Florida Wetlands Supreme Court Case & Hiaasen's Native Tongue

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering a major case involving environmental protection in Florida, Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District. I'll leave it to the Tampa Bay Times article "Environmental protection at stake in high court case" to break down what's at stake:

...The case asks whether it is constitutional for an environmental permit to require that the owner restore wetlands on land miles away to mitigate the damage of his project. If the court rules for the landowner, Florida could be hamstrung in its wetland mitigation efforts and in its attempts to get developers to pay for the public impact of their development. 

The case began in 1994 when Coy Koontz Sr., who died in 2000 (the case has been carried on by his son), sought a permit from the St. Johns River Water Management District to develop 3.7 acres of his land near Orlando. Koontz's project called for dredging 3.25 acres of wetlands. To secure a permit, Koontz agreed to give the district a conservation easement on 11.5 acres. But water management officials told Koontz he would have to pay to restore wetlands on other district property miles away as well, or he would have to reduce his development plans to 1 acre. Koontz rejected these conditions, and the permit was denied. 

Koontz sued, claiming the permit rejection constituted a taking of his property by the government without just compensation in violation of the federal and state constitutions. He said he shouldn't be forced to pay for environmental repairs that have little relationship to his property or project. He won before a trial judge... But that victory was reversed by the Florida Supreme Court... 

The high stakes are evident. Conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court could use this case to curb the power of government, expand property rights and weaken environmental regulations. That's why more than a dozen amicus or "friend of the court" briefs have been filed. The Obama administration and 19 states (not including Florida) are supporting the water management district.

For a novel about the conflict between developers and environmental protection in Florida, try Carl Hiaasen's Native Tongue:

Imagine you're driving a rented Chrysler LeBaron convertible to the perfect family vacation at the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills when a rat is tossed into your car by a passing pickup. The rodent in question is not a rat, but a rare blue-tongued mango vole just liberated from the Kingdom by the militant Wildlife Rescue Corps. Welcome to the world of Native Tongue , where dedicated (if somewhat demented) environmentalists battle sleazy real estate developers in the Florida Keys.

Inflated Legal Bills & Blachman's Anonymous Lawyer

From yesterday's New York Times article "Suit Offers a Peek at the Practice of Inflating a Legal Bill:"

They were lawyers at the world’s largest law firm, trading casual e-mails about a client’s case. One made a sarcastic joke about how the bill was running way over budget. Another responded by describing a colleague’s approach to the assignment as “churn that bill, baby!” The e-mails, which emerged in a court filing late last week, provide a window into the thorny issue of law firm billing. The documents are likely to reinforce a perception held by many corporate clients — and the broader public — that law firms inflate bills by performing superfluous tasks and overstaffing assignments. 

The internal correspondence of the law firm, DLA Piper, was disclosed in a fee dispute between the law firm and Adam H. Victor, an energy industry entrepreneur. After DLA Piper sued Mr. Victor for $675,000 in unpaid legal bills, Mr. Victor filed a counterclaim, accusing the law firm of a “sweeping practice of overbilling.” 

Mr. Victor’s feud with DLA Piper began after he retained the firm in April 2010 to prepare a bankruptcy filing for one of his companies. A month after the filing, a lawyer at the firm warned colleagues that the entrepreneur’s bill was mounting. “I hear we are already 200k over our estimate — that’s Team DLA Piper!” wrote Erich P. Eisenegger, a partner at the firm. Another DLA Piper lawyer, Christopher Thomson, replied, noting that a third colleague, Vincent J. Roldan, had been enlisted to work on the matter. “Now Vince has random people working full time on random research projects in standard ‘churn that bill, baby!’ mode,” Mr. Thomson wrote. “That bill shall know no limits.”

I don't mean to be unfair to lawyers (I'm sure lots of professions overcharge), but this story was too good to pass up. For a novel to match this, I think satire would be best. It's hard to imagine To Kill a Mockingbird or A Time to Kill focusing much on billable hours. So my recommendation is Jeremy Blachman's hilarious Anonymous Lawyer, "A wickedly funny debut novel about a high-powered lawyer whose shockingly candid blog about life inside his firm threatens to destroy him." I love how it opens:

I see you. I see you walking by my office, trying to look like you have a reason to be there. But you don't. I see the guilty look on your face. You try not to make eye contact. You try to rush past me as if you're going to the bathroom. But the bathroom is at the other end of the hall. You think I'm naïve, but I know what you're doing. Everyone knows. But she's my secretary, not yours, and her candy belongs to me, not you. And if I have a say in whether or not you ever become a partner at this firm--and trust me, I do--I'm not going to forget this. My secretary. My candy. Go back to your office and finish reading the addendum to the lease agreement. I don't want to see you in the hall for at least another sixteen hours. AND STOP STEALING MY CANDY.