Blog Posts


An Open Letter To Elon Musk

Setting Twitter aright should be a simple matter. Here’s what Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner, should do.
Clean house. Start at the top, with Twitter’s top lawyer Vijaya Gadde. She and her legion of censors should be shown the door. They tried to transform idiosyncratic...

How Would Jefferson Vote On Trump's Impeachment?

It’s an open question in my mind whether Donald J. Trump committed a high crime or misdemeanor justifying impeachment. Were he a private citizen, I would say there is no question his speech on January 6, 2021, was protected. He no more incited a riot than do cheerleaders at a pep...

Marjorie Taylor Greene Isn't What Ails Us

The cancer attacking the fabric of American political life is not Marjorie Taylor Greene. It runs far deeper than that. There is a broader crisis of legitimacy in the land. Congresswoman Greene, like former president Donald Trump, is a symptom, not the cause. Ad hominem attacks on both...

Gov. Whitmer and the Appeal to Heaven

What if the would-be assassins plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were neither left nor right? What if the plotters were little more than canaries in the mine shaft, bearers of a warning of what is to come if we don't pull ourselves together?
News that 13...

The Republic of CHAZ? Welcome to Woke Chaos

It wasn’t too long ago that I displayed an anarchist flag in my office, oblivious to the contradiction between the flag and my commitment, as a lawyer, to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States. It took representation of a group of folks walking on the wild side of...

Memo To Angela Alvarado: The Constitution Has Not Been Suspended

One of the most startling emails I received during the current pandemic involved a class action lawsuit on behalf of inmates in a midwestern federal prison. The ACLU wanted prisoners released on a compassionate basis due to the threat of infection. What shocked me was that obesity was a...

The Truth About Sentencing -- Let Jurors Hear it

The panel of judges was uncomfortable. One judge wondered whether the United States government had brought the very issues it was complaining about upon itself by charging the defendant with crimes carrying crippling mandatory minimum prison sentences. Another judge was quick to defend the...

Tommy Ullman, An Unbearable Loss

There are angels among us, some say, pillars of strength with common feet of clay. I’m not sure I believe that, but I do believe that there are people worthy of sainthood. People like Tommy Ullman.
Tommy died the other day. I’m told it was a hiking accident in...

Remembering Wrigley Field

Baseball and I have a tortured history. I found something like redemption and hope in the game as a child. Then time eroded the childlike perception that miracles were possible. Efforts to rekindle the romance with the game fluttered and died in adulthood.
But I was born in Chicago, you see,...

Allah and Zombie Suicide

Utopian or dystopian?
You decide. But consider seriously the question: The Muslim Brotherhood forms a new a political party in France, and, in a coalition with the left, forms a new government, with a prominent Muslim as prime minister. Then the Saudis purchase the Sorbonne, an ancient and...

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