Pluralism, Nihilism and Restrooms

We’ve reached the breaking point. We’ve each become gods in our own idiosyncratic religions, idols served by congregations of one. The result is a public space reduced to warring imperatives. Welcome to the end, as in the logical conclusion, of pluralism.
I’m talking, of course, about the furor over North Carolina’s legislation involving public accommodations. The law calls, in part, for folks to use public restrooms based on their genders at birth.
Shocking, isn’t it? If you were born a man, you must urinate with other men.
This requirement is...
April 15, 2016

Civil Gideon A Rotten Idea

I was in court the other day when I erupted in a tone loud enough to be overheard by others: "You know, Aristotle once said that it is hard to be angry to the right degree, at the right person, at the right time. He preached moderation and wisdom. You're not being moderate or wise."
Bystanders seem startled to overhear a lawyer preaching Aristotle to a client in the corridor of a criminal courthouse. But so it goes.
Anger is the pulse of the courts. We lawyers, we sometime counselors at law pressed into the service of people at their worst, know all about the corrosive power of...
April 7, 2016

A Devastating Loss

“Angel came down from heaven yesterday; she stayed with me just long enough to rescue me.” The words are Jimi Hendrix’s. I’ve been listening to the song for the past eight months dreading this day. I began to hum them the day I learned Penelope would die as a result of her lymphoma.
Penelope was a border collie. For just over 11 years, she was by my side. Now she is gone. I am broken.
She was pure joy, an energetic and eager friend who never walked when she could run, who sprang to her feet whenever I so much as moved. She was always in search of work; I...
April 7, 2016

What's The Harm In A Book Of Prayer?

I’m at a loss to explain to my client why she cannot have the book I sent her. But it is so. The warden will not permit her to accept a Daily Roman Missal sent to her from Amazon. Why? It is bound in leather, the reasoning goes. Really? Do prison officials expect her to fashion a weapon from the binding?
Beth Carpenter is a former lawyer, and a client of mine. She’s been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole after being convicted of conspiring to commit murder for hire. My office has been working with her for more than a decade trying to get her a new...
March 31, 2016

Hulk Hogan and St. Augustine's Pears

March 24, 2016
Erin Andrews and Hulk Hogan have me wondering about St. Augustine’s pears. Is something like a meaningful sense of sin taking...

David Brooks, Donald Trump and the Magic Mirror

March 22, 2016
I’m thinking of sending David Brooks of The New York Times a scholarship. I’d like him to attend Gerry Spence’s Trial...

Criminal Defense Lawyers Need Not Apply -- Again

March 17, 2016
Merrick Garland, eh?
Throw that fish back. He’s just more of the same. We need a new kind of justice on the Supreme Court. We need...

Would Atticus Finch Endorse Donald Trump?

March 3, 2016
Harper Lee died before the reckoning, but she saw it coming. I’m betting she even foresaw Donald Trump’s ascendancy. She was a realist...

Apple and the Thirteenth Amendment

February 28, 2016
Forgive me for being churlish, curmudgeonly, even, but Apple Inc. has thus far fired far wide of the mark in its dispute with the Federal Bureau of...

Apple, Involuntary Servitude, and the 13th Amendment

February 23, 2016
Framing the dispute between Apple Inc. and the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the need to balance security and liberty tilts the...

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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
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