Blog Posts

News flash: Clients are balking at the legal fees charges by megafirms. Question: What took so long? You can spend $800 an hour for a lawyer at Manhattan's Cravath, Swaing & Moore. That is $13.33 per minute. But the firm probably charges in tenths of an hour, or perhaps two tenths of an hour,...

I miss Linda Greenhouse's reporting on the law in The New York Times. She has been replaced by a fellow named Adam Liptak. Liptak writes well enough for the Times, but his analysis rarely rises above the obvious, and he sometimes misses nuances that are important.
In this morning's paper,...

The Fourth Amendment prohibition against warrantless search and seizures sounds impressive. Standing alone, this looks like a mighty oak providing shelter against an overreaching government. However, the amendment more nearly represents a bush now overtaken with weeds. The various exceptions to the...

Connecticut’s constitution is unique: Alone among its counterparts, it guarantees that each lawyer picking a jury will have the right to question potential jurors individually. But it does not follow from this right that all other jurors should be sequestered during that questioning....

Immunities from suit bother me, and not just because I sue people for a living. Immunities for public officials who violate the law seem inconsistent with a republican form of government. We the people created a government composed of folks who are immune from the consequences of their error? That...

I am picking a jury this week in a manslaughter case. It is heart-breaking. My client is charged with causing the death of two of her three small children in a head-on crash with another car. Blood-alcohol tests at the hospital, where my client had been resuscitated, yielded results consistent with...

My wife and I just returned from four days on the left coast, Seattle to be exact, where we were visiting a couple of our children who have migrated west. One of the benefits of trans-continental travel is uninterrupted reading time during long travel days. My return trip was consumed by time...

Storm clouds are gathering over the Connecticut General Assembly as lawmakers consider the reappointment of Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Miano. A bitter fight is expected, and the focus of that fight is the judge's sentencing decision in the case of State v. Burke. A good jurist should not be...

The following is a short parable reported in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke. I rely on Mark's Gospel, which is generally acknowledged as the earliest. It is reported at Mark 13:28.
"From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you...

The New York Times this morning reports that Legal Aid societies nationwide are feeling the pinch of economic necessity. As interest rates fall in an effort to jump start a lagging economy, revenue for Legal Aid drops. That is because these groups are heavily dependent on income derived from...