Blog Posts

The next time your hear a judge whining about the vanishing trial, tell him or her to cut the crap and let the litigants get it on. Trials are vanishing because trial lawyers are being papered to death with meaningless bullshit. That's because most judges have about as much trial experience as a...

I take no position on whether burning the Koran is a good or bad thing. Frankly, I am with Voltaire on the topic of organized religion: "Encrasez l'infame' he said of Christianity, "crush the infamous thing." Why not gather up all the holy books and have a bonfire? Burn Bibles, Korans and toss in a...

I have long been a fan of the federal courts. Although young lawyers are often intimidated by that forum, my sense of things is that it is a user friendly place. I've begun to rethink that in recent years. This morning gave me another reason to wonder whether my loyalty has been...

"Those of you fortunate enough to have witnessed the fine acting of Paul Muni in Counsellor-at-Law will remember the last scene. One misfortune after another has befallen the lawyer -- hero of the piece. His wife has left him, and he feels himself a hopeless man. Planning self-destruction, in his...

Incoming president of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association Jennifer Zito called yesterday to give me a piece of her mind: I had maligned the group needlessly, mischaracterized her reaction to my request for help with over-reaching federal prosecutors, and otherwise behaved like a...

When I hear Richard Blumenthal chest-thump about Craigslist and advertising adult services, two words come to mind: Eliot Spitzer. What is it about aneroxic moralists that chills the blood?
Spitzer is now out of public life after getting caught between the sheets with a young high-price, well,...

"We have created an institutional situation where 26-year-olds are being given humongous legal authority in the actual wording of decisions, the actual compositional choices," a law professor told The New York Times recently. He was commenting on the role of fresh-faced graduates of the nation's...

It is not uncommon in the practice of criminal law to counsel a client unable to make a choice. The alternatives are frequently too bleak. Regardless of whether your client has committed the act that results in prosecution, what's passed is past: Should the client plead guilty to a fifteen year...

I often marvel than I escaped Detroit and am living now in tranquil Connecticut. Life was scary in the Motor City. I am happy to have outrun parts of my past,
But not everyone I know has been so lucky. I have friends who didn't make it. I have a friend or two doing serious time for one thing or...

Getting into a criminal court is very easy for defendants. Look at someone funny, and get arrested for breach of the peace: lawmen will strip you down, cuff you, and shuffle you in through the back door. But suppose you are a lawyer, a juror or a loved on coming to view the proceedings? In that...