Michelle Bachmann, Francis Schaeffer and a Lost Dream

Michelle Bachman talks to God, and she is audacious enough to believe He both listens and heeds what she has to say. She knows His will. She is a change agent for righteousness. For all this I admire her and I envy her. My universe is, and remains, silent. It does so even though I spent time at a place she wishes she had visited. You see, I spent the summer of 1997 at Francis Schaeffer’s retreat in Switzerland. I wanted to know God. I wanted to set the world afire for righteousness. I suppose it is safe to say I also wanted to be president.
Nothing in my life has ever worked...
August 31, 2011

Irene, Johnny Reb and Uncle Sam

Hurricane Irene did not blow my family and me off the face of the Earth, but it did down power lines running along our property. We’ve been without power, and water, and telephone, and the Internet for days. My office, located just a couple miles from my home has also been cut off from the rest of the world. It’s been a good time to catch up on paper work and to prepare for a busy fall.
Well, almost. Yesterday I hopped a plane, actually a couple of planes, to Charleston, South Carolina, where a client of mine faced a federal sentencing before United States District Judge...
August 31, 2011

Trust Us, The Feds Say. We're Here To Help

The message in New Haven the other night was loud and clear: “We’re from the federal government, and we’re here to help.” It was all I could do to remain in the room. I tried to believe them. But an instinct of mistrust overcame the good will the FBI agent and federal prosecutor tried to generate.


I was the third panelist at the Stetson Library. The topic was “Color of Law” violations. Federal officials were there as part of an aggressive community outreach program, trying to alert the community to federal resources only a phone call away. I am not sure inviting me to...
August 25, 2011

DSK -- From Perp Walk To Pimp Walk

Oh, to be white, wealthy and powerful. To inhabit, if only for a moment, the privileged bubble encasing Dominique Strauss-Kahn. I don’t know whether the geriatric sex machine got away with rape. But I do know this: The rich really do live differently than the rest of us.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office moved today to dismiss rape charges against the one-time director of the International Monetary Fund, a sometime presidential candidate in France, and poster child for the American Association of Retired Persons campaign on “Safe Sex for Seniors.” Were...
August 23, 2011

Will Cyrus Vance Resign After Strauss-Kahn Debacle? He Ought To

August 21, 2011
Only two people know what went down in a Manhattan hotel suite in May between the plutocrat and the impecunious maid: Dominique Strauss-Kahn and...

In Re: John Regan and Sephora Davis

August 18, 2011
I generally avoid writing about the so-called "blawgosphere" – the universe of bloggers who write about the law. There’s an inbred...

A Juror's Lament

August 17, 2011
A juror sent me the following note today with permission to publish it. The note describes her reaction upon learning the sentence the court...

Reasons To Doubt Connecticut DNA Analyses

August 12, 2011
It’s been a long time since I could say I was looking forward to cross-examining a DNA expert from Connecticut’s forensic crime labs....

Time For New Leadership In Connecticut Crime Lab

August 10, 2011
When the National Academy of Sciences reported several years ago on the sorry state of forensic sciences in the United States, Dr. Carll Ladd, DNA...

London, Creative Destruction, and the USA

August 9, 2011
I watched videos of the recent rioting in London the other day, and two words sprang to mind: Joseph Schumpeter. And I wondered who, in North...

Visit His Websites

Pattis & Smith Law Firm
Norman Pattis
RSS Feed
Become a patron

Press Videos

Books

Taking Back the Courts
Norm Pattis Taking Back the Courts

The Wizard of Oz was one of my favorites movies as a kid. Little did I know judges were so much like the wizard, hiding behind empty trappings of power. This book tells you things you need to know about what really goes on in court. Read it, weep, and then demand that the courts do better.

In the Trenches
Norm Pattis In the Trenches

Plenty of lawyers write about the law, but few who write try cases. Judge for yourself whether I talk the talk and walk the walk in this collection of occasional essays about life in the law's trenches.

Juries and Justice
Norm Pattis Juries and Justice

How prepared are you to take seriously the notion that 'we the people' are, in fact, sovereign? Discover the secret, and unused, power of jurors. 'Ask why; then nullify.'

Norm Pattis

About Norm

Norm Pattis is a Connecticut based trial lawyer focused on high stakes criminal cases and civil right violations. He is a veteran of more than 150 jury trials, many resulting in acquittals for people charged with serious crimes, multi-million dollar civil rights and discrimination verdicts, and scores of cases favorably settled.

© Norm Pattis is represented by Elite Lawyer Management, managing agents for Exceptional American Lawyers
Media & Speaker booking [hidden email]