Notes from practice · D.C. Superior Court
On Mid-Life Career Changes: What I Did Before I Became A Lawyer
Ten years ago this month, I walked out of the Ronald Reagan Building carrying a single cardboard box. Having just resigned from the federal government,...
Cold Feet on the Morning of Trial
It must be pretty intimidating to arrive at the courthouse for trial to find five police officers, an eyewitness, and a complaining witness all sitting...
The Ties Will Last You Forever
My wife complains about all the closet space I take up with my neckties. I do have lots of them. You see, I have this...
Wherever We Wish, Hydrangeas Could Be Blooming
The “Family Tree” people from Belchertown have taken down most of the big trees in my parents’ yard. My oldest sister – the one who...
I Hate Latin: Res Ipsa Loquitur
I only took two years of Latin in High School. It was years before I actually admitted this to my children. Because I often...
On Roses, Scam Artists, and Criminal Defense
A number of years ago, while on vacation in Miami, my family and I were sitting in a restaurant when a man approached the...
Jack Lambert and My Investigator
Wayne, my investigator, thinks he is being subtle. He insists on escorting me out of a bad neighborhood whenever we finish a crime scene...
Joyriding With Stanny Bum
Many of the rude words and gestures I know today I learned from driving with my father while growing up. I didn’t learn these things...
Two Poems on Snow
Snow I wake, and think so this is how it comes, no thunder, wind, or windstorm’s violence to rend our lower nature, only a...
On Dentists and Monkeys: Fifty Years On
This is four or five years ago: I drive my father to the dentist. My father has been going to this same dentist for...
After The Snow
On Twitter, we can hear Mirriam Seddiq swearing for five hours because she is stopped in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the beltway. It’s because of...
Knowledge Comes At Middle Age
My mother fell on the ice in front of her house and broke her shoulder. She lay in the snow for 15 minutes before the...
Neutral Tones
I stand by the bed. The fingers of your hand are loose and warm, and though your eyes are closed your head is toward me....
“Everything Believable Between”
I wake up in the same bed I slept in as a boy, in a house Sylvia Plath once likened to a walnut. If I...
“There were days like this, that passed without an image”
Every summer for the past 25 years, my wife and I have gone up to Cape Cod to spend a week with my family....