Blawg Review 170 Negotiates Simple Justice
My friend, Joe Mockus, a criminal defense attorney in the San Francisco Bay area, once asked me, "just what is it that you do all day long?" I know what Joe did. He had at least one hundred court appearances a day and once in awhile tried a major felony case. He was negotiating while I was writing stake-in-the-heart summary judgment motions in cases with 2 million documents coded in the Phillipines. I took a lot of depositions and, if I was very very very lucky, I got to try a case to a jury once every five to ten years.
If you're a civil litigator like me (read: "not really a trial attorney") and you haven't thought of criminal law since your first year of law school (it has something to do with a man jumping out a 20 story window and then being shot by an angry mistress from the 10th floor, right? Cf. Magnolia below) then amble on over to Scott Greenfield's Simple Justice for a satisfying look at the world criminal lawyers inhabit every day.
And next week, we'll be hosting the Blawg Review over at the IP ADR Blog. Which reminds me, this is likely the first and only post on this blog you'll get this week!
Habeas corpus actus reus corpus delicti crimen falsi crimen innominatum crimem laesae maiestatis de minimis non curat lex.
The Magnolia criminal law bar exam question half-way through this opening to the darkest comedy of the 20th Century, Magnolia.
