There was something for everyone last night; supporters of Kelly Siegler liked how she came out, supporters of Jim Leitner thought he clearly won. Supporters of Doug Perry saw a honest, nice man who would be the right guy for the job if the job were what he thinks it is: a CEO / ambassador position that doesn't involve leading 250+ trial lawyers. Even supporters of Pat

When asked about the minority composition of the DA's office at last night's debate, Kelly Siegler stated that the DA's office has more black and hispanic lawyers than the bar as a whole. I suspect that she knows what she's talking about. This made me wonder: how does the Harris County Criminal Lawyers' Association's diversity compare to the Harris County DA's Office's?

My apologies to a journalist, whose yesterday's column I shamelessly ripped off without attribution in a blog post four days ago. When this journalist quotes from my blog, she has the good manners to cite it as "an attorney blog"; I should have the same courtesy when I write something that she will write three days later.

We -- all of us -- are no more than one traumatic brain injury away from committing capital murder.

Chuck Rosenthal has resigned, effective 3 p.m. today.In his letter of resignation he writes: Today, I wrote Governor Perry and tendered my resignation as Harris County District Attorney. My decision to retire from office was precipitated by a number of things. The federal court's release of my private emails around Christmas of last year brought a lot to bear on my wife and children. I have been

All five candidates for Harris County District Attorney were invited to speak today with the board of directors of HCCLA, the Harris County Criminal Lawyers' Association, after a board meeting. Only one of them bothered to show up: Kelly Siegler. (C.O. Bradford had spoken to the board before Chuck Rosenthal's meltdown.) [Edit: Jim Leitner and Pat Lykos say that they were not aware of the invitation. It

Ask any Harris County criminal-defense lawyer, and she'll tell you that criminal-defense lawyers should have copies of offense reports. Ask any Harris County felony chief prosecutor whether the defense lawyer is right, and I'll bet (based on my highly-scientific survey of 9% of such chiefs) that you'll get the same answer. If I could file a notice of appearance on a case in Harris County and immediately

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has recognized Texans' Fourteenth Amendment right to use (and therefore to buy) dildos: Just as in Lawrence, the State here wants to use its laws to enforce a public moral code by restricting private intimate conduct. The case is not about public sex. It is not about controlling commerce in sex. It is about controlling what people do in the privacy

Other blawgs aspire to be apolitical. Not Defending People. Everything we do is about politics -- the way groups make decisions. There is nothing more political than trying to convince twelve jurors that we have the right side of a dispute. Seen up close, trial lawyering is pure politics. On a slightly larger scale, we deal with the politics of the elected officials we deal with. In

Scott Greenfield's Simple Justice blog just celebrated its one-year anniversary. Anne Reed's Deliberations celebrated its anniversary on Saturday. I had a blog back in 2004-2005, when the blawgosphere was young. I posted 17 times between August 2004 and June 2005. Then I quit, figuring that this "blogging" thing would never catch on. When I resumed blogging in March of 2007, Anne and Scott both seemed like old-timers.