Blog Posts

On Monday, I'll start jury selection in a murder case I tried for the first time last September. The jury could not agree unanimously on whether my client was justified in shooting two women who rushed at him in his kitchen. So we'll do it all over again. As is so often the case in Connecticut, I...

When I heard the news some part of me stopped cold. A former client's sister called late yesterday. She had horrible news. Her brother, Tony, was murdered. Would I please return her call? She needed to talk. I heard the message this morning. Getting to court suddenly seemed less important than...

The law of supply and demand influences almost everything, including legal services. There is only so much chaos to go around. In a bad economy, few clients can afford the legal services they need. Lawyers straining to makes end meet may resort to sharp practices to gain competitive advantage....

Perhaps the most impressive lawyer I ever met no longer appears in court. But that does not stop me from seeking his advice from time to time. Remarkably, F. Lee Bailey is also a man of tremendous generosity. So I spent the afternoon with him yesterday talking about the law and life.
Talking...

One of the hardest things about being married to a woman far smarter than I am is that I never really get to enjoy a movie: We'll be sitting there watching the plot unfold. About the time I sense that there is an issue to resolve, my wife has already figured it out and solved it. It happened last...

We've come a long, long way from the era of the founding in the United States. Federal grand juries, which were once a means of protecting people from the infamy attendant to being investigated for a crime, are now the secret tool of prosecutors free to rummage with subpoenas through virtually...

Lee Stonum called me on a point that is worth pondering in a comment yesterday about my post wondering whether good lawyers can learn from good doctors. The premise of that piece was an analogy between cancer and a criminal charge: In both cases, professionals help those dependent upon them to...

Are trial lawyers supposed to have good bedside manners?
The question itself should not be answered uncritically, or too quickly. Packed within it is an analogy between lawyering and doctoring that may well be too facilely drawn. A recent article by Atul Gawande, a surgeon, in The New Yorker,...

I once stumbled upon a description of my dream job in a John Grisham novel. (I don't recall which one, they do tend to look a like from a distance.) A firm rolling with cash had one partner devoted to pro bono work. He was paid handsomely, never had to worry about fees, and was free to dive head...

Milford Superior Court Judge Eddie Rodriguez Jr. was in the hot seat the other day. The editorial board of the New Haven Register took aim at him for comments he made while sentencing a man who pled guilty to the possession of child pornography to five years in prison.
"You're being sentenced...