Blog Posts

Lawyers who tell war stories are tedious bores. I mean, we all have stories to tell, right? What makes your story so special that I should stop what I am doing to listen to it? Yet we can’t help telling these tales. The truth of the matter is, a lawyer lives a privileged sort of life. We get...

Any man married for more than a decade should have an intuitive grasp of the dignitary interests served by the right to remain silent when accused. I write today for those without the requisite matrimonial experience.
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees a person...

Here's the latest in the ongoing saga of the Bridgeport school board crisis. Unless you have followed the story to date, this will not make a lot of sense. Sorry about that.
Rumor has it that Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch has been telling General Assembly members that I have concluded some sort...

I hope Tanya McDowell will forgive us, someday, for our hypocrisy and cruelty. I hope her son will as well. But first she will have to serve her prison term. Her son will have to learn to get along without her.
Ms. McDowell was sentenced to a five-year term behind bars. Her crimes: Larceny...

I have long grown accustomed to the facts of life known to all criminal defense lawyers: little people get run over and crushed in court. When a defendant errs, he is prosecuted, sanctioned, held accountable. When the government errs, an exception to the rule defining the error saves the day. We...

This just in from a source watching Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's mad scramble to deprive Bridgeport voters of the right to vote for their own board of education:
"Have you heard the latest that Governor Malloy is utilized something called and emergency certification that allows him to draft a...

A call came in moments ago. Mayor Bill Finch and his aides are busy at work in Hartford, lobbying lawmakers to pass legislation retroactively justifying the disbanding of the elected school board in Bridgeport. The governor's men are also at work. Just yesterday. the State Supreme Court told the...

The war of attrition has already set in on the Bridgeport school board case. Notwithstanding the 6-1 decision of the Connecticut Supreme Court declaring the state's ouster of elected school board members to be unlawful, the state board still remains in power. Apparently it intends to govern by...

The Supreme Court spoke yesterday, finally, and declared six-to-one that the soul of the Bridgeport public schools is not for sale. New elections were ordered to replace those board members who were ousted by the state last summer. All but one justice declared the state’s action lawless. This...

At 3:35 this afternoon the Connecticut Supreme Court dropped a long-awaited bombshell: The state takeover of the Bridgeport school board broke the law. It ordered a new election to fill vacant seats. My clients, who are mid-term, presumably can return to work. I am much relieved.
State...