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February 6, 2012 Guest Commentary
Judicial Robe-itis: Confusing Power And Discretion FREE
The legal profession encompasses a broad array of sub-professions, one of which consists of civil litigators who represent litigants without financial resources, investing their time in cases based on their sound professional assessment of the facts and the law. It is this sub-profession that fulfills the promise of equal access to justice for those who otherwise would be unable to pursue legal redress.
Ethics Matters
Let’s Deregulate All The Lawyers FREE
I was reading Washington Lawyer the other day. I found it in my gym. Some partner in a big firm left it near the spinning bike. It contained a review of a new book by three eggheads from the Brookings Institute called “First Thing We Do, Let’s Deregulate All the Lawyers.” These folks, applying obtuse, dense and impenetrable economics formulae to the market of legal services have concluded that law schools cost too much, that some lawyers make too much, and that the public needs more inexpensive sources of legal help.
Legal Ease
New And Improved Burdens Of Proof FREE
Back when my television screen bulged out from a genuine mahogany-veneered wooden box, and the images playing across the picture tube were still for the most part black and white, there was a popular lawyer show that I watched regularly. Racing home from school after a brutally risible performance on the softball diamond or hockey field, I would settle in the living room and tune in Perry Mason. I believe that this is where my dependence upon chocolate as a panacea began, but I digress.
Legally Conservative
Musings On The Royal Gym FREE
Much has been said (and I hope much more will be said) about the now-infamous gym constructed in the New Haven federal courthouse at taxpayer expense. Since the Hartford Courant broke the story, more chatter has emerged regarding just how few in number are those who are allowed to use it. Let’s be honest. This is a colossal misappropriation and waste of public funds. Judicial officials know it. Why else would they have gone to such lengths to keep this thing secret, or treated a reporter who dared ask questions about it like a gnat who must be swatted away?
One Hand Clapping
Probation Officers Flex Muscles With Travel Bans FREE
I am not sure what is going on in the Connecticut Office of Adult Probation lately, but my telephone has been ringing off the hook. Until recently, probationers appear to have been given a fair amount of freedom to travel interstate. All of a sudden, there’s been a crackdown. Folks who were once given permission to travel are suddenly on existential lockdown. So the calls come in, people wanting to go to court to get the conditions of probation modified.
January 30, 2012 One Hand Clapping
Sadly, A Conversation That Will Never Happen FREE
I never got a chance to stop in to ask Judge Peter C. Dorsey what he thought of the new gym in the basement of the New Haven federal court. It’s not that his door was not open. He was generous with his time. On the occasions that I was in the area with time to talk, he always made time. He was a great storyteller. Now that he is dead, I will never speak to him again. That is a hard truth to accept.
Guest Commentary
Judge Goes Ballistic Over First Amendment Defense FREE
It was a slam dunk, a no-brainer. Our client had been charged, in state court, with incitement, harassment and breach of peace. The charges were for having posted on Facebook, hyperbolically and in jest, the “hope” that someone would “put a bullet in [Governor] Malloy’s head” during the governor’s forthcoming visit to New York.
Legally Conservative
DOJ’s Demography Despots Bully Their Way Into East Haven FREE
Federal Department of Justice officials recently flew into New Haven and, before a gaggle of reporters summoned to a press conference, released the DOJ Civil Rights Division’s at-last-final investigative report into alleged “racial profiling” and abuses of “Latinos” by the East Haven Police Department. Heavy with histrionics and sweeping rhetoric, it reads more like a stump speech by a Democrat running for mayor of a sanctuary city.
Guest Commentary
A Judge With An ‘Infallible Moral Compass’ FREE
Peter Dorsey was a kind and generous man. Everything he did, on or off the bench, was infused with decency. Sadly, we have all lost a unique and valuable asset. Peter’s legacy is one of hard work and respect for those with whom he came in contact. His life was one of contribution. He contributed to the community in which he lived, to his church and to the legal community in which he served as a lawyer, prosecutor and judge.
Dan K.’s Inferno
Cross Words For Lawyers Who Mangle The Language FREE
I am cringing in the back row of a Hartford courtroom as yet another fellow attorney mangles English into legalese. This particular attorney’s sin is his constant use of the word “indicate,” oblivious to context, or to the accuracy of using it. In his world, apparently, people never say anything; cases never state anything; and opposing counsel never told him anything — they all indicate, indiscriminately. And so I wonder, why do so many J.D.’s desperately need a course in ESL?
January 23, 2012 Guest Commentary
Bob Satter — A Personal Remembrance FREE
I will never forget the first time I met Bob Satter 30 years ago. I had just completed an LL.M. program at Columbia Law School, where my advisor was Professor Walter Gellhorn, a well-known administrative law scholar with a passionate commitment to civil rights. When I told Professor Gellhorn that I had accepted a job with a Hartford law firm, he urged me to look up an old friend of his, Bob Satter, who had graduated from Columbia Law School. He wrote out a letter of introduction for me to give Bob.
Point of View
The Last Word On A Long, Rich Life FREE
This is my last column. I can no longer endure the afflictions my body suffers: pneumonia by aspiration, a neurological impairment, urinary ailments, and neuropathy. I’ve had my turn. I have done my part. My time has come.
One Hand Clapping
Political Banalities Mask More Important Issues FREE
Does anyone really care whether Newt Gingrich asked for an open marriage from his second wife? (He wanted permission to cavort with his mistress. His second wife said no, so Newt dumped her to make the mistress wife No. 3.) Just call Newt the Henry the Eighth of American politics. Does anyone really care whether Willard the Wealthy releases his tax returns? Yes, Mitt Romney is worth a quarter of a billion dollars or more. Yes, he refuses to release his tax returns. Yes, he’s an odd Mormon duck with the charisma of Joseph Smith’s shovel. Just call Willard the Wealthy another plutocrat on the make.
Ethics Matters
Are Small Firms Entering Legal Twilight? FREE
I spent the holidays on Cape Cod. It is a place where I can both be very productive and get as close to spiritual as a fan of Christopher Hitchens can be. I just read a book by Judy Dutra called “Nautical Twilight.” It recounts, through the life of her family, the demise of the small coastal fisherman on Cape Cod.
Legally Conservative
DOMA Column Criticism Full Of Distortions FREE
Occasionally, a colleague writes to express disagreement with one of my columns. If he fairly offers an opposing point of view without distorting my own, I respect it, and will not rejoin. David P. Atkins’s recent letter (“Law Firm’s Actions Didn’t Hurt DOMA Case,” Law Tribune, Jan. 9, 2012), however, qualifies for retort. In “Profiles In Courage And Cowardice” (Law Tribune, Dec. 26, 2011), I joined those on both sides of the ideological fence who praised former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement’s decision to resign his partnership with King & Spalding over the firm’s controversial decision to renege on an already-executed retainer agreement.
January 16, 2012 One Hand Clapping
Something Suspect About Eyewitness Testimony FREE
It should surprise no one that the lone vote casting doubt on the reliability of eyewitness testimony came from the only U.S. Supreme Court justice with experience actually trying cases. Most justices think facts are something you read about in a textbook, or in a legal brief. Only Sonia Sotomayor has actually looked a jury in the eye and asked them for something. She alone wants the nation’s trial courts to take special pains to make sure eyewitness testimony is more than mere finger-pointing.
Legal Ease
Unhappy Bride, Groom Serve Caterer With Lawsuit FREE
There is a wealth of information floating around the cosmos about the difficulty of planning a wedding. Whole, glossy-paged, generously airbrushed magazines stuff the inviting racks at the supermarket, devoted to sincere and grave discussions of the merits of embossed napkin rings, and debating the color of the garter to be peeled indecorously off one’s thigh in front of leering spectators
Dan K.’s Inferno
A Profession That Needs To Lighten Up FREE
I am in the throes of an existential dilemma. The occasion for my agita is my decision to audition for the role of Mr. Meyers, Q.C., the prosecutor in Agatha Christie’s classic courtroom drama, “Witness For The Prosecution.” For the first time in my career, it is more important that I seem like a lawyer than that I actually be a lawyer — and I am confounded by the challenge of making an audience believe that I’m something that I’ve spent more than a decade simply being.
Ethics Matters
When It Comes To UPL, There Ought To Be A Law FREE
I was reading my e-mails the other day instead of working and I came across one from the American Bar Association unauthorized practice of law guy concerning a bill in New Jersey that would up the penalty for the unauthorized practice of law from a fourth-degree crime (18 months in prison/$10,000 fine) to a third-degree offense (three to five years in prison/$10,000 fine).
Guest Commentary
Title Insurance Rendered Meaningless By Ruling FREE
A recent court decision should give pause to Connecticut’s title insurance industry, and incentive for the Connecticut Title Association to apply for amicus status on appeal. Although the decision was in favor of the insurer and against the insured (whom I represented, with co-counsel), the rulings encompassed by it would, if correct, render title insurance meaningless and unsaleable.
January 9, 2012 One Hand Clapping
Family Court ‘Experts’ Are Cause For Concern FREE
The course I recall best from law school was Carol Weisbrod’s family law class at the University of Connecticut. At the time, I did not appreciate it. In fact, I thought it downright bizarre, even offensive. You see, she used science fiction as part of the pedagogical material. At the time, I wondered what that had to do with the precise metes and bounds of the law, and with the tidy world of justice. Now I think she was onto something. Reason is overrated.
Legally Conservative
East Haven Accuser Quietly Exits, Stage Left FREE
Last month, I mentioned that locals I met view the allegations of “racial profiling” and other abuses by East Haven police officers against Latinos as politically motivated and suspect. The ink wasn’t dry on that column when one of the plaintiff-accusers in Chacon v. East Haven Police Department managed to validate their assessment. On Dec. 14, 2011, plaintiff Yadanny Garcia moved to dismiss all of his claims against East Haven police officers. Filed by his counsel, David N. Rosen, the motion was curiously bald. Rosen merely represented to the court that Garcia chose to abandon his claims, but notably added the dismissal should be “with prejudice.”
Ethics Matters
How Do I Get To Ohio? FREE
I was reading the other day that those concerned about legal process outsourcing taking our jobs should relax, because it was actually just as cheap to get legal work done in Ohio as in India. According to the story, lawyers in Ohio will work for $30 per hour. And lawyers in India are realizing that they have been selling their services too cheaply, and their prices are approaching that. How cool is that?
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