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 different ways to be sure. Quite a burst. The police must have been writing a lot of tickets in the last couple of weeks.
-----
Brief update -- for the seven-day period from 1/6 to 1/12, we actually had almost 4200 visitors. Some were repeats, so the "absolute unique visitors" total was a bit over 3700. I think we were reindexed by Google so more of the courts in the database are showing up on searches. The 500th most visited page on the site, for Pawling Village Court in Dutchess County, had 3 unique visitors in that 7-day span, and the tie for last (1 unique visitor) was held by 130 pages. Over 190 pages on the site had 10 or more unique visitors. The top page (which shows the list of counties in New York State) had 740 unique visitors. This last statistic is quite interesting, as it means that 80% of the visitors came into the site without touching the main page. This is even more dramatic with my law firm site, where a bit over 10% of unique visitors go to the main page. Many websites focus on their main page and expect most traffic to come in that way.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
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 my parents, but include my brothers, grandparents, uncles and aunts, and cousins. My parents, in particular, were very good to me. My father was in many ways my best friend. My mother and brother continue in that, along with my wife. My entire family cared about making sure I got an education. They made sure I understood some of the fundamental values that I can't quite put my finger on, but are at the core of my being and keep me grounded. I've also had some very good friends over the years.
As a criminal defense lawyer, I often encounter clients who lack that important base. Their parents didn't care about them in the same way. They don't have a place where they feel safe, secure and loved, and they never had it. Perhaps they were abused in some way. This is not necessarily true of all our clients, but it's not unusual at all among criminal defendants.
I was lucky to be born in the United States. Sometimes I think Americans just don't realize how good we have it. My foreign travel experience is mostly limited to 1st world countries in Western Europe and East Asia. While these places are mostly pleasant, we still have it better. I forgot to mention Canada. For me Canada is really the same as us, but that's way off topic and maybe I'll discuss that another day. Getting back to this point, we in the US are blessed with abundance like nowhere else on earth. First and foremost, we have so much land. As we build our town court directory, I am frequently struck by the towns that have 40 square miles of land and less than 1000 people. Our country as a whole has 3.7 million square miles, which is 2.4 billion acres. We have 300 million people, for an average of 8 acres per person. That is simply astonishing. France, which has lots of rural areas, is 3-4 times as crowded, with Germany and the UK about 8 times and Japan more than 10 times as crowded as us.
But our abundance is not limited to land. We are wealthy. Our per-capita income is roughly third in the world behind Luxembourg and Norway, and Ireland right behind us. Japan, Germany, the UK and France all have 75% or less of our income. I would argue that we are still wealthier than the others in many respects.
One often hears complaints about inequality in the US, but the poorest here have better health care than much of the rest of the world, and certainly better than what the richest had 100 years ago. I was at the home of a rather poor client a couple years ago. While this large family shared a small apartment, they had running water, phone, cable TV, internet, and plenty of other resources that are often unavailable to the upper middle class in poor countries.
I was lucky to find the right woman for me. My wife Heather is really a perfect fit for me, in so many ways. I'll keep this part short and just say I married well. We have also been lucky to have healthy children and a family that continues to be supportive. We have even been lucky in having wonderful neighbors.
That's a good background on how I was lucky from the beginning. Other brief mentions are being born with good test-taking skills and having had good health (knock on wood).
And I've been lucky in other ways. For my career, I was lucky to have a father who was a law professor. This made the path to becoming a lawyer easier than it is for others. My dad was very helpful in so many ways in the process of becoming a lawyer.
You could argue I was unlucky in the timing of my graduation. It was a bad year for new lawyers. There just weren't many jobs. But eventually I lucked into a job as a trial lawyer with Allstate. This was just plain dumb luck. The guy they wanted to hire failed a credit check, so the job fell into my lap. It was a great job for me - fantastic experience.
Next, I got a job with a judge. Not just any judge, but a great guy, extremely intelligent, and a good boss - the now-retired Hon. Robert P. Best. Not only that, but the job was in Fulton County, which was a great community for me. I got to see a lot of solo and small office practitioners and that gave me the confidence to open my own shop.
This is where luck becomes really palpable at the moment. When I opened my own office, I didn't have that much work. I knew how to create a website and have a brother who has been quite helpful in that process. When I started I didn't know that the website would be significant in the practice, but since I didn't have that much else to do, I worked on it some.
My practice was going along okay, but I was not making much money. I started getting a few clients from the website and - I'll give myself some credit here - I paid attention to what brought them to the site. Once I realized what was working, I started building on that.
Still, the money situation wasn't great. When tax time hit in April of 2005, I had to borrow on credit cards (zero interest, but still nerve-wracking) and was looking at the help-wanted section of the local paper. Then the website really started to hit. Starting in July of 2005 and through January of 2006, we really started getting some substantial and consistent revenue online. And that pretty much gets me to where I am today.
The web thing was lucky in a couple of ways. First, I had no idea it was going to work this well. Second, the web happened to click around the time I started my practice. If I had started 2 years earlier, I probably would not have made it. 2 years later and others would have gotten there first.
When I started this post I never thought about the conclusion, and still haven't figured it out. So that's it. :-)
How have I been lucky? For starters, I was born into a family that cares about me. I don't just mean my parents, but include my brothers, grandparents, uncles and aunts, and cousins. My parents, in particular, were very good to me. My father was in many ways my best friend. My mother and brother continue in that, along with my wife. My entire family cared about making sure I got an education. They made sure I understood some of the fundamental values that I can't quite put my finger on, but are at the core of my being and keep me grounded. I've also had some very good friends over the years.
As a criminal defense lawyer, I often encounter clients who lack that important base. Their parents didn't care about them in the same way. They don't have a place where they feel safe, secure and loved, and they never had it. Perhaps they were abused in some way. This is not necessarily true of all our clients, but it's not unusual at all among criminal defendants.
I was lucky to be born in the United States. Sometimes I think Americans just don't realize how good we have it. My foreign travel experience is mostly limited to 1st world countries in Western Europe and East Asia. While these places are mostly pleasant, we still have it better. I forgot to mention Canada. For me Canada is really the same as us, but that's way off topic and maybe I'll discuss that another day. Getting back to this point, we in the US are blessed with abundance like nowhere else on earth. First and foremost, we have so much land. As we build our town court directory, I am frequently struck by the towns that have 40 square miles of land and less than 1000 people. Our country as a whole has 3.7 million square miles, which is 2.4 billion acres. We have 300 million people, for an average of 8 acres per person. That is simply astonishing. France, which has lots of rural areas, is 3-4 times as crowded, with Germany and the UK about 8 times and Japan more than 10 times as crowded as us.
But our abundance is not limited to land. We are wealthy. Our per-capita income is roughly third in the world behind Luxembourg and Norway, and Ireland right behind us. Japan, Germany, the UK and France all have 75% or less of our income. I would argue that we are still wealthier than the others in many respects.
One often hears complaints about inequality in the US, but the poorest here have better health care than much of the rest of the world, and certainly better than what the richest had 100 years ago. I was at the home of a rather poor client a couple years ago. While this large family shared a small apartment, they had running water, phone, cable TV, internet, and plenty of other resources that are often unavailable to the upper middle class in poor countries.
I was lucky to find the right woman for me. My wife Heather is really a perfect fit for me, in so many ways. I'll keep this part short and just say I married well. We have also been lucky to have healthy children and a family that continues to be supportive. We have even been lucky in having wonderful neighbors.
That's a good background on how I was lucky from the beginning. Other brief mentions are being born with good test-taking skills and having had good health (knock on wood).
And I've been lucky in other ways. For my career, I was lucky to have a father who was a law professor. This made the path to becoming a lawyer easier than it is for others. My dad was very helpful in so many ways in the process of becoming a lawyer.
You could argue I was unlucky in the timing of my graduation. It was a bad year for new lawyers. There just weren't many jobs. But eventually I lucked into a job as a trial lawyer with Allstate. This was just plain dumb luck. The guy they wanted to hire failed a credit check, so the job fell into my lap. It was a great job for me - fantastic experience.
Next, I got a job with a judge. Not just any judge, but a great guy, extremely intelligent, and a good boss - the now-retired Hon. Robert P. Best. Not only that, but the job was in Fulton County, which was a great community for me. I got to see a lot of solo and small office practitioners and that gave me the confidence to open my own shop.
This is where luck becomes really palpable at the moment. When I opened my own office, I didn't have that much work. I knew how to create a website and have a brother who has been quite helpful in that process. When I started I didn't know that the website would be significant in the practice, but since I didn't have that much else to do, I worked on it some.
My practice was going along okay, but I was not making much money. I started getting a few clients from the website and - I'll give myself some credit here - I paid attention to what brought them to the site. Once I realized what was working, I started building on that.
Still, the money situation wasn't great. When tax time hit in April of 2005, I had to borrow on credit cards (zero interest, but still nerve-wracking) and was looking at the help-wanted section of the local paper. Then the website really started to hit. Starting in July of 2005 and through January of 2006, we really started getting some substantial and consistent revenue online. And that pretty much gets me to where I am today.
The web thing was lucky in a couple of ways. First, I had no idea it was going to work this well. Second, the web happened to click around the time I started my practice. If I had started 2 years earlier, I probably would not have made it. 2 years later and others would have gotten there first.
When I started this post I never thought about the conclusion, and still haven't figured it out. So that's it. :-)
Sunday, January 07, 2007
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 Colonie and Guilderland, and I think one other court.
In each of these courts there might be 100 or more cases going that particular night. Then you start to think ... Guilderland has criminal court one night a week. That means 50 nights times 100 people -- 5000 people a year. Hmm. Colonie has two or three nights a week, with two courtrooms, so that's probably over 10,000 a year. And then you get to Albany. Criminal Part is packed to the gills every day. There are two sessions, morning and afternoon. And there are three courtrooms - though usually no more than two are busy. So maybe that's 50,000 people a year. Many are repeats, or repeat visits on the same offense, but it's still a lot of people. And I'm not including the speeding ticket cases either.
But that isn't what got to me. It was when I started thinking about all the towns and villages across New York State - there are so many places like Rotterdam, Clifton Park, Utica, and so on - and then across the country. I'm not big enough to think globally so I was just overwhelmed by the volume in NY and the US.
All these marijuana cases, petit larcenies, DWIs, assaults, domestic violence, etc. Something is just wrong. Are too many things being brought into criminal courts? Yes, I think so. But even with that, much of what happens is the result of people having some kind of problem. And what gets into the courts is the tip of the iceberg. Our courts are in many ways an indicator of human suffering, and it looks like there's a lot of it going on.
With all my criticisms of judges and prosecutors, etc., I give a lot of credit to them for wading through this tide of human suffering on a daily basis. Public defenders too. It's not nearly as hard on me as it must be on all of them.
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 Colonie and Guilderland, and I think one other court.
In each of these courts there might be 100 or more cases going that particular night. Then you start to think ... Guilderland has criminal court one night a week. That means 50 nights times 100 people -- 5000 people a year. Hmm. Colonie has two or three nights a week, with two courtrooms, so that's probably over 10,000 a year. And then you get to Albany. Criminal Part is packed to the gills every day. There are two sessions, morning and afternoon. And there are three courtrooms - though usually no more than two are busy. So maybe that's 50,000 people a year. Many are repeats, or repeat visits on the same offense, but it's still a lot of people. And I'm not including the speeding ticket cases either.
But that isn't what got to me. It was when I started thinking about all the towns and villages across New York State - there are so many places like Rotterdam, Clifton Park, Utica, and so on - and then across the country. I'm not big enough to think globally so I was just overwhelmed by the volume in NY and the US.
All these marijuana cases, petit larcenies, DWIs, assaults, domestic violence, etc. Something is just wrong. Are too many things being brought into criminal courts? Yes, I think so. But even with that, much of what happens is the result of people having some kind of problem. And what gets into the courts is the tip of the iceberg. Our courts are in many ways an indicator of human suffering, and it looks like there's a lot of it going on.
With all my criticisms of judges and prosecutors, etc., I give a lot of credit to them for wading through this tide of human suffering on a daily basis. Public defenders too. It's not nearly as hard on me as it must be on all of them.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
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 all sorts of cases. The populist bashing is particularly severe for DWI cases. Maybe, just maybe, this one article will help the general public recognize that "tough on crime" means being harsh on people.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
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 shoplifting (petit larceny), allegedly stealing a fairly small amount of merchandise from a local store. We worked out a deal with a very pleasant and fair prosecutor where my client would do a rather substantial amount of community service as part of an ACOD. The client had a completely clean record, is a good student, etc. So clean in fact that he was literally trembling for most of the time we were in court. This was possibly the most terrified client I've ever had.
We approached the bench and the judge informed us that he doesn't do ACODs on petit larceny cases. That sounds a lot like a policy. I made a further effort, going into some detail about why it was appropriate in this case. I think he actually thought about it, as he did hesitate for a minute and seemed to be thinking about it, but he fell back on his policy of no ACODs on petit larceny.
The legislature sets policy. It has established CPL 170.55 (and 170.56 for marijuana). In my not-so-humble opinion, judges should evaluate each case on a case-by-case basis to see whether the broad circumstances suggest an ACOD would be appropriate. The nature of the offense should not be a significant factor, because the legislature has set this provision for all misdemeanors and lesser offenses. Nothing in the statute gives judges authority to make their own policy decisions about which offenses are unworthy.
The idea is (or at least it should be if Warren ran the world - all who know me shudder at that thought) that the defense lawyer, prosecutor and judge review the defendant's background, criminal history, and various factors such as grades, mental health, strength of the case, etc. If the defendant has a clean record, gets good grades or does good work at their job, and otherwise seems like a good person, then an ACOD is like a warning without leaving a damaging stain on the defendant's record. If the defendant has a mental health issue, then treatment for that issue can be a part of the ACOD. Community service can also be a condition of ACODs under 170.55 (but in my opinion, not under 170.56), and may be appropriate to make sure the "good, clean" defendant gets a clear message that what they did was not acceptable and make sure the message sticks.
I'd say it would be nice if the legislature did a better job of setting clear standards for ACODs, but they'd probably just make things worse. When I gripe about judges, remember they have to deal with poorly written laws. These are good people doing the best they can with the junk the legislature puts out there, and the problems society sticks in their courtrooms.
I'd like it if there were a bit more sympathy and understanding for first-offenders who appear to be otherwise good people, but the politics of criminal law mean that judges and prosecutors have to be "tough on crime." Just remember next time you hear some politician saying that - they're not just referring to rapists and murderers, where things are already quite tough. They're referring to your kid, your sister, your brother, and maybe even you. We don't need to get tough on crime. We need to get smart on crime, and especially on dealing with mental health.
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 shoplifting (petit larceny), allegedly stealing a fairly small amount of merchandise from a local store. We worked out a deal with a very pleasant and fair prosecutor where my client would do a rather substantial amount of community service as part of an ACOD. The client had a completely clean record, is a good student, etc. So clean in fact that he was literally trembling for most of the time we were in court. This was possibly the most terrified client I've ever had.
We approached the bench and the judge informed us that he doesn't do ACODs on petit larceny cases. That sounds a lot like a policy. I made a further effort, going into some detail about why it was appropriate in this case. I think he actually thought about it, as he did hesitate for a minute and seemed to be thinking about it, but he fell back on his policy of no ACODs on petit larceny.
The legislature sets policy. It has established CPL 170.55 (and 170.56 for marijuana). In my not-so-humble opinion, judges should evaluate each case on a case-by-case basis to see whether the broad circumstances suggest an ACOD would be appropriate. The nature of the offense should not be a significant factor, because the legislature has set this provision for all misdemeanors and lesser offenses. Nothing in the statute gives judges authority to make their own policy decisions about which offenses are unworthy.
The idea is (or at least it should be if Warren ran the world - all who know me shudder at that thought) that the defense lawyer, prosecutor and judge review the defendant's background, criminal history, and various factors such as grades, mental health, strength of the case, etc. If the defendant has a clean record, gets good grades or does good work at their job, and otherwise seems like a good person, then an ACOD is like a warning without leaving a damaging stain on the defendant's record. If the defendant has a mental health issue, then treatment for that issue can be a part of the ACOD. Community service can also be a condition of ACODs under 170.55 (but in my opinion, not under 170.56), and may be appropriate to make sure the "good, clean" defendant gets a clear message that what they did was not acceptable and make sure the message sticks.
I'd say it would be nice if the legislature did a better job of setting clear standards for ACODs, but they'd probably just make things worse. When I gripe about judges, remember they have to deal with poorly written laws. These are good people doing the best they can with the junk the legislature puts out there, and the problems society sticks in their courtrooms.
I'd like it if there were a bit more sympathy and understanding for first-offenders who appear to be otherwise good people, but the politics of criminal law mean that judges and prosecutors have to be "tough on crime." Just remember next time you hear some politician saying that - they're not just referring to rapists and murderers, where things are already quite tough. They're referring to your kid, your sister, your brother, and maybe even you. We don't need to get tough on crime. We need to get smart on crime, and especially on dealing with mental health.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)