It is perhaps too much to assert that Hartford attorney Dan Klau plays a role roughly akin to conscience in my life, but he does try to correct the error of my ways. Thus, his emails recently tweaking me for writing in opposition to the Connecticut Supreme Court's ruling requiring Cassandra C. to undergo chemotherapy to treat her Hodgkin lymphoma.
Isn't the law really all about drawing lines, and making difficult decisions? Isn't it irresponsible of me, and others, to sit on the sidelines sniping at those involved in the difficult task of seeing that justice is done? How far would I...
February 6, 2015
A couple of decades ago, I paced the halls of the federal courthouse in Hartford for days awaiting a verdict in a police misconduct case. My client was the son of a New Haven police officer. One night, as the nightclubs were closing in New Haven, an officer struck the client in the head with his baton with enough force to permanently injure him. We sued the officer for using unreasonable force.
It wasn’t clear what was going on in the jury room. Then the jury sent a note. One of the jurors had not been entirely candid during jury selection, and had not mentioned that his father...
February 4, 2015
Most lawyers don’t talk much about legal fees with members of the general public. Why should they? It’s rare that good news brings a person to a law office. More often than not, crisis drives the need for a lawyer, and a lawyer’s request to be paid for his or her services is begrimed by the very need that drives a client to seek help.
But lawyers do talk among themselves about fees, and here’s what many are saying just now: The middle class is dead. This is especially so in the criminal courts, where the overwhelming majority of folks accused of crimes are now...
January 28, 2015
I've been reading the press reports about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's jury selection in Boston with a growing sense of ambivalence. Tsarnaev, you will recall, is the surviving suspect in the 2013 bombing at the Boston Marathon.
I have for decades been opposed to the death penalty, and the specter of the federal government's insisting on a death in a state that has long eschewed capital punishment is chilling.
What of the great laboratory of "federalism," where the states are free to tinker with justice, and to teach the feds a thing or two? This prosecution looks perilously close to Big...
January 27, 2015
January 24, 2015
Power, Moises Naim tells us, is everywhere on the decline: whether in the realm of corporations, the effective military reach of the state, or...
January 24, 2015
Dying scares me less than suffering. Perhaps that’s because I’ve reached an age at which I attend more funerals than weddings. But I can...
January 14, 2015
Jesus wept at the gravesite of Lazarus, the Gospel of John reports. Theologians debate the meaning of those tears. Some take it as source of sorrow...
January 11, 2015
I've never really thought of Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, as a prophet. The former general, politician and university...
January 2, 2015
The gods smiled on our clients in 2014, and for that reason alone, I will count the past year a success: On behalf of all five of the lawyers at the...
December 31, 2014
Criminal trials often demonstrate a truth the novelist George Eliot knew: “People are almost always better than their neighbors think they...