Ten years ago, it seemed like a good idea to pack up and leave New Haven. So I did, starting my own law firm and moving my office out to Bethany. I was looking for a little tranquility, I suppose. Although I did not realize how much I would miss the Elm City.
So this week, my office began the process of moving back into the city. We’ll be located not far from the courthouses downtown, on Orange Street, almost within the shadow of the FBI fortress, a brooding sort of mass, encircled by spiked fences, and accessible only with permission. I look at that building and see an occupying...
December 17, 2014
Word on the street is that Koskoff, Koskoff & Beider is so wealthy the law firm weighs, rather than counts, its money. I hope that's true, because the fight the firm just picked against Bushmaster and others is going to cost plenty to litigate. Call the expenses of the suit the costs of good intentions.
Ten families of folks killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012 have signed on with the Bridgeport law firm. The targets? Bushmaster, the North Carolina-based manufacturer of the AR-15, a combat weapon; Camfour, a distributor of the weapon; and Riverview Gun...
December 17, 2014
I've managed to offend my friends and delight my critics by asserting that the Staten Island grand jury was correct not to indict New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo for the killing of Eric Garner. Indeed, folks on the other side of the color line accuse me of succumbing to white privilege, or worse.
The accusations hurt, but my analysis remains the same: While Garner's death was tragic, as are all deaths related to a person being taken into police custody, it is not the result of a crime.
I've earned a healthy respect for the work of law enforcement officers the hard...
December 13, 2014
In the early 1980s, I had lunch at the faculty house of Columbia University, where I was a young instructor. Although my companion signed in as a representative of some innocuous sounding company, he was, in fact, a spy. The purpose of the lunch? To explore my interest in becoming one as well. He was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency.
I had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I was the first person in my family to graduate high school, and then college, and then to teach in a college. To say that I was lost and confused is an understatement.
The exact...
December 11, 2014
December 5, 2014
Eric Garner paid with his life for making a simple mistake: He played street lawyer when officers tried to arrest him. The time and place to dispute...
December 5, 2014
I’m a little too old for a mid-life crisis, but not too old, I hope, to admit that I’ve been wandering far too long in the dark wood of...
December 2, 2014
It will take more than the Band-Aid President Barack Obama offers to staunch the bleeding wound caused by the police violence in Ferguson, Mo. The...
November 30, 2014
I sometimes wonder whether the truth really matters at all, especially in criminal courtrooms, where we play at the solemn work of justice while...
November 19, 2014
There’s little doubt in my mind that the grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, will not indict Darren Wilson and charge him with murder. And there...
November 15, 2014
The Roman orator Cicero defined a commonwealth, or a republic, as a group of people drawn together by common interests and a common conception of...