Scrooged

A friend of mine sent me this, and I thought it was pretty funny. It didn't take much time either.See Warren Redlich Scrooged.And make sure your sound is on.

More problems with iPhone activation

I just posted last night about my problems with my iPhone. At the end of that post I mentioned that I was next going to activate two more iPhones (one each for my associates - and yes, there really is a business purpose in mind). I thought it would be quicker to activate the next ones because I had gotten past the creating an account problem with AT&T.Nope. It's taking longer, and there is no end

A bad iPhone experience with Apple and AT-and-T

See the picture below to start getting a sense of my frustration with Apple, AT&T, and my new iPhone.That screen is not in any of the iPhone commercials I saw. No one at the Apple store told me that I needed "an AT&T pre-approved credit check code" before I'd be able to use my iPhone.I am outraged that there is no way for me to resolve this without going to an AT&T store. I hate going to cell

Interesting Albany trivia

Did you know that Albany, in 1870, was the 20th largest city in the United States?Check out this table from the US Census Bureau. Albany's status dropped quickly, and by 1910 it was the 50th largest city, even though Albany's population had grown substantially in that time.Troy was in the top 50 back in the late 1800s as well.Buffalo, #11 in 1870, is holding on to #50. It peaked in status at #8

Guilderland - Appointments in January

At our first Town Board meeting as new councilmen on January 3rd, MarkGrimm and I will be asked to vote on many appointments for variousTown positions. In keeping with our campaign pledge to open upgovernment, we wish to publicly solicit applications for those positions.They include membership on the Economic Development Advisory Council, Planning Board, Zoning Board, and the Industrial

Albany Sheriff Cracks Down on Gambling and Marijuana

The Albany Sheriff is really cracking down on the bad guys these days. The Times Union had a couple of articles on November 29th about his team nailing a gambling ring, and another about them bungling a marijuana operation.In the gambling story, the Sheriff successfully protected the public from four dopes who were engaged in a gambling conspiracy. The story is filled with dollar amounts that are

Plea to the Charge

As lawyers handling traffic and criminal cases, we will generally talk to the prosecutor and see what kind of deal they're willing to do. In most cases we get some offer for our client to plead guilty to a reduced charge. Simple examples include reducing a moderate speed to a parking ticket, a high speed to a lower speed, a misdemeanor to a violation, or a felony to a misdemeanor.Sometimes it's

Martial Arts in Albany

Here's a great personal story about Tai Chi and Kung Fu. The author is a fellow student at the Capital District Tai Chi & Kung Fu Association.I was a student there years ago, but stopped around the time our first daughter was born. I'm back now, and my daughter is also doing Tae Kwon Do at the same place in the Pil-Sung Martial Arts program.For anyone interested in martial arts, all of these

Traffic Court - 50K Visits

We hit a new milestone for our Traffic Court website. From October 8 to November 7, there were 51,000 visits. First time we broke the 50K mark.October 8 was actually a relatively slow day, so tomorrow we will probably hit two other milestones -- 45K unique visitors (some people visit more than once) and 120,000 pageviews.There are a lot more traffic courts in the hopper about to be added to the

Times Union, Privacy Policy, and the Electronics Communications Privacy Act

UPDATE (11/4/2007): The Times Union exacerbated its violations of the ECPA and their own privacy policy with a further article by Casey Seiler about Sock Puppets.-----------In a recent article the Times Union "outed" some blog commenters. I've been wondering if they can be sued for this, as it appears to violate both their own privacy policy and the Electronics Communications Privacy Act (18 US

Guilderland - Final Days

Less than one week to go until the election -- Guilderland voters will decide who should be on their town board.Mark Grimm and I are running on a message of ending the secrecy and insider privileges. Mike Ricard and Dave Bosworth are running on, well ... I'm not sure exactly what.Let's see. They sued me to knock me off the ballot and deprive voters of a choice. That didn't work. They refused to

Ron Paul on Leno

Ron Paul appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno just now. I'm sure it will be available on YouTube or other sources any minute.He really hit it out of the park. He stayed on his message, and he spoke without sounding like canned soundbites. With his fundraising success and all that's going right for him, as he puts it, there really is a risk he might win. :-)First news story about it appears

Speeding tickets: One opinion

Saw this article online about whether it's worth it to fight a speeding ticket:">MSN Money article on speeding ticketsNot sure I agree completely, and also not sure that all the comments apply in New York State. Still, a cautionary tale for those who get a ticket.

Guilderland: Personal attacks in politics

Here they go again. The Mike Ricard and Dave Bosworth team have attacked me personally, along with my running mate Mark Grimm. The latest salvo is in the August 4 edition of the Altamont Enterprise. These are letters to the editor, and do not appear in the online edition. Attributed to Ken Runion, who is running uncontested, and Don Csaposs, who is not an elected official, they are of course

Troubles for new attorneys

I saw another great article in the Wall Street Journal, though it's a couple weeks old now. The law market as a whole has been relatively flat compared to overall growth in the economy. Meanwhile the number of law graduates, and thus, new lawyers, has increased quite a bit.Many students now graduate from law school with over $100K in debt - I know one who owes $150K. The article details the

Follow up on unsolicited attorney mailings

In late July I did a post describing a letter that was mailed to a client of mine. This is known as an unsolicited attorney mailing. I think, but am not sure, that the powers that be in our profession decided there is nothing wrong with such a mailing. Nevertheless, I have no plans to mimic it.

Guilderland NY Update

Our Guilderland NY campaign for Town Board rolls onward. I updated the campaign website with more information and a better layout for the home page. There is a new page detailing Mike Ricard's illegal variance, and another page on Dave Bosworth and his unethical abuse of his nonprofit.Incumbents Mike Ricard and Dave Bosworth are now bravely refusing to debate us. They are consistent, as the Dems

Traffic Court Landmark - 100K pageviews in 30 days

Our traffic court directory website hit a new landmark. As the image below (from Google Analytics) shows*, there were over 100,000 pageviews in the last 30 days. Two other landmarks are getting more than 45,000 visits, and over 40,000 unique visitors. Some visitors visit twice, so there are more visits than unique visitors.We continue to increase coverage of states. Most of our current growth

Traffic Court booming

Our traffic court website is booming. Starting roughly September 4th, visits to the site jumped. There were over 30,000 unique visitors in the last 30 days, with over 75,000 pageviews. If recent numbers continue, we will approach 40,000 unique visitors per month and 100,000 pageviews.Busiest pages on the site are the Traffic Court home page (about 10% of the page views), the New York and New

Baseball diversion: Fewest Pitches in a complete game

I was watching a baseball game the other day and the announcers were talking about pitch count -- how many pitches the pitcher had thrown so far. This prompted two questions in my head:1. What is the fewest number of pitches thrown by a pitcher in a complete game?My friend David found the answer to that one: 58, by Red Barrett in 1944 for the Boston Braves.http://baseball-almanac.com/boxscore/

Mike Ricard and the assessment process

A quick update on our Guilderland NY town board campaign efforts:I've been researching incumbent Town Board member Michael Ricard, his assessment, and other issues.I created a page about Mike Ricard's Assessment showing what I found. It includes satellite images of his property from Google Maps, and photos of his house. One friend is now joking that I'm stalking Mike Ricard.The short story on his

NY Election Law: Update

I write with a legal update in the ongoing saga of Ricard v. Redlich. The appellate court ruled against us. We lost. And yet, I'm still on the ballot.For those who were unaware, New York Election Law is confusing. I have heard that 50% of all election law cases in the US take place in our fair state. Okay, unfair state.There were a few issues in our case. First, we filed the wrong form on July

A good debtor-creditor experience

I've complained in the past about some annoying experiences with debt collection, particularly the Yellow Pages companies. I was starting to have what seemed like a similar experience, but then things changed.In 2004 I agreed to do a free trial of a listing on lawyers -dot- com. Then I got a bill. I refused to pay and sent a letter in February of 2006. I'd get a letter or bill every once in a

Virginia Traffic Court and DMV fees

About a month ago I mentioned Virginia's new speeding ticket fees. I saw a more complete breakdown of them and wanted to just give a quick update on that. These are fees imposed by the Virginia DMV, on top of the fines that come from the traffic courts in Virginia.It starts at $750 for driving with a suspended or revoked license (commonly called AUO in New York). A variety of offenses lead to a

Auto Mechanic in Albany - Broadway Auto Clinic

I drive a 2002 Audi wagon (an A4 Avant, 1.8t with a 5-speed stick, for those who care about such details). After 5 years it's approaching 100,000 miles, and I thought it was time to get some things done.I bought it at Langan West, a Porsche/Audi/VW dealership on Route 5 on the way to Schenectady. For most of the life of the car I took it to the dealership. I wasn't completely satisfied, but most

Profile: Monkey

One of the best known and least liked members of the Albany area legal community is someone I'll nickname Monkey, mainly because I couldn't think of a better name. Monkey is quite possibly the worst lawyer in the area.Monkey advertises himself in little-known publications, and his ads stress absurdly low fees. They do not include any caveat about getting what you pay for. He mishandles several

Traffic Court: Connecticut

I think we've finished with the courts in Connecticut. The Superior Court pages get far more views than the Judicial District Court pages. I think people are just more likely to search on Google for "Superior Court" rather than "Judicial District Court." The top court of all is New Haven Superior Court. The top J.D. court (the J.D. is not about juvenile delinquency) is Tolland Judicial District

Traffic Court: Massachusetts

Our Traffic Court website continues to grow, with 11 states under way. We have almost completed the Massachusetts traffic courts, but there are a few left to fill in.The hottest courts so far seem to be Lawrence District Court in Essex County and Quincy District Court in Norfolk County, though plenty of other courts seem to be getting a substantial number of views. I did see somewhere that the

Baseball: Barry Bonds and Pete Rose

I used to be into sports a lot more. These days I play almost no sports (except for my Tai Chi and Kung Fu class, and the occasional round of golf), and watch very little. This weekend was unusual. Yesterday I happened to catch the 500th homer hit by A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees). I missed Barry Bonds 755th homer yesterday, but saw it several times on SportsCenter this morning. And

Michael Ricard

One of the worst things about career politicians is how many of them eventually distrust the voters. They view their job as their job, instead of recognizing they serve the voters, and the voters should decide who holds the job.Just as Eric Sundwall and the voters of the 20th district were victimized by John Sweeney, the voters of Guilderland (and me) are now being attacked by Mike Ricard.The

Guilderland Town Board

Well Guilderland, it's official. I'm running for Guilderland Town Board, along with Mark Grimm. I created a website for our campaign -- Guilderland NY -- at guilderland-ny.com.Mostly I will keep that off this blog and on my other website -- wredlich.com.

Profile: Rodney

My last post was about one minor player in the local criminal law community, and this one is about another. I've named him Rodney after Rodney Dangerfield, one of my favorite comedians. Unlike the comedian, I'm happy to say that this Rodney is still alive.Dangerfield's signature line was about not getting any respect. Our local Rodney is a bit like this. He often makes negative remarks about

Profile: Snidely

One minor figure who stands out to me in the Capital Region legal community is a criminal lawyer whose nickname, for purposes of this post, is Snidely. I don't know him well at all. I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me, though I don't know why (there are plenty of good reasons).There are things about Snidely that I noticed the first day I saw him. He has what seems like a permanent sneer on his

Batman, Robin, Batgirl and ... The Joker

There's one particular firm in the area that stands out in so many ways. They are clearly the best at what they do. They exemplify what it means to be good lawyers. They are passionate about their work, ethical to the extreme, decent and polite to all they deal with, diligent in researching the law, and to top it all off, they're interesting.I struggled with this for a while -- what to call them,

Profiles

It's been a while since I've done a profile. I checked and it looks like I started on this idea in August of 2006, and ran out of steam. One profile I did seemed to get a lot of attention: The Bully. It was a semi-fictional and unflattering profile of an area judge. A surprising number of lawyers seemed to know who I was talking about, and they all thought it was the same judge. I even heard that

Unsolicited attorney mailings to prospective clients

One of my clients got a letter from a local lawyer that I thought was inappropriate. Images of the letter (with information about both the lawyer and the client whited out) are at the bottom (click on them to see them enlarged). Let's take a look and see what's wrong with this:1. Notice the enlarged fonts, boldface, and underlining. Maybe it's just me, but lawyers shouldn't shout. The only time I

Another DWI Win

I mentioned that we keep winning DWI cases in a recent post. Well, we won another one. This time the DA responded very late to an "omnibus motion" (well after the judge had already given them a generous extension). While we were waiting, I made a further motion for dismissal on speedy trial grounds. The DA did not oppose the speedy trial motion.I'd like to claim that we're brilliant, and we're

A busy DWI lawyer

Got a call yesterday from someone with her third DWI case. The second was fairly recent, and third time is a charm so it's a felony.Was talking about the second time to find out what had happened. She had hired a lawyer with a big web presence for DWI cases. She told me his name, and I started laughing. I'll call him Smelly to avoid making it too obvious who he is.You see, this one DWI lawyer is

Why are phone companies so difficult?

I had a call today from a prospective client who left two numbers to call him back -- both overseas in different countries. I've been burned before making international calls and getting socked with huge bills, so I wanted to check the rate before I called.First I dialed "0". The operator forwarded me to some automated system that was not helpful. Then I checked out the website for our phone

Spotting difficult or unpleasant clients

I had a call today and turned away a prospective client because I picked up on signals that made me uncomfortable. One very difficult thing for lawyers is deciding which clients we don't want. It's very important, because unpleasant clients require a lot more work than pleasant clients. It's often difficult to do but sometimes we're lucky and we pick up on the warning signs.Today's caller had a

More about phony lawyer websites

A comment on my most recent post on fake lawyer websites asked how the scam works. The scam is that potential clients see a somewhat attractive website that gives the appearance that it is a law firm in New York State. For example: "Our professional staff of Lawyers and Paralegals specialize and concentrate solely on NY traffic tickets." (from the home page)This is not a law firm, at least not in

Virginia Speeding Ticket Fines Make the New York Times

Seems the State of Virginia has decided to up the ante on speeding ticket fines. According to an article in yesterday's New York Times about Virginia speeding fines, getting ticketed for a speed of, say, 20 mph over the limit, carries a civil penalty of over $1000, plus the fines from the Court (up to $2500 more), and then maybe court costs too. Ouch!!So as a result, of course, we are working on

Another dubious "lawyer" website: New York Traffic Ticket Solutions

I found another dubious traffic lawyer website today. It's nytrafficticketsolutions -dot- com. It does not identify who the lawyers are, if any, that work with this "company" - New York Traffic Ticket Solutions. I did a whois lookup and the administrative e-mail address is a Canadian site. Indeed, the site looks remarkably like the Canadian site, trafficticketsolutions -dot- ca. The whois shows a

More problems with AdWords -- Audio Ads

Back in January I posted about a problem with AdWords, the advertising service I use for sponsored links on Google searches. I do generally like AdWords and continue to run ads. I also carry Google ads (AdSense) on our traffic court directory.AdWords has a new feature for "Audio Ads," and I'm trying it out. Once I started with it I had some problems and requested a review. I'm not satisfied with

DWI Laws and "The Joe"

On a previous DWI post, I got a comment from pml, a regular commenter. Originally I was going to respond in a comment on that post, but decided to do a whole new post once I realized how long it was going to be.I certainly agree with pml that all drivers should know about the .08 law and that they should not drink and drive. However, a recent experience hit me with the contradictions of the

Innocent Until Proven Guilty?

Our associate David M. Cooper went to court last night and talked with a prosecutor I've always liked (since before he was even a prosecutor). This particular prosecutor made a remark to David, saying "Warren thinks everyone is innocent."I am quite flattered by this remark. There's this long-standing phrase that sticks with me -- "innocent until proven guilty."Now I am aware of the reality that

Reckless Driving

We've been seeing more reckless driving cases lately. Maybe summer does that. So I added a page on that topic to the firm website. Often the reckless driving charge comes from a high speed alone, which should not be enough for that offense (VTL 1212).We have been getting a fair number of cases with AUO - Aggravated Unlicensed Operation, so I added a page on that too.

Albany DWI Crackdown Coming

Today's Times Union reports there will be a crackdown on DWI for 10 days around July 4th, running from Friday through July 8th.We're already busy, getting a lot of DWI cases in the Albany area recently. Due to what we've been seeing lately, and with the latest changes in DWI laws, I added two pages to our website, one on Aggravated DWI and the other on DWAI.We keep winning DWI cases. Just got a

New Jersey Traffic Courts to enforce a new law

As you can read about in the follwing link, New Jersey assembly has found a new way to make traffic courts busier without accomplishing much. In short, they want a new law requiring new residents to register their vehicles in NJ right away. I'm sure that will solve all New Jersey's problems. Phew!Meanwhile, the busy New Jersey traffic courts, such as Jersey City Municipal Court will take care of

Avvo - Lawsuit over Attorney rating website

There's an interesting lawsuit going on right now for those who are interested in lawyers and the web. A website called Avvo offers ratings of lawyers. As the San Jose Mercury News and the Wall Street Journal blog explain, some lawyers who didn't like their ratings are suing to shut down the website.I'm particularly interested in this because I was thinking about creating a site, or sites, like

Binghamton City Court and the rest of Broome County

I noticed we get very little going on in Binghamton City Court. We do get a lot of speeding tickets from other traffic courts in Broome County, like Kirkwood, Barker, Dickinson, and Windsor.

Coolest website ever!!

Okay, I went a little over the top on the title, but http://media-convert.com/ is a totally cool website.I got an e-mail with an attachment in .wpd format --- an old WordPerfect file. I can't open WordPerfect files, and it's hard to find a way to do it.I went to Media Convert, uploaded the file, and it converted it and allowed me to download the file in the format of my preference. Outstanding!!

Sad Irony - A Good DWI Prosecutor Charged With DWI in Albany

I got a couple e-mail last night or this morning. My friend Joe Meany, an Assistant District Attorney in Albany, was charged with DWI. You can read some of the details (I can't verify the accuracy) in an article in the Times Union.Joe prosecutes, or perhaps I should say used to prosecute, DWI cases in Albany. My regular readers (all three of them :-) ) will be surprised to see me say this about a

Southeast Town Court and Carmel Town Court in Putnam County

In my last post I forgot to mention Southeast Town Court and Carmel Town Court in Putnam County. Our newest attorney advertiser tells me these are the busiest courts there, especially Southeast Town Court.

More traffic courts ...

I noticed that we were missing a few of the top traffic courts in the state, so I added a bunch in the last few days. Some of the more important ones are:Woodbury Town CourtTuxedo Town CourtWallkill Town CourtNewburgh Town CourtThe ball keeps rolling.

Criminal Defense Lawyers and the so-called Innocence Myth

Back in April the Wall Street Journal had a couple opinion pieces about criminal law and criminal defense lawyers. The first stressed the role of defense attorneys in the Duke Lacrosse "rape" case. The second was by a Colorado District Judge, Hon. Morris Hoffman, who discusses what he calls (and the article's title) The Innocence Myth, from 4/26/2007. I'll rip that one apart first.The big quote

An interesting blog

My blog (what you're reading now) is albany-lawyer.blogspot.com. I've been doing it since May 1, 2005. I noticed a different blog on technorati with a strikingly similar address: albanylawyer.blogspot -dot- com. The only difference is the lack of a hyphen. This almost identically-named blog appears to have been created in April of 2007. Hmm.

Bail Abuse: A Good Judicial Decision Attacked

The Times Union reported June 6th about a case in Rensselaer County where Judge Jacon released a defendant on his own recognizance. The defendant, 18 years old and local to the county, was the driver in an accident where a 19-year-old passenger was killed.The victim's mother and some elected officials in the county are upset that no bail was set. Anyone can understand the victim's mother being

Even more on attorney advertising and traffic court

Going back to my recent post on an unethical "attorney" website, I decided to do some more investigation.I faxed a note to the site's fax number saying that I had gotten a ticket in Westchester County for 96 in a 65, and that I would like a quote.I got a fax reply from "Gailia Walters," from "New York Traffic Tickets." The fax further indicates their slogan as "The Traffic Ticket Specialists."Ms.

The New Yellow Pages

As an attorney with a substantial web presence, I frequently get solicited regarding listing on other websites. This ranges from sites like "personalinjurylawyers -dot- com" on what I would call the lower end of the scale (in terms of ethics) to "lawyers -dot- com" and "findlaw -dot- com" on the higher end. I got an e-mail solicitation from lawyers-dot-com today, the text of which is below. What

Criminal Defense: No Guarantees

Prospective clients frequently ask me if I guarantee results. I do not. I get paid for the work that I do, and I do the same quality work for my clients whether we win or lose, and whether we get a good deal or a bad deal.There are lawyers out there who do "guarantee" results. For example, in Syracuse the firm Sommer & Sommer (website is trafficticketdwi -dot- com) says on their website in bold

Goofing around - Spoof News

I've got a new hobby, writing "spoof" news articles on TheSpoof.com. My favorite headline so far is Gore Gets Hummer; Tipper Sore, and my favorite story is probably Hillary Clinton Changes Name to Hilary.I'll probably recover from this illness soon.

More on attorney advertising and traffic court

I was looking at our Traffic Court directory and noticed an ad (we host Google ads through their AdSense program) from a website I'd seen before -- newjerseytraffictickets -dot- us. They're also at newyorktraffictickets -dot- us. I mentioned it before on another post about attorney websites and ethics. In short, this is a website I think is phony -- it's not really a law firm but rather a scam

Traffic Court Idiots

I hope readers will forgive my anger about this, but I'm just getting annoyed by something with our traffic court website.If you want to review a page of our site while reading this, it may be helpful. Consider Hudson City Court.Some time ago, we were getting a number of calls from people who thought we were the court. I didn't think what we were doing then was really confusing, but we still

Speeding in North Carolina

The News & Observer has an interesting series of articles on speeding in North Carolina.

New Jersey Traffic Courts

We're really making progress on the traffic court directory. Seven states are under way, and we've now got over half of New Jersey in the database. Notable courts in NJ include Trenton Municipal Court in the capital city and Jersey City Municipal Court in one of the state's largest cities - and just across from Manhattan too.But wait, there's more. We have several lawyers as prospective

Great example of our messed-up criminal justice system

Just noticed this online. If you want a great example of what's wrong with the criminal justice system in America today, check out the real meaning of sex offender. Next time you hear a politician saying we have to be tough on crime, remember who they're talking about - our kids.

Huge verdict in Albany personal injury case - $3.85 million

What a week! I had a trial in Albany (4/23 to 4/27) on a personal injury case involving a motorcycle - car accident. My client was on the motorcycle. An SUV came across the centerline and drove him into another SUV. Client's foot was partially amputated by the force of the accident itself, and he had a surgical below-the-knee amputation about 12 days later. The jury came back on Friday with a

Interesting DWI case

I had a case some time ago where my client had been arrested for DWI. I reviewed a document I refer to as "The Green Sheet." This, technically, is what's known as a DWI Bill of Particulars and Supporting Deposition. Partial images of each from this case are below. I've intentionally omitted my client's name and the name of the Trooper (I have met the Trooper many times and like him, but even if I

Off-topic - funny web ads

I saw these two web ads recently, and thought they were funny. The first is vaguely related to the blog. This appeared on screen while I was reading a gmail message. Look below that for the next one.What caught my eye was "Bed Bugs Lawyer." I give them credit for getting my attention, though I couldn't find the part of their website where they actually do these cases.The next one has nothing to

Assembly Line Justice

The New York State Bar Association had a panel discussion today on the Justice Court system, which is composed of town and village courts. There has been an ongoing look at the system, propelled in part by a series of articles in the New York Times. I mentioned that series of articles in a post on my Stop Wasting Money blog sometime ago.There were a couple of main ideas in today's discussion. One

Philadelphia Traffic Court - the delicious irony

Great story in Philadelphia. 15 candidates for traffic court judge in the Democratic primary. Of those 15, 8 owe parking fines. Three of the eight actually owe over $1000 in fines. One of the other candidates has his car registered in another county. And four candidates don't even have a car registered in their names.These are the people who may be ruling on traffic court matters in Philadelphia.

Alexa traffic rankings bias?

I keep hearing about Alexa and how Alexa ranks websites. I checked it out today. My three most "successful" websites are ranked by Alexa. This blog is in the 5 million range (i.e. there are a bit over 5 million websites that get more traffic than this blog).What I found interesting is that my law firm site, redlichlaw.com, at #1,282,824, outranks our traffic court directory site, town-court.com,

Winning and Losing for the Wrong Reasons

I wrote before about winning and losing. There I was talking about "unwinnable" and "unlosable" cases. Now I'll talk about winning and losing for the wrong reasons.Most of our work involves cases where we expect the results to be straightforward. Take personal injury cases where the client is a passenger and had a broken bone. In such cases liability is essentially clear in one respect - it's not

I've been rated ... and they actually said nice things

I got a letter the other day saying that I "have been awarded a CV Peer Review Rating by LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell, which deals with both ethical standards and legal ability. No, I'm not making this up. You can see for yourself on the Martindale Hubbell page on Warren Redlich.A CV rating "identifies a lawyer with good to high legal ability [and] is a positive indication of ... professional

Continuing Legal Education - They're getting desperate

In the picture below, you can see how desperate the New York State Bar Association has become for speakers. The topic is about starting your own practice.In all seriousness, I am honored to be listed as a speaker. I'm also excited to speak about the topic. Should be fun. Click the following to see more about: NYSBA CLE programs.

Soares - Why follow the law?

Not too long ago I did a post about David Soares, our local District Attorney. Well, he's in the news again, and this time it's not about steroids.According to the North Country Gazette, Soares failed to pay his attorney licensing fee to the State Office of Court Administration. I checked on the OCA website today, and it looks like he still hasn't paid up.To be fair, the ADAs in Albany County (

What gives with East Hampton Town Court?

Looking over the court data, it's interesting to see how some courts have a high volume but don't seem to get much attention on our website.Most notable is East Hampton Town Court, which appears to be the 13th busiest justice court in New York State, has been in our database for a while now, and yet does not make the top 500 pages. There is no interstate highway, and can't have any through

Electronic Traffic Tickets - a measure of which courts are busy

Check out this page titled: Courts where police have issued electronic traffic tickets. Unfortunately the page does not give a time frame. Are these numbers for all time? For 2006? We just don't know.But anyway, the differences can be striking. The Town of Athens had nearly 10,000 tickets, with a population of under 4000 people. The Town of Windham, in the same county, and with a population a

Town Court site keeps doing well ... Athens falloff

Our traffic court directory website continues to do well. Weekly traffic is rapidly approaching 6000 visitors. Before last week the site never had two days in a row with more than 1000 visitors (Mondays are usually the biggest day of the week). The last two weeks we've had three days in a row of 1000 visitors, and Thursday was over 970. The site has over 1000 courts now and we have all or most of

A trial lawyer moment ...

I had a trial recently, and there was one short bit of the trial that really stood out. I was cross-examining the principal witness for the prosecution, the following exchange occurred - note that Q is a question from me, and A is an Answer from the witness ...------Q. Okay. So, it's your position that she does notknow how to spell her own last name? Is that what you'retelling this Judge?A. It

The best feeling - when you get your client out of jail

I got a call from one of the attorneys who works with me here in my Albany office. We have a client who has been in jail for over a month on a probation violation. He had just been in Court (at my request) to see the judge and is now going over to the jail to pick our client up.For me, this is one of the most satisfying events I get to experience as a lawyer. I've gotten 5-digit fees on a few

Airlines lawyer up ...

We recently took a week of vacation. I'm now digging out from the pile that creates. I'm currently in the office at 10:10 pm, and don't know when I'll be going home.Anyway, on the flight down there was an interesting moment. The fasten seatbelt light was on, and I think we were either in the descent or ascent part of the flight. A passenger asked a stewardess (yes, I said stewardess not flight

Article about lawyers in the Wall Street Journal

Saw an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago and was waiting to write about it. The article is written by Cameron Stracher, titled "Meet the Clients". Stracher criticizes law schools for not teaching law students practical skills, and for "giving students the false idea that being a lawyer is all about intellectual debate."I mostly disagree with the article, but it is a

Why it's hard to be a trial lawyer

I had lunch with a friend the other day. He's one of the smartest and hardest working lawyers I know. The kind of guy who reads every decision and knows every nook and cranny of the law relevant to his field. He was telling me about a couple of cases he had. In one, he won the unwinnable case. In the other, he lost the unloseable case.We make decisions as trial lawyers. Should we have a jury

Paralegal wanted

Someone asked, so I figured I should post it here. We are looking to hire a paralegal with experience in criminal and traffic cases. See our listing on Craigslist.

Lawyer Website for sale? Frustrations of running a law firm.

I'm mostly joking with the first part of the title. I would sell redlichlaw.com if the right offer came along, but I doubt it's coming.Our law firm has been operating for nearly four years now. We've gone from Warren in a fairly small room with little revenue to what is now a very different situation. I'm now managing 2300 square feet of space in a gorgeous building. I have employees, independent

David Soares - One of the most feared and respected politicians in NY?

The 1/18/07 issue of the Metroland features Albany District Attorney David Soares on the front cover. The photo has him in a "tough" pose - arms crossed, no smile. There's a similar photo at the first page of the article, which you can also see on the online version: http://www.metroland.net/back_issues/vol30_no03/features.htmlThe cover text indicates that Soares is now "one of the most feared

Verizon idiots and debt collection, redux

See update at bottom of this post--------I posted more than a year ago about problems we had with Verizon mistakes and their debt collection practices. Like Poltergeist, they're back!Before getting into this, I should also mention a more recent post I did about debt collectors.Briefly on the older Verizon story, a long time ago in a galaxy not so far away, Verizon misspelled my name and used the

Someone should have hired a lawyer sooner ...

I'm often asked by prospective traffic ticket clients as to whether they really need a lawyer. The answer is no, but that depends on your definition of the word need. The other day I saw someone who didn't think she needed a lawyer. She was wrong, and the consequences were severe.I walked into this small-town court a few minutes after the session was supposed to start. The judge was sitting at

AdWords runaround

I've been having this odd problem with AdWords lately, and am very displeased with the folks at Google about how they've handled it so far. This isn't really lawyer stuff, so much of this will be in Greek for those who are not into SEM and PPC.First I'll describe the problem. I run a campaign targeted to the Albany-Schenectady-Troy area of New York State. One Ad Group is for keywords related to

A Call for Stimson's Head

I was tipped off to a news story about Charles Stimson, in the Defense Department, criticizing law firms who represent Guantanamo detainees. If I read the story correctly, he called for corporate CEOs to boycott these firms.The Pentagon has "disavowed" Stimson's remarks. Not enough. Stimson should not only be fired, but also disbarred.I am not a fan of large law firms. It is common among small

Our traffic court directory continues to grow

I was stunned just now. Our traffic court directory has been growing. We're over 700 courts now. Lawyers in local courts come up to me and compliment me on the site. Seems like it's helping a lot of people.Traffic to the site has been growing, and I thought we would soon have a week with 3000 visitors. I checked our statistics today and we had nearly 4000 in the past 7 days. I checked it three

I've been pretty lucky

I was thinking recently about how lucky I've been in my life. I see so many people who have so much and yet complain about their problems, which are usually trivial when compared to the problems of others. Most of us in the US have very good lives compared to certain parts of the rest of the world.How have I been lucky? For starters, I was born into a family that cares about me. I don't just mean

Sad thought - human suffering

I'm not sad at the moment, but I was nearly overwhelmed recently when I thought about the volume of cases I see in the courts. I'm not talking about the amount of cases we have. We're quite busy, but that's a good thing for us.I was just noticing how many people I see in court. In a typical week I might go to a several courts. In a two-day swing I was in Albany City Court - Criminal Part, plus

The face of a DWI defendant

Today's Wall Street Journal has a great article by Michael M. Phillips about a marine dealing with the loss of a fellow soldier who fell on a grenade for him. The article mentions somewhat briefly this marine's arrest in a drunk driving incident and the consequences he faces. If you can access that article, it puts a good human face on a DWI defendant. Our current system dehumanizes defendants in

Another judge with a policy

I just recently did a post criticizing the notion of judges having policies. So I was in Court the other night and had another such encounter.This again is a judge I like, arguably one of my favorites. He has a warm personality, a good sense of humor, respects not only the lawyers but the people who come before him as well. He also has policies, or at least one policy.My client was accused of