Remind me never to piss off John Uustal. Or, if I do, remind me that I should get him angry at someone I don’t like. The Florida litigator is so furious just now, he’s putting his money where his mouth is. If you have the information he is looking for, he will pay you up to $100,000.
Uustal is a Florida plainitffs' lawyer. When he smells injustice, he goes into attack mode. His clients are glad he does. He’s a David in search of deep-pocketed Goliaths.
Now plaintiffs’ lawyers get a bad rap. The...
June 6, 2018
There is a special place in Hell for those who cheer sending a person to prison, so mark today as a special day for the keepers of the roll in the underworld. The chorus of those cheered by the guilty verdicts against Bill Cosby deafens.
"Guilty," the jury said, three times after brief deliberations in the second trial against the 80-year-old comedian. A man once affectionately called “America’s dad” will soon, after sentence is imposed, be a convicted felon. (Judgment does not enter in a criminal case until sentence is imposed, so he's not a felon...
April 26, 2018
I wonder what Isaiah Berlin would have had to say about artificial intelligence. This occurred to me as I sat listening to presentations on big data and the Fourth Amendment at a recent conference in New York City sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. It turns out we’re all blips on someone’s screen, and there doesn’t seem much we can do about it.
Lawyers in general do not read enough. Oh, we read plenty of case law, treatises, pleadings – all the flotsam and jetsam that make the law a semi-scholarly profession. But what we...
April 24, 2018
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 the Adirondacks, a region he loved.
He was for decades a public defender in New Haven; he led the office for a quarter of century. When retired last year, at 67, many of us felt it was too soon. But he’d seen good friends grow sick and die. Life is short he knew. “I feel...
April 14, 2018
April 11, 2018
T.J. Miller has a temper, but we knew that. Fans of “Silicon Valley” heard the rumors. The 36-year-old comedian was not invited...
April 2, 2018
The people of Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District deserved far more than they’re getting from Representative Elizabeth Esty,...
March 27, 2018
After today’s Senate debate on whether to confirm the nomination of Andrew McDonald as Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme...
March 27, 2018
Just why the Republican Party is intent on importing the same level of asinine partisan vitriol rampant in Washington, D.C., to Connecticut is a...
March 24, 2018
Practice law long enough and a certain weariness sets in. It’s more than a function of aging, although that is certainly a factor. But...
March 22, 2018
The resignation of Donald Trump’s chief personal lawyer, John Dowd, brings to mind an aphorism often discussed, but rarely publicly...