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“Doctor, do something!!!” – “Lawyer, do something!!!”
What is it like for a doctor handling a life-or-death emergency when the patients’ relatives are pleading, even screaming "Doctor, do something!" "Doctor, what is my relative’s situation?" "Doctor, why are you not doing a better job?" As a criminal defense lawyer, I also face...
Police must keep their drug dogs at bay more than they wish
Yesterday, I kept pinching myself in ecstasy over the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision requiring police to have probable cause to believe the existence of relevant criminal activity before taking a drug-sniffing dog to the front door of one’s home. Florida v. Jardines, ___ U.S. ___...
Being persuasively real when procedural rules and bench rulings apply, and the objections fly
My criminal defense clients come to me often feeling out of balance. I often am among the first people they tell about their predicament. This situation is imperfectly akin to a seriously injured emergency room visitor hoping to be helped by a doctor with all the attributes...
Getting to the place where the client is, from the power of zero
For me to truly help my client, I need to shed my lawyer’s cloak, keep and enhance my humanity, and find the place where my client is, so that we may move forward together. A criminal defense colleague of mine told a great true story...
Don’t let prosecutors rejoice over divisive competition among criminal defense lawyers
“We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”- Ben Franklin. Prosecutors’ offices likely share with each other on email listservs and at conferences to help make each other better prosecutors. Plenty of criminal defense lawyers do the same, and...
Giving a cop the finger does not justify a stop nor arrest. (I am not pulling your finger — I mean leg — either.)
The middle finger never needs to be extended towards anyone. We have enough other fingers to gesture and point. Giving the finger is divisive in a world where we are all connected, and where the negative energy of giving the finger comes back to us...
“I am scared sh*tless. How do I convince myself that you will be there for me working your ass off?”
One day I had breakfast with a local top-notch veteran medical malpractice lawyer who seems to deeply care about his clients and the quality of his work. To this day, he has not found a way to save time by limiting his potential client meetings...
Defending retch-inducing child pornography and child sex solicitation cases
DEFENDING CHILD PORNOGRAPHY AND SOLICITATION OF SEX WITH CHILDREN. By Jon Katz “Why do you want to defend such a case?” asked one of the most amazing and effective trial consultants/psychological professionals, whom I visited for ideas on defending a man caught distributing multiple images...
Obtaining a reckless driving plea in the middle of a drunk driving trial
When a lawyer fully prepares a case to go to trial, it is more likely to settle than when a lawyer prepares the case to settle. I prepare every case to go to trial, and take many of them to trial. The preparation increases my victories,...
The three basics of effective trial advocacy: Knowledge/intelligence, skill/experience and passion/conviction
The three basics of effective trial advocacy, and persuasion beyond the law, are knowledge/intelligence/preparation, skill/experience, and passion/conviction. They all need to be synthesized into a harmonious whole. Passion, conviction, and persuasion are major hallmarks of the Trial Lawyers College, which I attended for four weeks in August...