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 areas of law, mainly representing individuals.

Certain personal traits are notable. Monkey is often quite passionate about his cases, and will discuss them with other attorneys. After about one minute of such a conversation, the other attorney will usually have noticed two or three flaws in Monkey's argument, but most are polite enough not to tell him. He's also a very energetic person, possibly with some amount of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. -- No, I'm not a doctor and am not qualified to make a diagnosis. I'm just having fun here. -- Conversations are frequently interrupted as Monkey's mind wanders to another topic about which he is equally passionate and equally clueless.

Monkey is also a strong self-promoter and proud of his tremendous financial success. In my limited time with him I have heard about literally millions of dollars he's made recently. Despite this his office and accoutrements never seem impressive. You'd think the guy would be driving a Ferrari by now.

Monkey is also prone to making extremely negative comments about other attorneys. This is generally because they actually represent their clients and defend them vigorously, apparently unaware they are depriving Monkey's clients of their entitlements. He also complains about judges.

In my experience, most other lawyers are familiar with Monkey and do not like him at all. I would bet many judges feel the same. His is a life I wouldn't want.

A couple of other things I should mention. First, Monkey dresses in an odd manner. If he's wearing a suit, there's something just not right about it. Maybe an accessory that just doesn't go. And if he's not wearing a suit, then there's something else weird, perhaps strange headgear. Second, Monkey has the second hottest wife of any lawyer in Albany. No one can figure out how he landed her. I'd say he paid for her, but I don't think he could afford that price.

Of course, I have the hottest wife, and all of my friends have gone bald from scratching their heads trying to figure out what she sees in me. :-)

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 Court in Rockville.

I haven't really figured out yet what the deal is with CT courts. Judicial District courts are really also part of the "Superior Court" system, with the other part being "Geographical Area" courts. I think the traffic cases are in the J.D. courts and other things happen in the G.A. courts, but I don't have that for certain yet. Comments on this are more than welcome.

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 Quincy court is the busiest in the state, though I'm sure there are arguments about that. Boston as a whole is almost surely busier, but it's broken up into several different traffic courts within Suffolk County.

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 tonight I actually watched nearly all of the Mets game where Tom Glavine got his 300th win. That's a pretty big weekend of watching sports on TV for me.

Especially with Bonds' home run chase, I've been following these events more than usual. Bonds has been quite controversial, though I think people are making way too much of the controversy. Maybe he took steroids, and maybe he didn't. I don't think that has much to do with his results on the field. If you believe the talk about steroids, everyone in baseball was using them (or at least a lot of players), and not that many hit home runs like Bonds.

Hitting a baseball thrown by a major league pitcher is a very difficult thing to do. Steroids do not improve your vision, your patience, your hand-eye coordination, etc. Barry Bonds should be celebrated for his accomplishment. It's disappointing to see how he's mistreated by the media and many fans.

I rarely talk about race, but I do think there's something about it here. Pete Rose is fairly popular among baseball fans. I did a little research and Rose consistently does well in polls as to whether he should be reinstated and in the Hall of Fame. Bonds does much worse in comparable polling. This even though betting on baseball (Rose's transgression) is at least as bad as steroid use, and worse in my opinion. It's hard to explain the difference between Bonds and Rose and how they're treated, except for one thing. Bonds is black and Rose is white.

Pete Rose and Barry Bonds have had fantastic careers, and both should be in the Hall of Fame (Bonds when his time comes, Rose immediately).

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 short story is that a document was filed with the Board of Elections designating me as one of the two Republican candidates (along with Mark Grimm) for Guilderland Town Board. You can read more about our campaign at my new Guilderland NY website.

Mike Ricard filed an "objection" with the board of elections, and then followed that by suing me (along with a host of others). All of this to keep Guilderland voters from having a choice in the election.

I ran against Mike McNulty twice. He never challenged my petitions and always ran a good, clean race. I don't agree with his voting record and political philosophy, but he's a decent guy and he respects the voters.

So, over the course of the next few weeks (return date on the Order to Show Cause is August 22nd), readers of the Albany Lawyer blog may get a taste of Election Law. Hope we all learn something.