Drinking, driving, drunks, and mass transit

Drunk driving and mass transit? How are they connected? I'll tell ya!!This is going to be a bit of a rant.Groups like MADD have focused relentlessly on the prosecution of people who drive after consuming alcohol. They push for more punitive sanctions, and for lowering the threshold BAC for arrest.The reality is that driving with a BAC of 0.08 is not much different than driving while talking on a

Daniel Cady site

Looks like we're getting the Daniel Cady site under way. Bryan D. Ford has transcribed a lot of the letters, and my brother is just starting to get them on a website - one so far. He's using a blog format for it. Great work guys!!

Town Court and Traffic Court directory

Just wanted to mention that we're making progress on the directory of town courts that we're developing.

The innocent client

Another reality for criminal defense lawyers. Many of our clients are actually guilty. Once in a while we get a client who's actually innocent.To be clear, some of our clients who tell us they're innocent are not really innocent. This may be a shock, but not all clients tell their lawyers the truth. The smarter clients don't tell us one way or another, and the smarter lawyers don't ask that

Criminal defense lawyers and prosecutors

A question/comment I hear from time to time is this: How can you defend someone you know is guilty?There are a some variations. My favorite is: What if you were defending someone you knew was guilty and you won? How would you feel about that? Answer: I'd feel GREAT!!! It means I did a great job.Now here's how I really respond: Do you ask prosecutors how they can prosecute someone they know is

Struggling with success as a lawyer

Things are going well. I've got tons of speeding ticket cases, along with a decent flow of DWI matters. Icing on the cake is the occasional personal injury case that comes in.Now I have to manage all of that work, while still marketing and all of that. Haven't persuaded my wife to quit her job yet, but we're making progress.Today I may be dropping off some work for a recent law school grad who's

Albany Attorney - more links

Some deeper links to the Albany attorney website:Colonie NY DWI LawyerGuilderland New York Traffic CourtsCoeymans New York Speeding Ticket Attorney

Albany Attorney sitemap pages

A while ago we developed a dynamic site for the firm, which is focused on the main keyword Albany Attorney. The site has a lot of dynamically generated pages, using location-based keywords to help people who are looking for a lawyer in a specific location in the Albany area.Within the site are sitemap pages, some of which are:Schenectady LawyerSaratoga LawyerThe idea was that these pages would

Tough DWI moment

Had a tough moment this morning. Client is from out of the area, got a DWI here. Relatively minor case. BAC was .10. No priors. This is a routine case where a good NY drunk driving lawyer would expect to get the charges reduced to a DWAI. The consequences are still significant, but it's a violation.Because my client is from out of the area, I had him sign a waiver of appearance letting me take

Speeding Tickets in New York

Just some thoughts on speeding tickets. Got a call this morning. I get calls like this regularly. The caller, from New York City, got a speeding ticket in the Town of Bethlehem. She wanted to know how much to pay. Unlike other states, New York traffic tickets do not list the fine.Here's how it works in New York traffic courts. First you plead -- guilty or not guilty. While the ticket says to

Lawyer marketing on the web

I frequently check who else is marketing themselves on the web in my area. I got a kick today out of this one site - I won't give it an actual link (as that might boost their rankings), but it's legalshield -dot- org. It's a prepaid legal service plan.On their page, they write that their members (i.e. their customers) "receive the best legal council possible."Their use of the word "council" is

Wall Street Journal and Iraq

Today's Wall Street Journal editorial got me going. I sent an letter to the editor, but they never print my letters. Here's what I wrote:Dear Sirs:In today's (11/18) editorial, you repeatedly refer to the lessons of Vietnam. One way you put it is "Don't fight wars you don't intend to win." The biggest lesson of Vietnam was that we should not have gone. Reading your editorial, it would appear you

DWI cases

I seem to be getting more DWI cases lately. I think my website has been doing better, but I'm not sure if that explains it all.I've got three cases pending now where we're actually fighting the charges. In most cases you encourage your clients to take a deal. In two of my cases the clients have DUI charges that are recent enough that any regular plea deal (to DWI or DWAI) would mean loss of a

Personal Injury TV show

Wow I haven't posted in a while. Well, we went on a trip to Los Angeles for a week, so that's a partial excuse. As part of the trip, I "pitched" my idea for a personal injury TV series. I met with eight different companies/agencies at the Screenwriting Expo. I explained my idea for the show, and they seemed to like it. It seemed to help that I have genuine experience as a personal injury lawyer.

Court Security

Saw this post on court security. This has been a hot topic since 9/11, and it's a load of baloney. Courthouses have no greater need for security than any other significant building. When inmates come to Court, they come with guards. Certain courts (especially courts dealing with family problems) had security issues before 9/11, and they were addressed already.9/11 triggered a massive overreaction

Traffic Court -- Random chance

It's amazing how random results can be in traffic court. Yesterday I went to one court in the morning. This is a busy court in a large town in the area. My client had a ticket from a NYS Trooper. High speed, with another minor violation. The Trooper was somewhat difficult and I could not get as good a reduction as I hoped for.Then, last night I went to another court. This was the least busy court

New blog -- Albany restaurant reviews

I just decided to create a new blog. It's Albany NY Restaurant Reviews, and it's here.

Speeding tickets and out-of-state drivers - update

Following up on recent posts about out-of-state drivers and speeding tickets, I just got a new client with a NJ license. The driving record does indeed show a NY ticket. Below is how it appears:********** Driving History **********VIOLATIONS:(1) STATE:NY VIOLATION DATE:02/26/2001 CONVICTION DATE:04/17/2001POSTED SPEED LMT: 55 ACTUAL SPEED: 84STATE DESCRIPTION: SPEEDING 25+ OVER THE

1110a - Traffic Violations

Note - If you're thinking about getting help, check out our New York Traffic Lawyer page.Update (4/22/2009): A lot of people come to this post on a search for 1110a or something related to that. Section 1110(a) of the Vehicle and Traffic Law in NY says:Every person shall obey the instructions of any official traffic-control device applicable to him placed in accordance with the provisions of this

Customer Service

I get so annoyed by the awful state of customer service in today's world of business. You call so many places where the phone is answered by a computer: "Your call is important to us ... Press "1" for blah blah blah ...."If my call is so important to you, why don't you have a human answer the phone? This irritated me before I opened my practice. I decided it would not be that way with my

Palm Treo rant

It appears that Palm will be joining with Microsoft on their next Treo phone. I find this extremely disturbing. I rely heavily on my Treo 600 for my business. I keep my calendar on it. I keep many of my contacts on it. I keep track of my finances on it. I get calls on it. And when I'm not available, my answering service texts my messages to me on it. Oh, and when I'm sitting in Court waiting and

The "First Appearance" and the missing DA

One of the things you learn when you handle speeding tickets and DWI in New York is that some court appearances are a waste of time.The court date on a New York traffic ticket is generally a first appearance date. Many clients are surprised to hear that the officer does not have to show up on that date. The first appearance is for you to enter a plea. If you plead "not guilty", the Court will set

Figuring out the comment thing

Tough thing about blogging is whether or not to allow comments. You don't want unfriendly comments, and you don't want "spam" comments (comments generated by computer, usually for SEO purposes). On typepad you can require comments to get your approval first. Blogger doesn't do that, but at least it has a word verification box (hard for computers to do) and it does notify you when you get comments.

Youth discrimination

I have a little chip on my shoulder about societal discrimination against young people. I was 18 when the NY drinking age went to 19, and was 19 when it went to 21. So I was illegal, then legal, then illegal, then legal, then illegal and finally legal again.I see these issues now in my work. Police to some extent target young people for traffic stops. Today I got a proposed plea agreement on a

The Albany NY area

It occurred to me that some readers might not know much about the Albany area. It is also known as the "Capital Region" of New York State. Albany is the NY state capital. Other major cities in this part of NY include Schenectady, Troy, and Saratoga Springs. Smaller cities in the vicinity include Amsterdam, Gloversville, Johnstown, Cohoes, Watervliet, Rensselaer, and Hudson.There are also some

Lawyer websites and SEO

If any lawyers are reading this post, I can see them scratching their heads at the term "SEO". It stands for "Search Engine Optimization". Okay, they're still scratching their heads, and I guess most non-lawyers are too.Since I opened my practice about 2 1/2 years ago, I have worked on my law firm website. I've worked to improve the content so prospective clients will find it informative. I'm

DWI and Revocation in New York

I got a call Friday and it's a somewhat sad case. The client got his second DWI. His first was earlier this year. In New York, if you get two DWIs (including DWAI) in five years, your license will be revoked for 6 months, and there's virtually no chance at a conditional license during the revocation period. Especially, as in this case, when the second DWI comes so close after the first

Dealing with police

I did a post in July about dealing with police. A couple days ago I received the "Busted" DVD from flexyourrights.org. Overall I thought it was good. I recommend it highly, but I would encourage anyone to seem apologetic and/or demonstrate a very mild sense of humor with police, rather than being stiff as depicted in the video.When you're asked if you've been drinking in a traffic stop, you can

Possession of marijuana -- unlawful or criminal

Note: Our office handles marijuana possession cases.I appeared with a young client this week who was charged with Criminal Possession of Marijuana (CPM). In NY, 25 grams or less is unlawful possession of marijuana (UPM), a violation. This client had 29 grams, which makes it a misdemeanor -- a crime. 29 grams is about an ounce.With UPM, it's common to get the charge resolved with an ACOD -

Blawg of the Day!!

Got a mention as "Blawg of the Day" for this blog on The Inter-Alia blog. The specific post is here.

Criminal Lawyers

There's been some local press lately about one of our judges, and some other issues relating to criminal cases. A few of our local lawyers have been in the press about these issues.I did my first day of service on Grand Jury today, and that prompted some thoughts that are keeping me from sleeping, which is usually a good excuse to blog.It is common to see criminal defense lawyers in the press

More about life in Albany

So now my allergies seem to be kicking into gear. Some sneezing fits, taking over the counter allergy medicine (chlorpheniramine maleate (spelling?) seems to work for me).Meanwhile, I'm running around to area courts, taking care of various traffic tickets and other problems. Still enjoying work and family.Ah, life as a lawyer in Albany, New York.

Enjoying life

Perhaps the most important thing to remember in living life as a lawyer, is to enjoy life while you're doing it.So I'm going to sneak out shortly for 9 holes of golf. :-)

Speeding ticket lessons

Tough night. I had two clients (sisters) who had been driving together and got pulled over for a fairly high speed on the Taconic in a town in Columbia County. Showed up in Court and the Trooper gave me a harder time than usual. Don't get me wrong. The Trooper was a decent guy. But the facts turned out to be worse than usual.Their speed was high, more than 30 mph over the limit. Then the Trooper

Interesting article on speeding tickets

Saw this site - "Ticket Killer". They sell themselves with AdWords (Google Sponsored Links). They have an interesting page where they compare themselves with other options, including lawyers.Their page is: ticketkiller.com/ticket-beater-comparison.htmlHere's what they say, with my criticism:>In most traffic matters, attorneys are not a practical choice, since they often cost more than the fine

Cool blog

Just saw this blog. Love it. Check it out.

Albany Lawyer Directory

Attempting to branch out a bit from my law practice, I've now created a directory of lawyers for Albany, New York. The directory is now live at www.albany-lawyer.com.For now the site covers a few practice areas. For practice areas I handle there is a description of my firm with links, and I invite other lawyers to contact me about getting a listing. For practice areas I don't handle, there are

New blog -- Albany Injury Lawyer blog

I decided to try out typepad and created a new blog there. We'll see if I like that better. I'll try to focus the injury posts on that blog.

Albany Injury Lawyer

My practice is a bit diverse, with a heavy volume of relatively low revenue speeding tickets, some moderately higher revenue dwi and criminal defense cases.The biggest revenue opportunity for someone in my type of practice is personal injury cases. This includes car accidents and a variety of other accidents. Because there is so much revenue potential, there is a lot of competition as many

Airline frequent flyer miles

My family has been planning a trip to LA. I've got over 225,000 frequent flyer miles with Northwest Airlines, so I wanted to book 5 first-class tickets for our trip.After numerous attempts to arrange such travel, I've given up on Northwest. Using my awesome power as a lawyer (as if), I'm filing a small claims action for $5000 against them tomorrow in Albany City Court. $5000 is the limit in City

Lucky Day

I had a couple speeding ticket cases this morning in Albany City Court. Each was with a different State Trooper. Neither showed up, and the cases were dismissed.In my experience it is very rare for a Trooper not to show. Happens maybe 5% of the time, maybe less. So that makes the odds of this day being 1 in 400. On the other hand, I suppose I can expect this to happen about every 400 times I go

Coming soon

Coming soon: Our new website, at 3 urls:www.albany-lawyer.comwww.albany-attorney.comwww.town-court.comThe new approach will have a new graphic design, along with a dynamic approach to generating pages using php. This should make it easier for people to find us if they're searching for a good lawyer on the web, by making it more relevant to their location in the Albany area and the keywords

Personal Injury

On my way into work this morning I was thinking about some of my personal injury cases.One client was just in a motorcycle accident, and lost part of his leg. I've seen him a couple of times in the hospital now. It's sad to see that happen to someone, especially someone you know. He's a great guy, and I'm sure he'll recover well. I've never driven a motorcycle. I've been driven on them a couple

Albany - Japanese food

Okay, this one's about life in Albany, not about lawyering in any way, shape or form.A local newspaper gave a glowing review for a sushi place in Albany. I was in that neighborhood, so I had to try it. Very disappointing. I lived in Japan, so I think I know what I'm talking about. First, a sushi place should not be judged by how many different kinds of fish and other things they can fit into a

Dealing with police - in general

So what do you do when the police stop you? I know what you shouldn't do:Example: When a police officer attempts to speak with you, do not say "I'll be right with you" and attempt to walk away. They don't like that. My client got beaten up, partly because of this simple failure to recognize that that police officer, at that moment, was the most important person in his life. He also got charged

Good blog on handling police

I just saw a good blog on dealing with police when you're stopped by them. Their main site is also good stuff. I will do a blog entry soon with my thoughts on dealing with police. The key word in my advice is "polite".

The Economics of a Law Practice - Rates

A while back I did a post about cheap lawyers. One of the challenges for a lawyer is figuring out how much to charge.I started out with the general notion that I was going to charge $200 per hour for my time. I figured that if I managed to bill only 500 hours a year (10 hours a week), I would get $100K in revenue. After all my expenses, I'd survive, but I wouldn't be making much. If things went

The Economics of a Law Practice - Part I - Advertising

One of the things I've long heard about lawyers is that, while we may be good lawyers many of us are not good businessmen. In other words, there are many lawyers who are good at preparing papers and speaking in court, who are not so good at marketing, accounting, budgeting, etc.I had some bumps along the way. My biggest problem, and it hasn't been too bad, is figuring out where to spend money.

Airline "Accident" case

The word "accident" is in quotes in the title because the meaning of that term is very important in cases against airlines. I discovered this in one of my personal injury cases. I thought I had a simple case of negligence against the airline, on a slip-and-fall. I learned that such matters are governed by the Warsaw Convention and the Montreal Agreement.Under these rules, damages are capped at

Family Court

When I first opened my practice I did "assigned counsel" work in Family Court in a couple counties. Assigned counsel are assigned by courts to represent indigent people (who can't afford a lawyer) in certain kinds of cases. Family offense petitions in Family Court are an example.I hated it for a number of reasons, particularly that the work itself is unpleasant, and also because of the billing

Sex offender myth

I had a call today from someone who is considered a sex offender under New York law (and at least one other state). I had a client in a similar situation before.The general public perception of a sex offender is someone who preys on children. The stereotype is a 40-year-old man who has sex with 8-year-old boys.The problem is that state law casts a much wider net. In this case and in another I

Balancing interesting and not-so-interesting work

One of the tough things about being a lawyer is some of the work is, well, boring. Or at least not terribly interesting. I get a lot of speeding ticket cases. I feel good about the work I do for people, helping them get better deals and saving them time in handling things for them. But it's not fascinating work. It's mostly paperwork, or a trip to a local court where you shoot the breeze with

Speeding Tickets

I've gotten a few calls recently from people who discovered the consequences of pleading guilty to speeding tickets. They did not hire lawyers for help on them. Here's what a few of them have experienced:1. One guy received a bill from DMV for $300 (or $100/year for 3 years) as a "driver assessment". This is the first time I've gotten this call, but I suspect it will become common. It's a new law

Good Personal Injury Blog

Noticed a good personal injury blog from Atlanta, Georgia. In addition to the blog, it has a great list of other blogs.

Personal Injury and Insurance Defense

I used to work for Allstate, in-house, as an Insurance Defense lawyer. That means Allstate paid me a salary to work in their office, but my clients were Allstate customers. I noticed a Georgia personal injury blog that discussed the ethical issues for insurance defense lawyers in a couple of recent posts:One and another.I saw these pressures in my work. A good example is when the insurance

Cheap lawyers

A few nights ago I was in Colonie Town Court for a client's speeding ticket. There's a spot where all the defense lawyers wait for their turn to talk to the prosecutors. Three different people came up to us and asked if we had seen a particular lawyer. We hadn't. That lawyer shall remain nameless, but is one of those that might be called cheap lawyers. As lawyers, we get calls from people with

DWI in New York - Out--of-state drivers

I just handled another DWI case with an out-of-state driver. It's a dramatic difference. A New York driver faces so many consequences from getting a DWI charge. Most do not apply to out-of-state drivers.A typical first DWI will get reduced to DWAI. The driver will pay a fine in the neighborhood of $500 or a bit less. They will have to attend a victim impact panel. They will generally have to

Verizon - disputes and collection

Not too long ago I did a post on volume businesses. This morning I got a phone call that tweaked that funny bone.I have a dispute running right now with Verizon about my Yellow Pages advertising bill. In one of the local books they misspelled my name in the ad, and listed the wrong phone number. I sent them a letter before publication telling them to stop, and they published it anyway. After

Supreme Court Marijuana Decision - So much for liberals and conservatives

The US Supreme Court recently made another decision on "medical marijuana" (PDF).California legalized marijuana for medical use. Under federal law (the Controlled Substances Act, or CSA), marijuana remains illegal. The CSA was challenged as violating the Commerce Clause (and also the Necessary and Proper Clause). This is part of a very long dispute on the Court over how much power the federal

Blog post about Albany District Attorney

The Democracy in Albany blog has a short post about Albany DA David Soares. The post prompted a lively set of comments on that entry.

Good blog on DWI

Just noticed a good blog by a DWI defense lawyer from California. Here's an an example of a good post..

The prosecutor mentality

One of my minor pet peeves is the attitude of many prosecutors, and going along with that, a common public attitude toward defense lawyers. I should mention right at the beginning that there are many exceptions to this, and that I don't see this at all when it comes to traffic & DWI cases.So anyway, it comes to this -- many prosecutors can't accept that they have a bad case. Sometimes the

Malpractice & volume business

I was retained to handle a malpractice case lately. That case, along with some of my other cases and other things in life prompted the following thoughts about volume businesses. It seems like certain areas of life have become volume businesses. Walmart is the obvious example. You can't get any service in the store. The prices are low, but the shopping experience stinks and product quality is not

Drug war blogs

I was just on a drug-war related topic recently, and so I was reading some related blogs. A couple of good ones are the Drug Policy Alliance blog, and the Drug War Rant on Salon.com. For example, both covered a recent article on Citizens Against Government Waste and its report on wasteful spending by ONDCP (aka the Drug Czar). Click the following for DPA's post and the Rant's post.

Law student blogs

Interesting to see that law students are almost pervasive in the world of law blogs (sometimes called blawgs). Students bring a fresh perspective. This one discusses George Lucas, Star Wars, Republicans and Democrats.

"Interests of Justice"

There are two provisions in the Criminal Procedure Law allowing a motion to dismiss "in the interests of justice". The provisions (I think it's 170.40 for dismissing an information or complaint, and 210.40 for dismissing indictments) include a laundry list of factors the judge "must" consider if raised and relevant.A few years ago I wrote an article aimed for law reviews, titled: A Substantive

Interesting blog article on car accident cases

The "New York Civil Law" blog discusses a recent Court decision dealing with the "serious injury" requirement in car accident cases. For non-lawyers and lawyers who are not experienced with this issue, NY law says you can't get money in a car accident case unless you can show a "serious injury". There are a number of categories that qualify. The easy category is a fracture. If you have a broken

Marijuana Laws

Today I noticed a blog mentioned marijuana enforcement in a posting 26 Million Joints". I've been a critic for many years of the the War on Drugs. Now as a lawyer I frequently represent defendants on marijuana charges. The most common in New York is "Unlawful Possession of Marijuana" (UPM). It is a very low level offense. The fine and surcharge is usually about $200.The most common way this comes

Learning more about blogging

As I get into blogging, I'm learning about other blogs out there. Saw an interesting one by "Ernie the Attorney", talking about people finding his site through Google (which is how I found his site). I have worked pretty hard on my firm website to make it do well on Google searches, so I thought that was interesting to see. He talks about the search terms that bring people to his blog. Mine come

Tough DWI case

Potential new client called last night, ~ 10 pm. My answering serviced texted me and I called and spoke with the father.The kid had rear-ended someone and blew a 0.20 BAC on the breathalyzer. That's pretty high. To make things worse, the kid had a DWAI 3 years ago. Short story - his license will be revoked for 6 months minimum. They're having a lot of trouble accepting the reality of this.DWI

Open Container

Finally resolved a case today for a client charged with "open container" in Albany City Court. Client was caught with a can of Bud Light on the street outside a bar (Mardi Gras). He had been to City Court several times but couldn't get the case resolved, so he hired me. The first time I appeared, the ADA (Assistant District Attorney) offered to "ACOD" (adjourn in contemplation of dismissal -

Handling speeding tickets

The strongest part of my website, in terms of what seems to draw clients, is the traffic and speeding section. A lot of the clients I get are from out of the area. They're driving from downstate to Vermont, or Boston to Buffalo, or something like that. They get a ticket in Albany, Schenectady, Rotterdam, etc. If you think about it, how are they going to find a lawyer here?If a local person gets a

First Entry - Getting started

Thought I'd try out blogging. Seems like everyone is talking about it.I'm a lawyer in Albany and thought there might be a place for a blog about Albany lawyers, law, life in Albany (NY), etc.Click for my website.