In John Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” Satan wakes up next to the burning lake and declares to the rest of the angels thrown into hell, “the mind is its own place, and in itself/ Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n./ What matter where, if I be still the same?”
Many years ago, a former Alabama congressman told me the following story:
Unless it’s served with lots of beef and slathered with Hunan sauce, I don’t much care for broccoli.
Upon being spoken to in a condescending fashion, a common response is, “Hey, I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, you know.” The implied words being: “I’m not some simple rube who just got to the city from some farm.”
From time to time, I hear people say something like, “It’s not only important the judicial system be fair; it is important the judicial system be perceived as fair.”
In my long career, only once have I had a case dismissed because after a preliminary hearing the commissioner decided that there was no probable cause to proceed.
Now that I’m self-employed again, a friend asked me if it worries me to not have any health insurance anymore.
People sometimes ask me, “Don’t you have anything nice to say about the State Bar of Wisconsin?”
Wisconsin law governing fraudulent misrepresentations can fairly be described as charitable. It’s too bad the law doesn’t apply to so-called charities, which are some of the worst fraudsters operating in this state.
“The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde is not just one of the most extraordinary novels ever written, but an allegory of the history of the U.S. Constitution.
Do you remember where you were when you heard the news of the United States Supreme Court’s opinion in U.S. v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995)?
Now that, after an 11-year hiatus, I’ve returned to being a full-time courthouse rat, people ask me what’s the biggest difference.
If dictionaries were written by lawyers, one of the definitions for “frustration” would say “finding a case directly on point, but being unable to cite it because it is unpublished.”
I had been generally aware that some congressmen who don’t like the First Amendment and who particularly dislike the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Citizens United v. FEC, 130 S.Ct. 876 (2010), wanted to get around the decision by passing a constitutional amendment to overturn it.
An ancient witticism goes something like this: The children are the future … And that’s why I stockpile so much ammunition.
When I started practicing law, I didn’t care who anybody was, what they believed or what they had done.
Even if you believe that all burglars should receive 10 years in prison, that’s not how sentencing in Wisconsin works.
Tuesday marks a great leap forward for human rights in Wisconsin: people can finally carry a concealed handgun without fear of criminal prosecution.
I’m afraid that I lack imagination. For the life of me, I cannot figure out what the protests on Wall Street (and now, in Madison) are all about.
Yesterday was the First Monday in October, established by 28 U.S.C. sec. 2, as the beginning of a new term of the U.S. Supreme Court (not to mention a rather lousy play from back in the 1970s).
This week, Wisconsin is ground zero in the battle between university bureaucrats and free speech champions. No, I’m not talking about the University of Wisconsin’s attempts to stifle criticism of its admission policies. That’s been going on for years, and will continue for many more.
I was having lunch last month with a friend who happens to be a law professor, when I remarked that I was finally going to write a law review article that I have been contemplating for some time.
The first thing attorneys learn in law school is not really a legal principle, but rather a historical fact: back in the day, railroads were really important.
The latest cause de jour is passage of what its proponents call “Caylee’s Law,” which would make it a federal crime for a parent not to report a missing child within 24 hours.
Hanging out with some of the carnies who came to town this year, I was astonished at how, in a mere 10 years, the carnival industry had become so professional. And they did it without even spending mandatory carnie dues on a public image campaign.
I was having a nice conversation with another attorney the other day when we began talking about environmental law. We were both in agreement that the work environmental defense lawyers do is very important. But in the middle of the conversation, we discovered that we have vastly different definitions of what makes an environmental defense lawyer.
There is one type of lawyer the profession has no room for — the molly-coddler.
Friday is what the progressives call “Earth Day.” I prefer to celebrate my own holiday, “Human Achievement Day.”
Congratulations to Kelli Thompson on being named the state’s new public defender.
I recently learned a new Yiddish term while reading a novel called “The Chosen” by Chaim Potok: “pilpul.”
