I write today to thank on old friend for teaching more about the practice of law in a single moment than I learned in three years of law school. His name is Jon Travis Brooks. I am not sure where he is now. We were students together decades ago. One of his passions was diplomatic history. His lesson: Always give your enemy a way to salvage his pride.
I didn’t appreciate the advice at the time. Total war struck me as the preferred strategy. Scorch the Earth. Plunder. Destroy. Leave no blade of grass standing. Winning is a zero-sum game, is it not? It is only if you can extinguish...
May 17, 2012
Thomas E. Perez at the United States Justice Department might be a genius, but, then again, he might not know what he is doing. I keep seeing his face in the New York Times announcing litigation of one sort another against public officials. The problem is there is no principled basis for determining just what the Justice Department is doing. Perez sits atop the civil rights division of the Justice Department, so presumably he is making decisions about who and whether to prosecute folks for civil rights violations.
Consider the new civil suit against Joe Arpaio, the Sheriff of...
May 12, 2012
A welcome and not altogether unexpected piece of news arrived in the mail. It was from the Grievance Committee. The panel found no further need to investigate a complaint lodged against me. I filed the complaint myself.
I learned a long time ago never to run from a fight. Meet the accusation head on. If you don’t do so, the accuser is empowered. Far better to turn the accuser’s finger back into his own eye, as I do here to the editorial board of the Connecticut Law Tribune.
Not long ago, the body took me to task publicly for a couple of columns I wrote about the...
May 9, 2012
There’s been a lot of hand-wringing and even a little chest-thumping about the collapse of Manhattan mega-firm Dewey LaBoeuf. The hand wringers wonder what has become of the law; the chest thumpers can’t say I told you so loudly enough. From where I sit, the collapse of a Biglaw giant is a ho-hum affair.
My wife was alarmed when word of the collapse reached the front page of the New York Times. I chuckled. “The big boys are learning what trench lawyers live with daily; despite the law’s lofty aspirations, the practice of law is a business,” I thought. So...
May 7, 2012
May 6, 2012
The critics use terms like "shameless" to describe Steven Spielberg’s new film, "War Horse." I say shame on the critics. This adaptation of the...
May 3, 2012
I got a letter from Leo C. Arnone the other day. He is the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Correction. He was upset by a column I wrote...
April 30, 2012
I keep hearing about lawyers looking for work. Take note, then. Here is a help-wanted notice.
I am looking to hire a new associate.
My...
April 29, 2012
Lock a man up. Put him in a tiny cell. Require him to live with others not his choosing. Regulate when and what he can eat. Limit the times he may...
April 26, 2012
I am having one of those burnt out kind of days in which the idea of writing a column about the practice of law seems about as appealing as spending...
April 23, 2012
Anna Gristina is, perhaps, the most powerful woman in the United States just now. And that explains why she is sitting in Rikers Island on a $2...