Blog Posts

Regular readers know that I am more than a little ambivalent about Gerry Spence's Trial Lawyer's College. I doubt it can or will survive Spence's retirement, and I've noted with a chortling, irresponsible sort of glee what appears to be strains of hypocrisy evident in the institution. But even so,...

I just spent a long weekend out of town and away from a keyboard. One of my tasks was to look through the 500 or so columns I have written for the Connecticut Law Tribune in the past decade with an eye toward selecting 100 or so to propose to a publisher a volume of collected essays. The experience...

It is difficult to know what Steven Hayes wants. Sure, he stood in open court and told the judge that he wants to plead guilty to the charges against him, including the capital felonies. It is black letter law that the decision to plead guilty belongs to the client. But is Mr. Hayes also...

In the small hours of the night, I still root for Daniel Webb. So even though he has now injured several more people in an act of defiant rage, I wish there were a way I could encourage him. But I no longer speak to him. Our paths parted when it became apparent that my liberty might be in jeopardy...

What if Pope Benedict XVI is right and doesn't have the courage to admit it publicly? The thought occurred to me the other day. By day, I counseled clients on the front line of the United States' war on sex. By night, I was tongue-clucking over a church too hard-headed and hard-hearted to do the...

What if Pope Benedict XVI is right and doesn't have the courage to admit it publicly? The thought occurred to me the other day. By day, I counseled clients on the front line of the United States' war on sex. By night, I was tongue-clucking over a church too hard-headed and hard-hearted to do the...

News of the foiled Hutaree terror plot is chilling. The group planed to kill a policeman. Then, when lawmen turned out by the hundreds, if not thousands, to pay their respects to a fallen comrade, improvised explosive devices would tear through mourners. This, according to press reports, was the...

Did anyone else read Charles Blow's piece in The New York Times yesterday with a sense that the man was picking the wrong fight, at the wrong time, in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons? I had the sense that the piece was a species of racial triumphalism. It was politely written, and in code,...

News of health reform is welcome, but I want to kill the messenger. Quickly, before it grows into an ungainly behemoth.
The simple fact that 30 miilion or more folks in the United States lack health insurance is enough to make me wonder whether this the best of all possible worlds is all it...

The nation's new national health insurance act will be signed today. Before the Sun sets, I suspect lawsuits to be filed challenging the act. Although I favor a national health insurance system, I hope the law suits succeed.
The attorneys general of ten states plan suit to challenge the act on...