Blog Posts

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...

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...

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...

I’ve long thought the most significant criminal justice reform imaginable would be simple to impose: Require all lawmakers and judges to spend some significant period of time, let’s say six months, behind bars as an inmate. Make them taste the product they are dishing out.
After...

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 of rape. One newspaper quickly ran a banner headline announcing the verdict. The Internet broadcast the result immediately.
But I cannot call it a...

I write today about the much maligned sidebar. That’s when lawyers huddle in open court, backs turned to everyone, and whisper things they think no one else in the room should hear. Sidebars come in all shapes and sizes.
My all time favorite sidebar came moments after informing a judge...

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 shortcomings are certainly an issue. The larger truth is that the law is irrational. It bumps, grinds and gyrates in ways that simply make no sense.
...

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 may be accused of having committed a horrific act, and the act is all the world will know them by. But people are more than their mistakes. We all...

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 court. What was once the nation’s fourth most populous city is now the biggest municipality ever to throw up its hands in financial...

So what do you make of juror B37 in the Zimmerman case? She was released from jury duty late Saturday night. By Monday morning, she had a book deal in place, and interviews scheduled with Anderson Cooper. Even her fellow jurors are now distancing themselves from her. What are the odds she...