Ohio’s Jeff Gamso has added his own mustachioed wrinkle in the lawyer confidence game series* that has wended its way from Judge Richard Kopf to Houston’s Mark Bennett to here.

I’ve turned down work, turned away clients and their families because they asked me to do not what was unethical (I’ve turned those folks away, too, but that’s a different issue) but what was impossible. There are things the law does not allow.  There are times when there’s nothing else to do, nothing to be done.  It sucks, but there it is.  And I won’t take your money.  It’s too much like stealing.

Among the many ugly truths of lawyering is that people believe us, which means that if we’re larcenous in heart or mind, the opportunity to steal is there. I’ve quipped many times that if I wasn’t so damned honest, I could be rich. Not only is it easy, but clients wouldn’t have the slightest clue that their lawyer was taking advantage of them. Indeed, they would be more inclined to thank their lawyer for his hard, hard work and imaginative diligence than call out his theft. Continue reading →

In an interview on CBS this morning, Mayor Bill deBlasio’s new police commissioner (as opposed to Rudy Giuliani’s old police commissioner) Bill Bratton made three points abundantly clear:

1. The NYPD Stop and Frisk program will continue, though he says cops need better training (because that reasonable and articulable suspicion part is way too hard to grasp).

2.  The reason the program disproportionately impacts minorities is because that’s where the crime is.

3.  If deBlasio didn’t allow Bratton to bring in authoritarian shill news legend John Miller, Bratton would not have taken the job. Continue reading →

But it’s only $30, two-thirds of the panel of life-tenured Article III judges mumbled to themselves as they bumped into walls and muttered, “‘scuse me, madam.”  In fairness, Judge Joseph Peter Stadtmueller of the Eastern District of Wisconsin was sitting by designation. But then, Judge Diane Sykes not only let him write the opinion, but gave him the majority.

The third judge, David Hamilton, dissented.  I would imagine that the fact he had to write a dissent on a case so utterly idiotic pissed him off. This is not a good use of judicial time, but he was left with no choice. Why? Because the majority opinion may, only eight days into the new year, be the winner for stupidest appellate decision of 2014.  Yes, it’s that bad. Continue reading →

I explained to the defendant’s mother that it was my way to tell the truth, good, bad or otherwise. She responded that she wanted the truth, before launching into all the reasons why she thought her child should beat the charges. In every instance, she was shooting blanks. It’s not that there may not be well-founded arguments and evidence that would give her child a fighting chance, but if so, she wasn’t aware of them.

The truth tends not to be what a person whose loved one is facing decades of prison desires to hear. While she says she wanted the truth, what she told me suggests she wants hope. It’s an awkward situation, where my telling the truth isn’t going to endear me to her.  Did I want to be the bearer of bad news? It’s certainly not the best way to persuade a client to retain a lawyer.

When Judge Kopf linked to an ancient article in response to a post here, Continue reading →

Lawprofs Stephen J. Schulhofer and David Friedman wrote a policy analysis for free-market-loving Cato Institute in 2010, arguing that indigent defense is in “a state of perpetual crisis, routinely described as ‘scandalous.'”  Few would disagree. But their solution was fairly radical:

The uniform refusal of American jurisdictions to allow freedom of choice in indigent defense creates the conditions for a double disaster. In violation of free-market principles that are honored almost everywhere else, the person who has the most at stake is allowed no say in choosing the professional who will provide him one of the most important services he will ever need.

As a corrective, we propose a free market for defense services, one that would, so far as possible, function in the same way that the existing market functions for affluent defendants who are able to retain their own counsel.

Essentially, vouchers. Let the defendant pick his own lawyer, and the state/county/jurisdiction will pay for indigent defense.  Sure, the lawyer would have to agree to accept whatever the jurisdiction was paying, as well as the defendant, but assuming those weren’t in issue, why not let a defendant have freedom of choice? Continue reading →

Josh Blackman, who was just named to Forbes’ “30 under 30” list in law and policy, found it sufficiently odd that old First Amendment warhorse Floyd Abrams, in the bio accompanying his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, was so “modest.”

This is it:

Mr. Abrams is the author of “Friend of the Court: In the Front Lines with the First Amendment” (Yale, 2013) and a senior partner in the firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP.

Certainly both are great accomplishments, but I think he may have a few other credentials that qualify him to opine on free speech.

Well yeah, he does, which is the beauty of Abrams’ bio, and a point that sailed over Josh’s head. Continue reading →

The law distinguishes two functions of a police officer, the first being the criminal function and the second being the public safety function.  This explains the “protect and serve” motto on the side of patrol cars, which isn’t an obligation but rather an aspiration.  If you have to sell the police to the public, it’s always good to have a motto.

When Boiling Spring Lake, North Carolina, police showed at the home of Mark Wilsey, it was for the second function. Wilsey’s son Keith Vidal was schizophrenic, and was having a psychotic episode.  That happens. Nobody asks to suffer from mental illness, and most parents try to love and care for their children nonetheless. But sometimes, things can get out of control and help is needed. Continue reading →

So what if it comes weeks after the legal world knew and discussed the call to arms of the 9th Circuit chief judge, Alex Kozinski?  Seriously, so what?  Isn’t it better late than never that the New York Times pens an editorial praising his Olson dissent?  Of course it is. Don’t be a hater.

In the justice system, prosecutors have the power to decide what criminal charges to bring, and since 97 percent of cases are resolved without a trial, those decisions are almost always the most important factor in the outcome. That is why it is so important for prosecutors to play fair, not just to win. This obligation is embodied in the Supreme Court’s 1963 holding in Brady v. Maryland, which required prosecutors to provide the defense with any exculpatory evidence that could materially affect a verdict or sentence.

No, don’t cringe at how the editors took breathless liberties Continue reading →

As predicted, the Old City of New York, ruled by the sensibilities of billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg, pushed forward with their efforts to defend the Stop & Frisk policy even after the mayor of the New City of New York was crowned.  Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo had an office full of lawyers, and told them to get their brief done before the guards changed, and they did.

But in the cesspool of the 2d Circus that has come to characterize the Floyd and Ligon cases, affecting more New Yorkers than perhaps any other, the City’s attempt to leap-frog perfecting its appeal barely made a ripple.  When the stories involve daring feats of acrobatics and amazingly scary clowns, the filing of a brief doomed to never be decided doesn’t rate much attention.

And yet, there is another request that’s flying relatively low to the ground, enough so that it hasn’t really been noticed yet, Continue reading →

More proof of the blind squirrel theory, Above the Law posts padawan Keith Lee’s small firm/solo practice column on a theory I’ve never heard of before, The Fallacy of Chesterton’s Fence.

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

Put simply, don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up.

This is a life rule, but its application to law is abundantly clear and important. Continue reading →