Do you like BBQ and Blues?

And are you an attorney looking for a fun way to knock out some of your CLE requirements? If so, have we got a deal for you...

Friday, July 9, the South Carolina Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (SCACDL) will be hosting our annual "Blues, Bar-B-Q and Bar CLE" in Greenwood, SC. SCACDL puts on this CLE every year to coincide with Greenwood's Festival of Discovery. If you're not familiar with that festival, it's a huge deal in the BBQ world, because it is a Kansas City Barbecue Society sanctioned and SC State Championship cook-off. Last year, Food Network was present and shot an episode of their Food Network Challenge show. There were over 80 teams from 8 states present to get their cook on.

In addition to the BBQ, the CLE also coincides with Greenwood's Blue Cruise festival. So after getting your CLE on, you can fill your fork with pork while listening to some of the South's best blues bands. This year the line-up features SC blues favorites such as Shrimp City Slim, Drink Smalls, Wanda Johnson along with a host of out-of-state talent that will have you singing the blues late into the evening.

C. Rauch Wise lines up the legal talent for this CLE every year and Rauch always does a helluva job. This year, the theme is experts. We have Barbara Bergman, former President of NACDL and co-counsel on the Terry Nichols case, to present on the topic of impeachment. Steven D. Benjamin (no...not Mayor Benjamin), the Second Vice President of NACDL will be teaching us how to use the NAS report "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States" to impeach many of the experts we run across in our practice. BTPC's own Man of the Year for 2009 and the first recipient of SCACDL's Champion of Justice award, William S. McGuire, will present on "Eviscerating Everyday Expert Myths (Rules of the Road)." Derek J. Enderlin will present on a topic near and dear to anyone who has ever been appointed to a criminal case: how to find funding. Our man in Charleston, Tim C. Kulp will help you learn how to keep out expert testimony from government witnesses.

Finally, we will have a panel discussion with Michael H. Lifsey, L. Morgan Martin and Lorri Proctor where they will discuss cases where they were able to grab some impressive wins, so that maybe we can all figure out what is working and what isn't.

The CLE is for 6.5 hours (with 1 hour of ethics). Registration fee is $180 before July 2, $200 after July 2. You can get a $25 discount if you join SCACDL (which if you are not a member of SCACDL and you practice whatsoever in the criminal defense field, you are missing out on the best tool for criminal defense attorneys there is: the SCACDL listserv. Worth the price of admission and then some). If you have any question, please feel free to contact SCACDL Executive Director Teresa Edmonds at (803) 929-0110 or scacdl@msn.com

As usual, we will be in Greenwood Thursday night through Saturday. Hope to see you there.