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"Court of appeals is where policy is made." Judge Sonia Sotomayor "Better to remain silent and thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." Abraham Lincoln After hearing all of the complaints over the last few days over Judge Sotomayor’s comment, I can only conclude that our...

For the last decade, trial lawyers have been the victims of one of the most successful marketing campaigns ever. Those of us that choose to represent victims of others' carelessness have been portrayed as sharks, snakes, or worse. It seems that "trial lawyer" is now close to a cuss word....

I'm not sure I've ever seen a more appalling story about the judicial system. The Associated Press is reporting that two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with accepting millions of dollars in bribes to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.  And for petty crimes too.  The story...

Over sixty percent of the lawyers in the U.S. practice in solo or small firms, but U.S. law schools don’t do anything to help students actually practice law. Sure, schools teach us the law and how to think like lawyers, but they don’t teach how to be lawyers. A lot...

I wanted to write something as a tribute appropriate for this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but I was searching around for a something that inspired me, and I was coming up empty.  But then, a note in my inbox pointed me to a blog post from Kelly Erb at...

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been looking at Stephen Comiskey’s book, A Good Lawyer. I’ve previously posted my favorite excerpts from Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. Today, I look at Chapter 5, which is available online. Again, the book is out of print,...

A couple of weekends ago, I was prompted to go back and read Stephen Comiskey’s must read book "A Good Lawyer: Secrets Good Lawyers [and their clients] Already Know." Last week I started a series looking at my favorite excerpts from each of the books. I’ve reviewed Chapter 1, Chapter...

In the last couple of days, I've been posting my favorite excerpts of Stephen Comiskey's book, A Good Lawyer.  We've looked at Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, and today move on to Chapter 3.  Unfortunately, Chapter 3 isn't online so readers will have to rely on my favorite chosen parts....

Yesterday, I started reviewing/posting excerpts from Stephen Comiskey's book "A Good Lawyer."  It is five chapters long, and I'll be posting on each chapter over the next week or so.  As I mentioned, I think it's a must read, and I would encourage all lawyers to try and get their...

At the Texas Trial Lawyer's Association annual meeting last week, Dallas trial lawyer Al Ellis gave a talk on what it means to be a trial lawyer.  During the speech he reminded me of a little book that I haven't thought of in a while. In 1997, Washington D.C. Lawyer...