One of the occupational hazards of the legal profession is a close acquaintance with chaos. The darkness leads some into the wasteland of depression, and they fall prey to alcoholism, to drug use or to despair. Others yield to a haughty sense that they are above it all, that they are mere spectators to the struggles of the ordinary mortals whose cases consume their professional lives. This later arrogance breeds a species of entitlement to which even judges are not immune.
I’ve never met former Detroit Circuit Court Judge Wade McCree, so I only know what I’ve read. The...
August 3, 2014
It seems as though all of my heroes are getting long in the tooth: Gerry Spence and F. Lee Bailey are in their 80s. Tony Serra is 79. Even John Williams is in his seventies. I don’t know why I thought great trial lawyers would be immune from time’s always fatal hammer.
Perhaps I was hoping great arguments would yield immortality. Perhaps I thought I too could escape the clock’s final tick.
I think alot about mortality in the summer, of all times. My wife and I take a long vacation each year. Returning to work gets more and more difficult. I fuss and whine three...
July 26, 2014
It surprises most people to learn that in the state courts of Connecticut, judges almost never permit opening statements in criminal cases. Lawyers get a chance to give them in state civil cases, however. And openings are permitted in both civil and criminal cases in the federal courts. Such are the vagaries of federalism.
Opening statements are a chance for lawyers to tell jurors what to expect at trial, giving a jury some sense of what to focus on in the days and weeks to come. I don’t think we do jurors any favors dropping them into a trial without any sense of what the issues...
July 25, 2014
Among the many defining errors I've made along life's way is my public and open scorn for law professors. Those who can't do, teach, and those who can't teach in a traditional discipline such as history, philosophy or even economics, teach law, I've said. I've been willfully blind to what scholars can contribute to a practitioner's understanding of the law.
So I confess to having read Laurence Tribe's most recent book on the Supreme Court, "Uncertain Justice," with profit. Tribe, a Harvard law professor and long-time liberal favorite for appointment to the high court, writes about the...
July 20, 2014
July 19, 2014
"I know that a certain percentage of folks I send to prison are, in fact, innocent," he said. "I just don't know how to identify who those folks...
July 9, 2014
Some contend that trials, especially criminal trials, are won or lost during jury selection. Although jury selection is intended merely to assure...
July 8, 2014
Richard Kopf, a U.S. District Court judge in Nebraska, writes a blog. The other day, he vented about the Supreme Court's recent decision in Hobby...
July 3, 2014
Over the many years I've written this column – I think it is now 14, but who is counting? – I've taken pride in never missing a week....
July 2, 2014
Despite the fact that I spend as much time as I can in courtrooms, I still enjoy reading fiction about the law and lawyering. I worry always about...
June 27, 2014
A lawyer representing himself, the saying goes, has a fool for a client. So what of a physician who decides to represent himself in a high-stakes...