BUDJET CUTS MEAN MORE DAYS OFF IN PUBLIC DEFFENDERS OFFICE

BUDJET CUTS MEAN MORE DAYS OFF IN PUBLIC DEFFENDERS OFFICE:-

Pinellas - Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger says state budget cuts have gotten so bad that he will begin closing his office on some days . In an e-mail to employees Thursday [Jan. 22], Dillinger said he can no longer absorb required budget cuts to his staff. Earlier this year Dillinger had to cut 19 positions from a staff of 210. Additional cuts would have forced him to let go of another 12 employees. Instead, he will close his office five days this year.

The first will be on Monday, Feb. 16. The other four will be on Fridays.The article was written by Daniel Wise of the New York Law Journal. Within minutes of the start of the hourlong argument Thursday [Jan. 23] in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, all three members of a panel of federal appeals judges in New York had swept past the state's main argument that lawyer advertising restrictions are outside the reach of free speech protection. The judges appeared skeptical of the challengers' claim that Northern District Judge Frederick J. Scullin had erred when he sustained a 30-day moratorium on all forms of communications aimed at mass disaster victims and at other possible personal injury claimants.

The moratorium bars lawyers from advertising in any medium to solicit personal injury clients from a specific incident or mass disaster. The U.S. Supreme Court's most recent ruling on the point, Florida Bar v. Went for It, 515 U.S. 618 , upheld a Florida rule barring direct mail solicitations. The New York rule, however, extends to Internet, TV and newspaper ads.