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.