Defending Mark Zuckerberg, Et Al.

June 1, 2022

Defending Mark Zuckerberg, Et Al.

defending zuckerberg

Mark Rubin

I feel the need to put pen to paper – fingers to keyboard, truth be told – to defend Mark Zuckerberg and a bunch of billionaires I admire not at all. Not. At. All. (I do use Facebook to promote my blog posts, but I’d be very happy if the site did not exist. As for Twitter, etc., a pox on all of them.)

Texas passed a law that takes from social media platforms the right to regulate content. Takes it away, plain and simple! (The issue comes up now because the U.S. Supreme Court stayed enforcement of the law for the moment.)

I am no expert on the First Amendment, although I

Continue reading...

Affirmative Action and the Court

February 3, 2022

Affirmative Action and the Court

affirmative action and the courts

Mark Rubin

I don’t get angry often. No, really, I don’t. Pissed and quick-triggered, sure, but really angry. Nah!

On January 26, word slipped that Associate Justice Stephen Breyer intended to retire. The following day, Justice Breyer notified the president that he will leave the Court at the end of the 2022 Term. Of course, his departure assumes a successor gets nominated and confirmed.

Then former Vice President Joe Biden told us he would nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court if we picked him. We did. He will.

Of course, confirming those intentions brought out the naysayers. I like, best, Senator Roger Wicker, (R – Miss.), who said, on January 28: ‘The

Continue reading...

The Supreme Court and COVID: Depressing

January 8, 2022

The U.S. Supreme Court and COVID: Depressing

supreme court covid

Mark Rubin

The Supreme Court and COVID: Depressing

Let’s be clear: the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled in NFIB v. OSHA, No. 21A244 and Biden v. Missouri, No. 21A240. Pigs might fly, too – like the one who lives in the wooden frame on the wall in my family room – and and the Court might uphold the OSHA and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services regulations. (Leigh’s known the pig longer than I have – polite-speak for, It’s hers – and she assures me, from time to time, that it’s not a photo.)

The NFIB Case

The NFIB case involves an OSHA regulations that requires vaccines or a masks

Continue reading...

Basic Failures: USPS and IRS

November 28, 2021

 

new office

We’ve moved! Rubin & Bernstein PLLC and Southern Arizona Fiduciary Services LLC reside at 1004 N. 6th Ave. in Tucson. (85705, for mailers.) We’re still getting settled, but we’re in.

The move and this fall have brought a heightened awareness of our failings as a nation. No, I am not discussing the crew who diss the vaccine and the fact that President Joe Biden has not brought the virus to heal. (That Venn diagram looks like one circle.) Or the inflation, seemingly generated by too many dollars chasing goods we can’t get to market because of supply chain upheaval and a whole lot of people who’ve stopped working for substandard wages. Etc.

No, I write about basic stuff.

Continue reading...

Files and the Lawyer

October 10, 2021

Files and the Lawyer

files

Mark Rubin

Hey there! Yes, you. Lawyer? Client? (Both?) Doesn’t matter, for if you fall into either category, my words about files and storage matter.

When I started practicing law, 40 years ago this Friday, we had carbon paper, with Olivetti 351s on the near horizon. (A screen about three-eighths of an inch high and maybe three inches long, affording a typist a brief opportunity to correct a typo before the print hit the page.) And, everything that mattered got saved in a manila folder.

The firm with which I practiced from 1983 until 1999 had off-site storage, along with an interior room – Purgatory, to me – where we kept finished matters until the room

Continue reading...

News from the Work Front

October 8, 2021

News from the Work Front

2021

Lawyers and the Canine Corps

I work from home, mostly. I went home on March 15, 2020 and when someone asked me why, I said, “Because my government recommended it.” I was 62 and I have residual lung issues. So, why now, fully vaccinated and only around vaccinated people? Working from home lets me think I am semi-retired. From attire to the nature and length of breaks, my days feel different in kind from the days – Days? Decades. – when I dressed up every morning, went to an office, stayed there until late afternoon, etc.*

So, the news? Rubin & Bernstein PLLC and our sister entity, Southern Arizona Fiduciary Services LLC move into new

Continue reading...

Pardons, Free Speech, and Mark Harrison

January 15, 2021

Pardons, Free Speech, and Mark Harrison

Pardons, Free Speech, and Mark Harrison

Mark Rubin

Well, wow! Just, WOW! I posted most recently on January 3, and I have not posted about the January 6 events because I try hard to pass unless I can share something new or different. (Better writers with bigger platforms covered the coup attempt very well; no one needed to hear from me, at least not in the 600-750 word format.) Modesty – reality, more accurately – aside, I have thoughts on self-pardoning, the First Amendment, and a dear, departed mentor and friend.

Pardons

Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution grants to presidents the power to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of

Continue reading...

The Big Case Fallacy

December 13, 2020

The Big Case Fallacy

big case fallacy

President Donald Trump

Donald J. Trump offered these words after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its three-sentence long Order in Pending Case on December 11, 2020:

This is a great and disgraceful miscarriage of justice. The people of the United States were cheated, and our Country disgraced. Never even given our day in Court!

“Never even given our day in Court!” Wow! Mr. Trump and those who share his perspective on the election have been heard in state and federal trial and appellate courts more than 50 times. I believe he obtained an order, granting observers from both parties the right to stand closer to the counting. Otherwise, I think he and his have lost in

Continue reading...

What’s the Point? DJT and the Post-Election Nonsense

November 29, 2020

What’s the Point? DJT and the Post-Election Nonsense

What’s the Point? DJT and the Post-Election Nonsense     J

President Donald J. Trump

Just shy of four weeks after Election Day 2020, we still have lawyers throwing crap on the wall, hoping something will stick. The latest? On Saturday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, unanimously, told an R Congressman to go pound sand when he tried to void the 2020 election, claiming voting by mail violates the Pennsylvania Constitution. This decision followed, by a day, the ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. That court upheld a District Court decision, in which Terrible Lawyer Rudolph Giuliani acknowledged the absence of fraud but wanted the court to toss all of the ballots, at least to the extent by

Continue reading...

Thirty-Nine Years Ago … There’s More

November 18, 2020

Thirty-Nine Years Ago … There’s More

39 years more

Mark Rubin

My post on October 17, 2020 shared the events of October 17, 1981, together with some professional lessons I got from early mentors, David Leiberthal and Howard Kashman. This post, begun at the end of the day on October 19, 2020 – the 39th anniversary of my first day at work at Lieberthal & Kashman, P.C. – and finished 30 days later, fills in a few blanks over the past 39 years. Incomplete it is! Stay tuned for more recollections.

Using Technology to Encourage Judicial Economy

An old friend of mine has been a judge more than 20 years. Awhile back, I allowed as how the courts could figure out, what with

Continue reading...