Jackson Jambalaya

Headline = yellow journalism. CLICK BAIT!!!!!!

The new Collaboration Division. Kewl. When China sues MS they're gonna need a bigger boat.

Right. Also since January the AG has done her best not to issue any opinions and has had the staff researching whether she has to put her name on an opinion.

It would be interesting to see the number of opinions issued since Lynn took office. I have been waiting since February for what I thought would be a quick easy turn around. Staff said it was submitted two weeks after I submitted the request but they can't get the AG to sign off.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, the guy who runs legislative division has been an attorney for 45 minutes. What happened to Kim Turner?

Municipal and County government has pretty much ground to a halt due to the AG not issuing opinions in months. The legal questions that effect local government rarely sees an appellate court. This was one of the few essential services the AGO provided and one of the many Lynn abdicated.

Treasurer job was a lot easier.

You can bet Aunt Ludie's silk draws she ain't gonna abolish any of them jobs she put her female cheerleaders in. Them gals is essential to scout for furniture and catered lunches.

Is the AG's statement supposed to be responsive to the question of why the opinions division is being abolished? If so, I dont get it.

In my opinion, they will find a way to screw it up.

Might as well get rid of Ethics Commission too. It’s a sham like the non binding AG opinions. Lots of post and semi (contract now) government folks running around MS with AG and Ethic Comissiom opinions selling and making BANK from their relationships from working in government. Fact.

Do we know how many opinions have been issued since she took office compared to previous equal time frames?

@3:26p- I bet the municipalities where Democrats are the majority won’t stay quiet for too long...

Simple. I will never be wrong if I never state an opinion. Opinions will always piss somebody off. Why piss anybody off? Especially if I don't have too? Simple.

Local governments depend on those opinions to make decisions. If she didn’t want to do the job, she should not have campaigned for the job.

Opinion Division or Ass hole Division. We all have at least one of each.

I think 4:38 makes a solid point. Also, I'm leery of attorneys assigned to the capital suddenly being put in positions to litigate cases, especially at the agency level where they wield so much power. Frankly, I expect anybody who spends too much time at the capitol to develop a lust for power, and I don't trust them to not abuse it.

On another note, I recently had a case with one of the attorneys recently promoted by General Fitch, and found that person to be highly-competent and professional. I would much rather practice against good attorneys with nothing to prove, than those who don't know what they're doing and are trying to fake it.

6:06 pm
I would believe you if any AG attorneys had recently tried a case, but they haven’t, in like 5 months.

606
When did you recently try a case with anyone? Court is closed due to the Cov faker

If you google the MS AG Opinion database, you get this link:

https://govt.westlaw.com/msag/Index

If you check for opinions issued in 2020, there are only 26 of them, but 9 of those were issued by Jim Hood.

Also, the Westlaw database has no opinions issued after January 31, 2020.

Does anybody know where to find AG opinions issued after January 31?

John Pittman Hey

Well.

All I can say is . . . she was all about helping municipalities and AG transparency during gawd knows how many interviews on the Supertalk radio network during her campaign. ( Not to mention her multiple slick TV commercials) .

I haven't seen much her since she was elected.

It appears it’s a sh!t show up there...lotta power hungry people up there trying to impress the boss with dumb ideas. How long until the exodus begins??

Mississippi laws are written so poorly it is a mistake to eliminate the function that clarifies them.

Shouldn't she be in the middle of some tired montage scene preparing to go all J Grisham courtroom drama on the Chicoms?

The opinions database hasn't worked in weeks, maybe months. Pitiful.

As bad as it is, it could have been worse.

6:18, it was actually an administrative hearing before an agency board, so I guess it wasn’t technically a “trial,” though I never claimed it was. I stand behind my opinion of the board’s new attorney. FWIW, I was also impressed with the board’s complaint counsel. Whether you believe it or not is up to you.

-6:06

Any time you see or saw her in the Woolfolk Bldg. she had cutey pie handlers walking with her one on each hip. Another career politician.

What is the big deal, it is just “an opinion”?

She was not at MDES long enough to learn where the supply room was and never knew the mission of the agency.

If 1:54 makes a lawyer's living appearing before referees in appeals hearings, I'm not real comfortable any of his claims establish credibility.

Opinions, we don't need no stinking opinions around here.

Too bad corona virus tanked that $50K raise the legislature was about to give her. Can’t do that now when the legislature announced 6% budget cut to all agencies this week.

If she had any decency she would publicly ask for the bill to be withdrawn but of course she won’t.

Question is will all her new people stay once they realize those big salaries she promised are now pie in the sky

+1 > "Headline = yellow journalism. CLICK BAIT!!!!!!"

Also:

"Why piss anybody off? Especially if I don't have too? Simple."

Two-letter words are simple too, but apparently that's insufficient.

"Question is will all her new people stay once they realize those big salaries she promised are now pie in the sky. May 29, 2020 at 9:12 AM"

Where the hell else do you think they'll go? These are PERS jobs and you can bet she's schooled them on the benefits of that!

912 bet they would/will leave regardless

8:54(1). It was not an appeals hearing and it wasn't before a referee. I assume you are referring to the Employee Appeals Board, which I have never practiced before. Actually, representing clients before administrative agencies is a very small part of my practice.

I'm surprised at the comments assailing my credibility simply because I complemented two long-term attorneys at the AG's office. Based on their content, I suspect the authors aren't nearly as smart as they think they are. FYI, the Mississippi courts never "closed" because of C-19, due to a series of emergency orders issued by Justice Randolph.

-6:06/1:54

@10:40
It is clear that you have no clue what you are talking about. As I am a long term employee at the AGO, I can assure you that no long term employees have "recently been promoted." Demoted? Absolutely.

She is demoting people with years of leadership and subject matter expertise and replacing them with a crack team of inexperienced attorneys afraid to have an opinion or voice a concern. Case in point, Jason Davis, probably the attorney with the most expertise in DP litigation was demoted from the head of criminal and replaced with someone who has never tried a case, or represented a client, state or private. Mr. Davis recently departed for greener pastures leaving Lynn with a criminal division head with no one experience. Lets see how that goes.

No one knows who is in charge in PI and Consumer.

I for one can't keep count of the number of rec letters I have written this month for AG attorneys trying to get out.

Even the people she brought in are being demoted. What happened to the person she brought in to run Opinions?

Last I checked the legislature drafts/enacts the law and the judiciary interprets the law. The AG is not a judge. Therefore, the opinions are nothing more than some attorney’s interpretation of what they believe the law says, which is useless.

@ 1:05

You are correct in large part. However, a lot of local level (county and municipal) laws such as how you can spend money, how ordinances interact with state law, and a myriad of other issues, by design, are not the sort of thing that ever get before a judge or a an appellate court. AG opinions give them guidance and CYA for that sort of thing.

11:03, I merely offered my favorable experience with two (2) AG attorneys that I have recently encountered, one of whom was in fact recently promoted, which was announced last January. The backlash from my original comment at 6:06, and subsequent comments, makes me thankful to be in private practice, where I don't have to work with toxic a-holes.

I did not and do not claim to know anything about the inner workings of the AG'soffice as a whole. You obviously have broad, personal experience there, and I do not have any basis on which to disagree with your reported experience or your opinion.

-10:40

Attn 11:03 Since you have gotten so good at typing those letters requesting jobs elsewhere, why not type one for yourself rather than carp about a new administration.

@ 2:52
Because she is such an amateur and has literally done nothing since taking office.

The casting away of talent resumed today with several random terminations

Wow.

Seems there's a lot of new posters here that have no clue how blog comments work.

These people are taking everything waaayyyy too personal.

For a tad bit of education for these newbies, I'll quote a classic quote from the 1972 International blockbuster movie "The Godfather".

Here's a classic exchange between the Mafia bothers Mike and "Sonny" Corleone:.

Michael Corleone: "It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business".

They fired a female attorney today who was less than 30 days from vesting.

5:40
That is called a failure of competent leadership. It's the sort of decision making that just makes your boss (AG Fitch) look either vindictive or clueless.

Where do we go for legal subject matter expertise since its apparently not the Attorney General's Office? Maybe we can set up a shadow AGO at the Auditor's Office. At least he is qualified.

The 16th Miss
Judicial District DA Wil Colom is demanding from the Attorney General why all charges have been dropped against Columnbus Department officer Boykin in the shooting of suspect Ball who was fleeing arrest and alleged to have produced a gun after being Tazed.

Too bad we couldn't get Andy Taggart elected. The Republican establishment was all in for Lynn because Andy wasn't for Trump. Phil and gang didn't want Andy,but he still almost pulled it off. Lynn is totally out of her league now. Love the cheezy newsletter she sends out monthly with her photo plastered across the top. The next four years will be comical.

It is so nice that she is issuing statements to JJ. It’d be even nicer if she clued her employees in to what in the hell was going on.

For 10:40 who is also 1:24

"I'm surprised at the comments assailing my credibility simply because I complemented (sic) two long-term attorneys at the AG's office."

You didn't lose credibility with me for 'complementing' two attorneys. You lost credibility with me because you don't know how to spell complimented.

Scott Colom is the DA representing the Miss. Sixteenth Judicial District.His father is a Toxic Tort lawyer with close associations to Haley Barbour. Colom and Barbour were special guests of the late POTUS George H.W. Bush and wife Barbara at a Republican Fund raiser held in Houston... flown there in Colom's private jet.

Is that Colom of Ayers vs Mississippi fame?

I sure hope Fitch hasn’t done something stupid with Kim Turner. She is an excellent attorney and was one of her best hires.

Apparently this week she was more concerned with who was commenting on this site than actual duties as AG

@9:02
I suspect that you are thinking of the single-sex discrimination suit filed against MSCW by Colom on behalf of a male who wanted to enroll in the W Nursing School. The case made it all the way to SCOTUS and was heard sometime in the early 1980s. Colom stepped aside when it came time to present oral arguments before the assembled Court Judges.
SCOTUS ruled that State-supported, single-sex educational institutions were Unconstitutional sounding the death kneel to te W and all-male military acadamies.

When I was a baby lawyer, I thought I was hot stuff and knew everything. But all these dumb firms and agencies wanted experience.

If only AG Fitch was the AG then, I could have run Legislation, Cyber, Criminal, or even been a deputy!

Be forewarned that DA Scott Colom as an agenda and it has nothing to do
With freeing the falsely imprisoned.Colom's elec tion was funded mainly by monies pumped into his coffers by George Soros
He claims of not even knowing a "George Soros".

District Attorney
Colom has a weekend show--ISSUES-telecast by WCBI-TV.

.

@10:42

This thread isn’t about Colom or Soros. It’s about an AG’s office that has descended into disfunction due to incompetence and amateurism.

As every other employer in this economy is trying to bring back workers and save jobs, she is firing people. Clueless

In my lifetime, there are things I will look back on and regret. Voting for Lynn Fitch and encouraging others to do the same will be one of those regrets.

You all have no idea of how deeply and broadly Lynn Fitch's people have cut into the staff of the attorney general's office. Her people have crippled several essential, important functions of that office, including opinions, death penalty, non-death penalty criminal appellate and pubic integrity and consumer. Outside of the civil litigation division, which does not try many cases, there are NO trial lawyers left in that office. They were either fired or quit. The hell of it is that I don't think Lynn Fitch is really aware of what her Power Puff Girls have done and how that is going to affect Lynn Fitch, and soon. They have fired quite a few experienced people without giving or having any reason; they have hired people who have little to no experience--one who I met last week who is just a year out of law school, hired to replace a lawyer with ten years experience and who had a very good track record. Every new attorney general makes changes in the personnel and organization of that office, but in my experience (and I have been through several changes) every new attorney general understood the legal and political necessity of continuity in the core functions of the office, and kept the experienced lawyers in those positions so long as they had not become "political". You cannot imagine how arcane some of the issues those lawyers dealt with could be, how few there are who even know about the issues. But not this new group. They have fired people left and right, never giving any reason, and without regard to what they were losing. The young sapling and the mature tree are one and the same to them. They aren't cleaning house, they are burning down the house. The staff thought these people had finished with their personnel changes in March. But, no, there has been a new blood-letting in the last few days. I can't imagine why anyone would want to work in that office now. People get fired for no reason, and who can say what it takes not to get fired. And to make it worse, the Power Puff Girls themselves have no knowledge of or experience with the work of the divisions they are gutting. For example, these people replaced the head of the criminal division with a person who has never tried or argued a case of any kind, much less a criminal case. She was a clerk for an appellate court and knows next to nothing about the criminal law. She often enough has to go down the hall to ask somebody about some pleading that crosses her desk, because she doesn't know what it is or is about. The Power Puff Girls don't see this as a problem. This, folks, is your new attorney general's office.

More firings today...

Fitch's minions are stalking this page regularly. Just waiting on a new person to fire without cause and replace with a baby lawyer.