Inadmissible

Randy Block launched a personalized matchmaking service last summer. Now, six months later, the lawyer and founder of Dallas-based legal recruiting firm Performance Legal Placement, reports in an e-mail that WeMatchmake.com has more than 100 clients, many of whom are attorneys, and the new venture turned a profit for the first time in January (just in time for Valentine’s Day). Perhaps more significantly, Block reports, he has found his own match. He became engaged on Christmas Eve to Caroline Clore , an associate with the Dallas office of Meckler, Bulger, Tilson, Marick & Pearson . Attorneys who are clients of his matchmaking service, Block says, tend not to date other lawyers. “We have many attorneys as clients, but it is actually rare for us to match them on dates,” Block writes in the e-mail. “Attorneys . . . often don’t want to date someone that they may come into contact with professionally. Commonly, our attorney clients go out with a range of people: accountants, teachers, doctors, engineers, CEOs, etc.”

Film CLE

See a movie and earn two hours of continuing legal education credit for free. That’s what South Texas College of Law is offering Feb. 25, when it hosts a viewing of the film, “The Response.” Winner of the American Bar Association ‘s Silver Gavel Award for Drama and Literature in 2009, “The Response” is a courtroom drama based on actual transcripts of the enemy combatant status review tribunals held on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Venable associate Sig Libowitz of Washington, D.C., who wrote and produced the film, says he read more than 1,000 pages of declassified transcripts from various tribunal hearings before writing the screenplay. The film depicts the trial of a suspected enemy combatant and deliberations of the three military judges who must decide his fate. “It allows an audience for the first time ever to see and hear for themselves what took place in the tribunals,” says Libowitz, who worked in the film and TV industry prior to joining Venable. According to Venable’s Web site, Libowitz was the executive-in-charge of production for “In the Bedroom,” a 2001 film nominated for an Academy Award for best picture. Libowitz also had recurring roles as an actor on “The Sopranos” and “Law and Order.” Donald J. Guter , STCL’s president and dean, says he saw “The Response” on July 31, 2009, at the ABA’s annual meeting in Chicago, where he participated in a panel discussion of the film. Guter says he asked Libowitz to bring the film to STCL. “This will be the first showing in Texas,” Guter says. Sharon Finegan , an STCL assistant professor whose areas of expertise include constitutional law, will moderate a panel discussion beginning at 6 p.m. Feb. 25, immediately prior to the showing of the film. The panelists will be William C. Banks , director of Syracuse University Law School ‘s National Security and Counterterrorism Research Center; Gabor Rona , international legal director for Human Rights First, a nonprofit organization based in New York City and Washington; and Col. Richard Whitaker , legal adviser for U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla. Geoffrey Corn , an STCL associate professor whose areas of expertise include military law and national security, will moderate a second panel following the film’s showing. Members of that panel will be University of Texas School of Law professor Robert Chesney , who served on the Detainee Policy Task Force of the U.S. Justice Department; Harvey Rishikof , professor of law and national security studies at the National Defense University, National War College in Washington; Rona; and Libowitz. Guter says members of the two panels will present varying perspectives on military tribunals and the whole mechanism put in place for the Guantanamo Bay detainees. More information on “The Response” can be found at www.theresponsemovie.com.

The Race Begins