Movin' on up!!

It's final. We're moving. We'll be leaving 1736-A Western Avenue on April 30th, and moving into 255 Washington Avenue Extension, Suite 108. The image above is of a nearby building that looks similar.Our current space is a tolerable building in the parking lot of a restaurant. The building is poorly insulated and not very well maintained. The problems range from potholes to the super-loud

More about prosecutors

[Note: In light of a complaint, I have edited this post. Changes are in [brackets]].I've blogged about prosecutors a few times - a good example is the prosecutor mentality post.Well now I'm going to lay into a particular DA's office that has gotten quite a bit of bad press recently - The Rensselaer County DA's office. The DA is a friend of mine from law school. Most of the complaints I've heard

DWI Victory!!

I previously blogged about a couple of DWI cases I have going. One is where my client's car broke down, he walked home, a neighbor called the police, and he was arrested about 45 minutes later from inside his home without a warrant. We moved to suppress the arrest as a Payton violation (warrantless arrests in the home prohibited without both probable cause and "exigent circumstances"). About two

Harvard finally noticed me ...

I still can't believe anyone reads my blog. There seems to have been a surge lately. I got a call from two reporters from local papers in the last month or so, plus a call from a reporter from Fortune Magazine. One local reporter was writing about local businesses that use blogs. The other two were writing about speeding ticket issues. And today I got a nice e-mail from a guy who writes a blog on

Cruise ship fire - Princess Star - and my in-laws

This has nothing to do with being a lawyer in Albany, not even close, but it's interesting nonetheless.My wife's parents went on a cruise a few days ago and my wife read that there was a fire on the ship. The Albany Times Union has a story about it.The good news, as far as my family is concerned anyway, is that my in-laws were apparently not injured.The interesting part is the phony effort by

The busy lawyer

One paradox lawyers face is being busy. If you're not busy, you might go broke. If you are busy, you're too busy, you don't have a life, and your wife gets mad at you.I know I'm busy at the moment because I'm pulling an all-nighter trying to catch up on all my paperwork. I am making a dent, but at 3:44 am on a Sunday morning (i.e. I started Saturday night), you start to wonder if you're too

Speeding tickets in New York - On the horizon

Another new thing coming, and a lot sooner than the Extreme DUI I mentioned in my last post, is a change in how New York State Trooper tickets will be handled in local courts.One of my best friends is a Trooper. The other day we were out and he mentioned this coming change. I've talked to a few other Troopers and a couple of attorneys about it and it sounds like it's for real. ... Oh, you're

Extreme DUI - Coming soon?

I attended a seminar for New York DWI lawyers. A great program that covered a lot of topics. One new development nationally is a concept called Extreme DUI. The idea is to increase penalties when the person's blood alcohol content (BAC) is over a certain level.Arizona has already adopted Extreme DUI. You can read a bit about their DUI laws on this page from the Arizona Governor's Office of

Town Court website

I'm pleased to report that our new version of the town court directory website is up and running. The site is a directory of local courts. We're starting with New York town courts. It should take a month or two to get all the courts for NY up. Next will be other states, probably starting with NJ and MA.For now we have several pages up for town courts in Albany County, and a few other