713-224-1747
Recent Blog Posts
Texas's Medical Marijuana Bill
House Bill 164. Full text. I'd like to believe it has a chance of passing. Really, I would.
Frankly, I'd Rather Mail You a Check and Burn the $4.95.
The Supreme Court of Colorado tells me that, in order to reduce the impact of paper communication on the environment, I will have to pay Western Union to process my lawyer registration dues every year from now on:
We have contracted with Western Union and Striata to provide this service to you. Western Union charges a flat fee of $4.95 to process your payment by electronic check or using your credit or debit card (certain restrictions apply). Look for your annual statement by email in January 2009, at which time we will provide you further details on how to submit payment.
I'm very fond of the environment, but surely there is a better way to eliminate the environmental impact of the single letter the Colorado Supreme Court sends me each year and the single check I send back than to have me pay $4.95 to Western Union, a company whose business model is built around Mexican money launderers, Nigerian fraudsters, and broke college students.
I Want Angry Jurors With Low Self-Esteem
I've started reading the quarterly magazine of the American Society of Trial Consultants, The Jury Expert. It's right up Defending People readers' alley; it's even subtitled "The Art and Science of Litigation Advocacy. I downloaded a stack of issues to carry in my bag for quiet times; there are several treasures in each volume. If you don't try cases, you don't need to read The Jury Expert.
In the most recent issue, for example, there's an article by San Francisco litigation consultant Alison K. Bennett (no relation) about "Just World Jurors":
The Belief in a Just World theory has proven to be a valid construct offering many useful applications for litigation strategy and jury selection. This article discusses how this theory can be applied to jurors, who can be beneficial or detrimental to a case depending on the strength of their BJW orientation and the motivation they have for maintaining those beliefs.
Real Life Experience, Applied
I've written here many times about my opinion that the best judgesare people whose life experience is broader and deeper thanthe ordinary high school-to-law school-to-DA's office-to-bench career track.
I've also mentioned my friend Kevin Fine before: he's the guy I called when one of my friends was in Deep East Texas trouble; Kevin didn't even hesitate to get into a car with me and ride to the rescue of this person whom he didn't know.
What I didn't mention is that Kevin is a guy who is highly schooled in "the hopelessness and futility of addiction", as he says, not because he's met people with drug problems but because he is a recovering cocaine addict (Chronicle article).
There's little as dishonest as an addict... unless he's in recovery, in which case there's little more brutally honest. How many other Harris County judges would admit (to Brian Rogers) acts constituting felonies?
Lethal Generosity in the Legal Profession
Criminal defense trial lawyering
integrates technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences.
Right?
I scavenged the definition from the Wikimedia page on "social media." But the metaphor holds true - like social media, modern criminal trial law integrates various sorts of interaction (telephone, interview, email, psychodrama, voir dire, cross-examination, direct examination, argument, Power Point, video, audio, and so forth) to build shared meaning among lawyers, witnesses, and judge.
Some of the rules of social media apply equally to criminal defense trial lawyering. (Is that trite? Many of the rules of anything probably apply to anything else.)
Three Guys in Desperate Need of Razors
Houston DUI defense lawyer and blogger Paul B. Kennedy and Myrtle Beach criminal-defense lawyer and blogger Bobby Frederick at lunch today at Goode Co. BBQ in Houston.
Paul blogs about some of the discussion here.
Next Week is “Get to Know a Fellow Blogger” Week
A few blawgers I have met so far, in person or at least telephonically:
JDSupra. Give Content, Get Your Clients Noticed?
Following the example of California criminal-defense lawyer Rick Horowitz, I signed up for JDSupra.com. JDSupra is a website that allows lawyers to share their work with the world. Why? Probably for the same reasons that we blog - the need to feel that we're making a contribution? ego gratification? staking out territory - the human lawyer equivalent of peeing on trees?
No matter. I logged in, and started to upload my first document - the Texas Get Out of Jail Free Motion (that's not a JDSupra link).
The Texas Get Out of Jail Free Motion‘s purpose is to get a lawyer who has been held in contempt out of jail and request a hearing before some judge other than the one toward against the contempt was allegedly perpetrated. I thought that would be a good and worthy contribution to the state of legal knowledge (every Texas trial lawyer should carry one in her briefcase).
NACDL Seminar?
Are you in Houston for the NACDL Defending Drug Cases seminar today and tomorrow? If so, drop me a line.
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