U.S. Capitol building

Woman Doing Good

Jamison Koehler Miscellaneous

During the second week of our empty-nesting, Susan and I take the train up to New York.  She is accepting an award from SELF magazine as a “woman doing good.” I hang out at the hotel drafting a brief while she does publicity and makeup things at SELF.  Then we head over to Riverpark, a restaurant on the East River, …

U.S. Capitol building

Baltimore Won’t Have Me To Kick Around Just Yet

Jamison Koehler Law Practice

This whole “transitioning my practice to Baltimore” thing may be more difficult than I had been thinking. I met with my Maryland mentor last week.  It is great that the Maryland Professionalism Center offers this opportunity for people who have just passed the Bar, and I was fortunate to be assigned to this particular person.  My mentor practices criminal defense …

Jefferson and Washington monuments

It Will Be Our House

Jamison Koehler Miscellaneous

You buy an axe.  The axe consists of two parts, a handle and a blade. After six months, the blade breaks and you replace it with another one. After another six months, the handle breaks and you replace it with another handle. The question they ask in your Philosophy 101 class in college is this:  Is this the same axe …

American flag

On The Morning Of Trial

Jamison Koehler Law Practice, Trial Advocacy

Wayne my investigator is a worrier.  I am too. Wayne is an early riser.  So am I. This means I usually have company early mornings before trial. The two of us sit in our respective home offices on opposite sides of the District, texting each other hours before we need to head over to the courthouse. Alas, because there was …

D.C. skyline

I Am Your 4:00 O’Clock Appointment

Jamison Koehler Miscellaneous

So I walk into the building for a meeting with our new banker in Baltimore, and I notice that everyone seems to be unusually surly towards me. The security guard tells me to take off my hat, and when I tell him who I want to meet with, he motions me toward a row of chairs and then ignores me …

My Children Are City Kids

Jamison Koehler Miscellaneous

My children are pleasantly surprised when they see the new house and neighborhood. They are city kids at heart. Although a bicycle is stolen from the garage within moments of our arrival, the perpetrators taking advantage of moving men preoccupied with something going on inside the house, the children walk to the hardware store for some extra surge protectors and …

U.S. Capitol building

One Degree of Separation Between Greatness and Me

Jamison Koehler Law Practice, Sports

Back in the days my children were involved in organized sports, coaches liked to tell the story of how former NBA Superstar Michael Jordan was cut from his 10th grade basketball team. The story tended to come out right before cuts were made, presumably to ease the sting for those kids who weren’t going to make the team. The notion …

American flag

On the Law and Other Miracles

Jamison Koehler Law Practice

When I was a boy, we used to sing a German song called “Du Liegst Mir Im Herzen.”  Taught to us by a German friend, we sang it so often, usually in rounds, that I knew all the words without understanding what they actually meant. I can still hear my three sisters harmonizing on the song today. Later in life …

American flag

What We Talk About On Our Way To A Crime Scene

Jamison Koehler Humor, Investigations

It turns out that Wayne, my investigator, and I both do the laundry in our households. Apparently, neither of us has a wife who understands that you cannot put whites in with the colored clothes, set the dial to hot water, and then expect to have the whites coming out like they looked before. As I tell my wife, you …