We’re awash in lawyers. There are roughly 40 of them for every 10,000 people in the United States. Connecticut ranks third among the states with about 58 per 10,000 people. Only New York and Massachusetts have a greater concentration. The District of Columbia, not a state, but a universe unto itself, outstrips the pack with 811 lawyers per 10,000 people.
All these lawyers, and still poor people and the middle class can’t afford legal services. Connecticut Chief Justice Chase Rodgers regularly calls upon members of the bar to offer up their time to do pro bono...
August 28, 2013
POSTED: 08/28/13, 6:09 PM EDT |
We’re awash in lawyers. There are roughly 40 of them for every 10,000 people in the United States. Connecticut ranks third among the states with about 58 per 10,000 people. Only New York and Massachusetts have a greater concentration. The District of Columbia, not a state, but a universe unto itself, outstrips the pack with 811 lawyers per 10,000 people.
All these lawyers, and still poor people and the middle class can’t afford legal services. Connecticut Chief Justice Chase Roberts regularly calls upon...
August 28, 2013
It’s right there in the Declaration of Independence. The colonies rebelled and cut loose from England because King George III was “depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.”
Put another way, there was a time in this nation’s history when jury trials were so important we risked life and limb to secure the right to have one when accused of a crime by the government. That right is now enshrined in the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In civil cases, litigants have a more limited right to a jury trial guaranteed by the Seventh...
August 23, 2013
I’ve become preoccupied lately with the education of young doctors. Doctors must be better equipped than lawyers to deal with death and diseases. Nature fails us all in the end; doctors cope with the consequences.
Lawyers also deal with life transforming, and, sometimes, life ending, situations. We paper over these rough places with happy talk about justice. A patient facing a horrible cancer diagnosis wants a miracle. Few patients get them. Doctors counsel about what’s possible in the unforgiving world of cause and effect.
Lawyer’s also...
August 16, 2013
August 15, 2013
I’ve long thought the most significant criminal justice reform imaginable would be simple to impose: Require all lawmakers and judges to...
August 8, 2013
The congratulatory phone calls started to arrive before I made it from the courthouse to my car. My client, a physician, had been found not guilty...
August 3, 2013
I write today about the much maligned sidebar. That’s when lawyers huddle in open court, backs turned to everyone, and whisper things they...
July 27, 2013
I’ve been practicing law just long enough to know that I will never make sense of it all. It’s not that I am stupid, although my...
July 27, 2013
One of the abiding convictions of criminal defense lawyers is that no one is the sum of their worst moments. The man or woman on whose side I stand...
July 20, 2013
I suppose it is now official: Detroit has gone bankrupt, or, at the very least, has sought protection from its creditors in a federal bankruptcy...