Blog Posts

Death threats are part of the bargain. I accept that. Responding to them is always difficult. If you run, you are done. Fear will chase you away from every confrontation. I accept hatred and anger. I confront it with what courage I can muster.
But today, for the first time in my legal career, I...

One joy of an unexpected day off is catching up on reading. This morning, I read Mark Lilla's essay in the May 27, 2010, New York Review of Books, "The Tea Party Jacobins." Who, Lilla asks, are these ubiquitous tea partiers? More to the point, who are we?
"Survey after survey confirms hat...

For many years I took one month off each year. That month plus, I should add, Christmas day. I worked seven days a week, eleven months a year. The weekends were half days. I'd work nine to five, sleeping in and getting home early enough to play. Come July, I would hunker down with my family on the...

I have an apocalyptic frame of mind. I can't help myself. Stories must have beginnings, middles and ends, correct? At least the narrative impulse that serves as the thread I use to navigate through my days suggests so. Here I stand. From whence did I come? What does the future hold? I was born; I...

Want to see what the country looks like when law enforcement goes hog wild? Check out the CATO Institute's Raid Map.

Good books are like good movies: When they're done, you hope there will be a sequel. So here is a request to Jeff Shesol, please write next about the intellectual history of the current Supreme Court. Half the work is already done. You did it in your last volume, brilliantly executed, Supreme...

A funny thing happened this afternoon as I was driving home from court. I am in trial in an arson case. We adjourned early today, and will not resume evidence until Tuesday. It is likely that we will give closing arguments that very day.
It's hard at the end of a case, when the evidence is...

There's really only one good reason I can fathom for promoting United States District Judge Robert N. Chatigny to the Second Circuit: Removing him from the trial courts will make room for a breath of fresh air in the Connecticut trial courts. Besides, if Chatigny sits on a panel of at least three...

For all I know Susan Carney is one of the law’s gems, a legal genius of rarefied intellect and Solomonic wisdom. Her resume is certainly impressive. Harvard College. Harvard Law School. Federal court clerk. Counsel to the Peace Corp. Yale University legal counsel. She glitters.
Yet for...

What do you do when you discover that your judge's ear drum is connected to your ass? You try to be gracious, delicate and decorous. Remember, the man with gavel rules, even when the rules make no sense.
I was reminded of this today on a flatulent sort of day in trial. My client faces trial in...