America.  Their narcissistic and sociopathic personalities – and their sins — have found them out.  Ipse dixit.

Their actions are not unlike Confederates burning millions of bales of cotton during the Civil War – only in this self-declared uncivil war, the Money Power has decided to sacrifice millions of jobs, laughing all the way to the banks where they have stored all that cash.  Ipse dixit, Messrs. ROMNEY, KRAUTHAMMER, MEYERS, et al.

This was not the only strike by capital in American history.  Notorious Robber Baron Jay Gould famously threatened a “capital strike.”

Then, in 1937, there was a planned recession, allegedly because petulant New Dealer haters sat on their cash, refusing to invest to make political points at the cost of millions of American jobs.

President Franklin charged that there was a “capital strike” by organized money, seeking to torpedo the New Deal.  

“Organized wealth, which has controlled the government so far seizes the opportunity to decide whether it is to continue to control the government or not.”  Those words were spoken by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the White House on November 6, 1937 – 75 years to the day before our 2012 Presidential election.  On October 31, 1936, FDR said that “We nnow know that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob.”  Of the 1%, FDR said, “I welcome their hatred.”

FDR’s Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, Sr. said that the power of the wealthy, “unchecked, would lead to a Big Business Fascist America – an enslaved America.”

President Roosevelt ordered the FBI to investigate possible crimes in the capital strike.  In 1937, lawyer Robert Houghwot Jackson, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department Antitrust Division, said that “certain groups of Big Businesses were engaged in a strike of capital to liquidate the New Deal.”  Under Jackson, FDR indicted some industrial-strength antitrust conspirators, including Big Oil companies.  Jackson was promoted to Solicitor General, Attorney General and Supreme Court Justice and was our Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.)

Robert Kennedy said, “If we do not attack organized criminals with weapons and techniques as sophisticated as their own, they will destroy us.”

Boy, do we need another Robert H. Jackson now, to investigate the 1% today.

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Ed Slavin, B.S., Foreign Service, Georgetown University, J.D. Memphis State University (now University of Memphis, is a former whistleblower lawyer, former antitrust paralegal, and community activist in St. Augustine, Florida (our Nation’s Oldest European-founded city).

2100 words
Copyright © Ed Slavin 2012 All Rights Reserved.
Ed Slavin
Box 3084
St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
904-377-4998
EASlavin@aol.com

The dodgy (extra)legal career of Willard Mitt Romney

"The dodgy (extra)legal career of Willard Mitt Romney"

by Ed Slavin

Copyright (c) 2012 All Rights Reserved Ed Slavin

PO Box 3084

St. Augustine, Florida 32085

904-377-4998

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY “joked” August 24 that no one ever asked to see his birth certificate. True, but in five years seeking the presidency, has anyone in journalism or politics ever bothered about checking up on ROMNEY's law license?

This is a story about a wealthy, superbly legally-trained rich man, someone who wants be your next President.
Like President Obama, WILLARD MITT ROMNEY (a/k/a “MITTENS”) earned a Harvard Law degree. Unlike President Obama, WILLARD MITT ROMNEY never practiced law. Wonder why?

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY went from committing a serious hate crime at age eighteen (18), in a Michigan preparatory school (never prosecuted) to graduating from Harvard Law School, to becoming a Michigan lawyer (but converting to "inactive" license status on the same day).

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY then became rich, very rich, using legal loopholes he learned at Harvard. He helped export jobs by the thousands to India, China and elsewhere.

It happened in America, in 1965.

As documented by the Washington Post in May 2012, WILLARD MITT ROMNEY, the fortunate son of former American Motors CEO and Michigan Governor George Romney was angry at John Lauber, who was a fellow student at his Bloomfield Hills, Michigan boarding school.

Legally an adult in Michigan, where his father was Governor, biogoted homophobe prep school senior WILLARD MITT ROMNEY retaliated by committing the crime of assault and battery, enlisting five colleagues to join in the felony.

At age eighteen (18), WILLARD MITT ROMNEY returned from a three-week Spring Break and observed in his dormitory a Gay, bleached-blonde, long-haired fellow student at his Michigan prep school, Cranbrook. WILLARD MITT ROMNEY reportedly reacted angrily, stating, as the Washington Post has reported, "He can't look like that. That's wrong. Just look at him!" At eighteen, the Michigan Governor's son, a leader of a wolfpack of rich young men, WILLARD MITT ROMNEY persuaded five fellow students to hold the young man down, crying, while Romney cut his long bleached blonde hair off.

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY laughed it off after the Washington Post broke the story. John Lauber, the apparently Gay fellow Michigan prep school student who got the assaultive WILLARD MITT ROMNEY “haircut” was later expelled for smoking one (1) tobacco cigaratte. Nothing happened to WILLARD MITT ROMNEY for the assault and battery -- his father was the Governor of Michigan, and he led a charmed life ever since.

While his classmates fought and died in Vietnam, WILLARD MITT ROMNEY flew to France as a Mormon missionary for two years.

Some eleven (11) years later, WILLARD MITT ROMNEY graduated both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School at the same time.

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY took and passed the Michigan Bar Exam.

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY passed Michigan's character and fitness tests.

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY became a Michigan lawyer, subject to Michigan's Bar rules and standards for investigation, hearings, suspension and disbarment for ethics rule violations.

Subject to those rules, WILLARD MITT ROMNEY was sworn in to the Michigan State Bar as an attorney before the Oakland County Circuit Court on August 3, 1976.

Then, a funny thing happened -- WILLARD MITT ROMNEY immediately converted his active Michigan law license to an "inactive" license. Why?

“I've never heard of that,” said one prominent Harvard Law School graduate.

As a student at Harvard Law School (HLS), Romney received the benefits of a prestigious joint MBA and Law Degree -- WILLARD MITT ROMNEY was one of only 15 of 1300 law and business students at the time to do so.

As an HLS graduate, WILLARD MITT ROMNEY got all of the benefits of an exclusive law school education, with not one (1) of the responsibilities.

No one would ever ask WILLARD MITT ROMNEY to represent the poor or the unpopular.

No one would ever file a Bar complaint against WILLARD MITT ROMNEY.

No one could.

Unlike President Obama, WILLARD MITT ROMNEY never filed a civil rights case, or faced consequences.

"Ideas have consequences," as my Georgetown University School of Foreign Service Political Theory Professor, Jose Sorzano (later Assistant UN Ambassador under fellow professor Jeanne Kirkpatrick).

The "consequences" of WILLARD MITT ROMNEY immediately converting his Michigan law license to "inactive" meant that he was "giving up most of the rights and obtaining relief from most of the responsibilities of membership in the Bar," as the late Vanderbilt University Law Professor L. Harold Levinson wrote in 1999 for the American Bar Association about the meaning of "inactive" status.

After nearly three months, the Michigan Bar has offered opinions about how many lawyers might do this, but not one statistic.

When Willard Mitt Romney and his Bain & Company colleagues filed disclosure statements with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, no one could file a Bar complaint that his statements were untrue and therefore unethical.

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY "inactive" status meant he could not be touched. Untouchable. Sure, WILLARD MITT ROMNEY and his partners could be sued (but securities laws were weakened by Congress over President Clinton's veto in 1996). But WILLARD MITT ROMNEY would never attract any of those disciplinary complaints that licensed attorneys may receive, especially those working on high-profile cases for controversial clients.

(Full disclosure: I am a disbarred lawyer formerly licensed in Tennessee and the District of Columbia, who once clerked for the Chief Judge of the U.S. Department of Labor, then for years proudly represented environmental, nuclear, weapons and trucking whistleblowers, and other discrimination victims).

After Harvard, WILLARD MITT ROMNEY was doubling his investors' money every single year, as he haughtily exported American jobs to China and India. But no matter what Mitt Romney ever did, no one could ever complain to the Bar that his actions were unethical -- Romney's law license was always "inactive."

When Willard Mitt Romney and his Bain partners took investments, no one could holler to the Michigan Bar, "That's wrong !"

To borrow the immortal words of that hoary 'ole American Express television ad, "Inactive Michigan Bar license, no Bar complaints, a quarter billion dollars of net worth using/abusing the legal system -- priceless!"

For eight (8) years, commencing in 2004, WILLARD MITT ROMNEY's Michigan inactive law license was "suspended" for nonpayment of Bar dues. Romney's Michigan law license remained "suspended" for nonpayment of Bafr dues for eight years, until June 14, 2012. That was several days after I asked the Michigan Bar for details and documentation.

On June 14, 2012, Willard Mitt Romney's "suspended" Michigan law license was, hesto presto, mutatis mutandis, belatedly and graciously converted to "Emeritus" status, reserved for people licensed more than 30 years or people over age 70. Emeriti lawyers in Michigan are not required to pay Bar dues.

On June 16, 2012, ROMNEY told C-SPAN “I did not go to law school,” quickly correcting himself. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/3342320

Keeping a current address on file with the Michigan Bar is the sort of administrative detail that most wealthy people delegate, relying on their staff to take care of it. WILLARD MITT ROMNEY's staff has not responded to questions.

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY's legal record is execrable -- he got a law license and gave it up in one day, becoming "inactive" ab initio. Romney never argued or advocated to reform a thing. WILLARD MITT ROMNEY never once spoke out against an injustice, anywhere despite a superior mind and the tools of a first-rate education at an expensive law school. WILLARD MITT ROMNEY never "comforted the afflicted" -- he was too busy enriching the comfortable, insulting the disadvantaged and afflicting the afflicted.

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY is no Abraham Lincoln, no Robert Kennedy and no Barack Obama.

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY never used his Harvard-trained legal skills to represent the poor or the unpopular, or to stand up for the rights of others.

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY was all about one thing -- making money for the very rich.

Michigan's Supreme Court changed its rules effective 2004, requiring that “inactive” lawyers pay Bar dues. Many, including graduates of Michigan's well-regarded law schools, had gone "inactive" years before, upon taking the Bar and leaving the state, and many “inactive” Michigan-licensed lawyers had forgotten to file new addresses, as was technically required by Michigan Supreme Court Rules. The problem persisted for years, as mail was returned. Apparently, the son of Michigan Governor George Romney did not learn of his Michigan Bar dues requirement, 2004-2012 – eight (8) years.

Romney's failing to file his address with the State Bar of Michigan was a technical violation of Michigan court rules, but it is unlikely that Romney will be fined for it.

Yet we expect the national media to uncover such facts about someone who has been running for president since  January 3, 2007.  

We await comment from the Romney campaign.

To be continued....

Copyright (c) 2012 All Rights Reserved Ed Slavin

-30-

For more information, please see June 19, 2012, August 27 and September 4, 2012 correspondence from the State Bar of Michigan:

JUNE 19, 2012 E-mail

Mr. Slavin,

In response to your most recent e-mail to State Bar Executive Director Janet Welch regarding Mr. Romney, please note the following.

Your request for records regarding a member of the State Bar is governed by the Bar's Access to Record Policy, a copy of which is attached, and Rule 19 of the Supreme Court Rules Concerning the State Bar of Michigan. Reduced to its essentials, the Bar will provide a member's name, firm and business address, admit date, P number, membership status, committee and section involvement and other contact info, as a matter of course. The member information available on Mr. Romney is disclosed in the Bar's online member directory, which I believe you have already visited.

Reading Mr. Romney's current status, State Bar of Michigan member, Willard M. Romney (P40351), is currently Emeritus and in good standing with the State Bar of Michigan. He was sworn in at Oakland County Circuit Court on August 3, 1976. He joined SBM as an Inactive member on August 3, 1976. On information and belief, it does not appear that he actually ever practiced law in Michigan. (Emphasis added).

In 2003 the Michigan Supreme Court changed the SBM dues structure beginning fiscal year 2003-2004.This change required Inactive members pay bar dues. As the Bar had many Inactive members on its rolls that had not been heard from in years, sometimes decades, notifying some of these Inactive members of the newly imposed requirement that they pay Inactive dues proved problematic as the addresses provided years previously were no longer current.

Attorney Romney’s (P40351) status was changed to suspended for non-payment of dues on March 1, 2004, as was the status of many other similarly situated Inactive members. This was an administrative suspension and not related to complaints or discipline. Attorney Romney’s (P40351) status was updated to Emeritus on June 14, 2012. (Emphases added).

The State Bar is not responsible for handling attorney discipline issues. That responsibility rests with the Attorney Grievance Commission (http://www.agcmi.com/) and the Attorney Discipline Board, both of which are agencies of the Michigan Supreme Court. Disciplinary history questions can be directed to the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board at 313-963-5553 or looked up on their website,www.adbmich.org. In reviewing the online records of the ADB, it does not appear Mr. Romney has ever been the subject of disciplinary proceedings in Michigan, which is not surprising given that it does not appear he has ever practiced in Michigan.

I trust this is responsive to your request. If not, feel free to contact me.

Clifford T. Flood

General Counsel, State Bar of Michigan

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012 E-mail

Hello, Ed.

I do recall we spoke at some length during a telephone conversation in June (apparently 38 minutes). I also recall that I tried to answer all of your questions and that in response to your request, I agreed to see if the Bar could determine what percentage of its members sought Inactive membership status upon admission to the Bar. My August 27th e-mail was in response to your request.

Attached is a copy of the Bar's Access to Information Policy. It governs requests for information relating to the Bar and its members.

Cliff Flood

>>> <easlavin@aol.com> 8/31/2012 5:19 PM >>>

Dear Cliff:

In June you agreed (in our 38 minute telephone conversation) to check the computerized records.

I understand about paper records, but the Michigan Bar first got computers in the 1980s.

Please get me some statistics to support your opinion.

Thank you.

Happy Labor Day.

Thanks,

Ed
904-377-4998

-----Original Message-----
From: Cliff Flood <CFLOOD@mail.michbar.org>
To: easlavin <easlavin@aol.com>
Sent: Mon, Aug 27, 2012 3:24 pm
Subject: Re: Re: Mittens Romney law license comparitors

Ed, it would take days and days to go through the records as many of the years covered are before computers were widely used and as a consequence, the data has not been digitized. I do not see where the effort is justified, especially since the information is not subject to disclosure under the Bar's Access to Information Policy.

Cliff

Can your IT person please derive statistics from computer records? Thank you.



-----Original Message-----
From: CFLOOD@mail.michbar.org
To: Ed Slavin
Sent: Mon, Aug 27, 2012 6:04 am
Subject: Re: Mittens Romney law license comparitors

>>> <easlavin@aol.com> 8/27/2012 2:20 PM >>>

Ed,

No statistics are maintained on the number of members sworn into the Bar who select Inactive status within a year or less or the same day. I am informed, however, that it is not unusual for members to do so immediately upon application to the Bar and even less unusual to do so within a year of admission. (This was especially true prior to 2004, when those selecting Inactive status were not required to pay any annual dues. I suspect it happens less frequently now than in the past because Inactives are now assessed dues equal to about 75% of the dues Active members pay.) The University of Michigan Law School, for example, graduates many students who hail from other states who take the Bar here but then promptly move on to careers that either do not require licensure in the local jurisdiction (law school jobs, for example) or do not require licensure at all... Similarly, it is not unusual for Michigan raised students matriculating in law schools in other states to take the Bar here but then not pursue practicing here.

Cliff Flood

>>> Ed Slavin <easlavin@aol..com> 8/24/2012 4:34 PM >>>

Dear Mr. Flood :
Were you ever able to locate statistics on any other persons sworn into the Bar and going inactive the same day, or within a year or less ?
Thanks,
Ed Slavin
904-377-4998

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone