Blog Posts


A Nation Of Perverts? Or Simply Silly Prudes?

You know our laws regarding sexual misconduct have gone haywire when they make the front page of Britain's Economist. The weekly news magazine's beat is the world. It is highbrow, sophisticated, and targeted toward policymakers with clout. Think Time magazine for Mensa members.
The front page...

The Wizard of Wyoming?

Plenty of money was generated at Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyers College last weekend at an auction of Spence memorabilia. A used leather jacket of Spence’s, replete with a hole in the pocket, went for more than $10,000. A roll-top desk went for $3,000.There were photos, books and art...

Why Not Public Defenders For All?

I’ve been watching the debate about national health care with a sinking feeling in my stomach. If it is this hard to build a consensus around assuring that all Americans have access to decent health care, how will we ever summon the conviction necessary to make sure that all Americans have...

A Weekend In Wyoming

I am sad enough to weep tonight, and I may do so. As night falls in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I am holed up in a hotel awaiting an early flight back to Connecticut tomorrow. For the past two days, I've been back at the ranch, visiting with friends at the Trial Lawyers College. I went there to honor a...

Is Cohen A "Ho"? We'll Find Out

Is Likula Cohen a "ho"? She says not, and is angry enough to sue Google to learn the identity of an anonymous blogger who referred to her as a "ho," "skank" and "psychotic." But, truth be told, Ms. Cohen, 37, is a super-model, a former cover girl for such magazines as Vogue. Odds are she's little...

Woe Is Me

I have struggled in the past year or so to reassess my apostasy from the Trial Lawyers' College in DuBois, Wyoming. I spent several years as a student and then tag-along faculty at the college. It was, for the most part, a good and powerful experience.
But it is fundamentally a charismatic...

Statutory Rape? Or Mere Rite Of Passage?

I keep thinking about the little bits of heaven I tasted in the summer of 1971. I was fifteen, working as one of four males at a girl’s summer camp in northern Michigan. I built a horse corral out of cedar logs we felled and stripped in a nearby swamp. I spent several weeks as a chaperone of...

James Wilson: The First Justice

James Wilson was the first justice sworn in to serve on the United States Supreme Court. He took the oath of office on October 5, 1789, two weeks before John Jay, the first Chief Justice, was sworn in. Wilson died, disgraced, hiding from creditors in North Carolina, on August 21, 1798. Although he...

Wants: James Wilson's Law Lectures

If you are not a book nut, or, as is said in the vernacular, a bibliophile, you've probably not heard of a wants list. Simply put, a wants list consists of books one is looking to acquire. I'm adding a wants list feature to this blog. Perhaps someone will stumble across something I am looking for...

The Invisible Hand And The Bar Regulator's Glove

Little by little, we are creeping toward the regulation of legal fees. Whether this is a good thing or not depends, I suppose, on whether you are just starting out in the law and scrambling for your next client, or whether you are tap-dancing on the threshold of retirement, hoping to salt away...

© Norm Pattis is represented by Elite Lawyer Management, managing agents for Exceptional American Lawyers
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