There is no good way to charge for legal services, I am persuaded. Clients come in need. They are afraid and angry. They want a hero, a savior, a warrior. You offer them what you can. Most often it is enough. But sometimes it is not. A client grows disenchanted, angry, they want what you cannot give. It is a …
Mark Bennett and Brian Tannebaum both announced last week that they have been practicing criminal law for 15 years. While I have nowhere close to this level of experience, I recently celebrated an anniversary of my own. As of this past month, it has been six months since I opened my D.C. law office and one month since I began …
I first learned Norm Pattis’ lousy, stinking name through Scott Greenfield, who often uses something Pattis has written as the launching point for one of his own entries. And Greenfield writes about Pattis in reverential terms you don’t often see on Simple Justice. So what does Scott Greenfield know anyway? Mirriam Seddiq is more effusive in her praise. She …
I am walking with my kids at the Reading Terminal, an eatery just a couple of blocks from the courthouse in Philadelphia, when we come across a group of narcotics officers sitting in the eating area. We have been watching “The Wire” on HBO, and I point out the officers out to my kids. Look, I say. Real-life narcotics officers. …
In another lifetime, I wrote short stories. Five or six of these stories eventually found their way into obscure literary journals, with one or two still floating around somewhere on the Internet. The largest circulation of any of the journals that published me was probably two or three thousand readers at the most. With the exception of one story for …
I have written a number of posts over the last couple of months about the Donald E. Gates case. As you will recall, Gates was convicted of a crime he did not commit and initially spent 16 years in jail in large part due to the false testimony of former FBI analyst Michael P. Malone. In 1997, after the government …