Personal Responsibility (Justice Tonight)

The American justice system’s bedrock is accountability, enforced by citizen juries guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution. Every day, individuals in American courtrooms are held responsible (or not) for their actions – in criminal and civil courts. The day any one person – or group of people – are considered immune from this […]

Judge on a Hot Mic Catches the Wrath of a Trial Lawyer

‘Can you imagine waking up next to her every day?’ said the Judge about Bill Cosby’s criminal defense lawyer, forgetting that he was being livestreamed. Now, that Judge is facing a complaint. Decorum is a real thing and it runs both ways. If you are a trial lawyer, you’ve danced this dance with a judge. […]

Quiet Work Is Most Consequential

Lawyers’ war stories typically revolve around raucous and sometimes hilarious exaggerations (or not) of tumult and upset: epic fits and crying jags … confusion or hysterical screaming, crying, or babbling … horrifying threats and recriminations. All the better when those are punctuated with an impossibly favorable result for the client. Or maybe that’s just the […]

Take Me To The Bridge

James Brown took to the bridge. Robert Plant, too, was looking for the “confounded” bridge when Jimmy Page borrowed a James Brown riff on Led Zeppelin’s song, The Crunge. In music, a bridge represents a change that separates and connects the front and back ends of the song. For the listener, it adds variety and […]

Binding (it’s a noun and an adjective)

You packed your bags and all alone you wanna ride You don’t want nothing, don’t need no one by your side You’re walking tough, baby, but you’re walking blind To the ties that bind Glue and cloth, providing a strong cover that holds pages together. A chemical reaction, solidly joining like compounds. A fastener, combining […]

Thunder Road (Institutions Change and Sometimes They Fall)

The report found that many firms believe the remote environment has damaged personal relationships at work and the sense of belonging amongst many lawyers. “This is playing out in the ease with which lawyers—from partners to associates—have moved firms during the pandemic, often with little inkling of their impending departure,” it stated. Report On 2022 […]