Moving - almost done

We've nearly completed our move into new space - at 255 Washington Avenue Extension, in Albany. My brother Steve updated the main website to reflect that, but all the map sites show our building at 225 instead of 255. Weird.Anyway, it's been a hectic few days getting the move done. We'll finish most everything tomorrow. It feels like a big step up. Our last space was ... well ... a dump. It was

TV Interview - Justice Now

Ernie Tetrault informs me that his latest interview of me will be broadcast Sunday at 11 am on UPN 4. Tune in for our discussion of the metatheoretical presuppositions underlying the inappropriately named criminal justice system.Oops. I must have taken a sociology class or dated a sociology student once. Ernie and I talked about the criminal process in NY.

Blog post on Schenectady and new license plate reader

I was tipped off to this post on new technology in Schenectady, and asked to post my thoughts about it.It will probably not surprise regular readers to know I'm not fond of the idea of police having a scanner reading license plates seemingly at random as the police vehicle drives down the street. A bit too much Big Brother.Concerns include the accuracy of the device. What if the device misreads a

Police officer blog

I got a comment on one of my posts from a police officer. I checked out his blog. Looks like it's new, but I wanted to recommend it because I think it's great to hear from their perspective.

SJ Mercury News on Criminal Defense Lawyers

The third part of the SJ Mercury News series deals with the failings of some criminal defense lawyers. They discuss a practice where lawyers will charge a high up-front fee and then push the client to take a plea bargain. That makes for a good effective hourly rate, but not for good lawyering. In the particular case they discuss, the lawyer allegedly told the client he would only get one year

Cracks in the criminal "justice" system

The San Jose Mercury News is one of my favorite newspapers. I read it when I was a student at Stanford, and it pops up from time to time because they occasionally take on controversial issues, and because they have aggressively cultivated a web presence.Recently the paper did a 5-part series on criminal justice, focusing on Santa Clara County in California.The whole series is great, but the most

The difficult prospective client

Had a call today from a prospective client who got a speeding ticket near New York City. For some reason the conversation was difficult. This guy would ask me a question, and I would answer it, and then after a few minutes he'd ask the same question again. After round three or four, I decided he needed to find another lawyer.This happens once in a while. I tend to gauge it by how long the phone

Speeding tickets, police, and your attitude

Just handled a speeding ticket in a local court. Met with the trooper to discuss the case. He reviewed his notes. Aha, he said. There's your problem. He pointed to the word "Attitude".I knew exactly what he meant. This client had been difficult with me as well, and I remember from speaking with him that it sounded like he'd been difficult with the court staff as well.So this particular client did

Malpractice in Florida

I got such a kick out of this I posted it on my other blog too. Went to a walk-in clinic in Florida and they had this sign up. It did not inspire confidence. I was not impressed with the doctor either.

Interesting private investigator blog

When I'm searching for information on town courts, I often come across Jon Sabin's blog. Mostly it seems to be a listing of police blotters in the Watertown NY area, and lately there is a focus on some kind of problem with an animal control officer there.Here in the Albany area, I have used Centurion Private Investigators LLC. When I was with Allstate we used Joe for some investigations. I have

Violations and out-of-state records

One issue for speeding ticket cases (and other traffic tickets as well) with out-of-state drivers is how the result will show up on the driver's home state record.It is a widespread impression that non-moving violations do not transfer to other states. So far I've seen no evidence to the contrary.Sometimes we are unable to get non-moving violations for our clients, but we are able to get

So much going on lately

There's been so much going on lately, I forgot to mention that we (my brother and I) have incorporated a new business -- SpinJ Corp. This entity will house our web efforts. The first couple of projects are the Daniel Cady historical website, and the Town Courts directory website. Both are doing well, and hopefully we can find some time to work on them and get them up to full running status.Why

New Jersey Speeding Tickets

I was reviewing my main Albany Lawyer website statistics, and noticed that the New Jersey Speeding Tickets page is getting a lot of traffic now.I added this page a few months ago, along with New York City and California, to see if they would get traffic. My main speeding tickets page gets an awful lot of traffic already, so I thought that might lead to traffic on pages that come off of it.It's

A speeding ticket moment

I just have to describe an interesting moment in one of my favorite courts. This particular court gets a lot of Thruway speeding tickets. I had been told that one of the judges is married to a retired Trooper, and might be a bit partial to the Troopers.So I get there, and the Trooper on my case isn't there. In many courts around Albany, you wait about an hour, and then judges will call your case

More about our new office

We're getting more excited about our move to new office space. As I mentioned before, we'll be moving to 255 Washington Avenue Ext., Suite 108, Albany, NY 12205. An image of the floor plan of our space is above. There are always compromises, but, well, we're just ecstatic.Our new landlords are the folks at Tri-City Rental, and they have been great to work with so far. They own the building and

Capital District Business Review

I'm pleased to hear that the Capital District Business Review published an article about lawyer blogs in the area. I haven't seen it yet, and it does not appear to be online, but they apparently wrote a lot about this blog and even printed a photo of me in my extremely messy office. I can assure all readers that the photo cannot possibly show how messy my office really is. Fortunately, there is

Personal Apology

I previously apologized without naming the person, and offered to apologize to him by name upon request.Today I received a letter making such request, and I will now do so. I hereby apologize to Joseph M. Ahearn, Esq., of the Rensselaer County District Attorney's office.In a post a few days ago I named him and made some inappropriate remarks about him. After he complained, I reviewed those

Criminal Injustice

Recent experience has prompted some reflection about the criminal process. This is sometimes called the criminal justice system, but the word justice is out of place.What are some of the problems that stand out, in the eyes of this criminal defense lawyer?In no particular order:1. A systemic disregard for the rights of the accused. There are so many cases (and I'll probably discuss that below),

Apology

I made an inappropriate post the other day and I now wish to apologize for it.I named the particular prosecutor involved and I went over the top with my criticism. While I still feel strongly that the factual issues underlying what I said were fair, I should not have named the particular prosecutor, and some of my comments were inappropriate. I have modified the post to take out the inappropriate

Something's fishy in Rensselaer County

[Note: This post has been edited slightly in light of a complaint that was made.]I previously posted about a new criminal defense case I've got in Rensselaer County. Today we went before the town court judge. I had applied for bail or release. Bail means someone has to put money up to get the client out -- kinda like ransom. :-) Release means the client gets out without having to post bail.The

Lessons in lawyer advertising

Going through my bills for the year so I'll have all my expenses down for taxes.Noticed a bill for $400 for "Prof Internet Directory". Figured out it's for a directory of attorneys called "AttorneyFind" dot com. I remembered it once I saw it. I paid $100 each for 4 listings (personal injury, drunk driving, etc.).Well, I reviewed my web traffic and found that since 1/1/2006, I've had one (1)