The scourge of lawyer advertising

Because if you've been injured, somebody somewhere owes you money:

Unscrupulous? Perhaps.

Feige rising

From the ABA Journal:

The Defense Rests

David Feige has come a long way from his days as a New York City public defender. But the Hollywood wunderkind seems to have a hard time leaving it all behind. All you need to do is ask, and he’ll tell you that the criminal defense system is broken and members of his former profession are never portrayed accurately. Feige is hoping the public will finally get the real picture with his new television drama, called Raising the Bar...

Yes, but, if only the lawyers in the promo weren't all so damn telegenic...

"It's lawyers, but, you know... they really care"

Courtesy of "Mad Men," a show I didn't know about, possibly because when it went off the air, I was 4: "The Defenders":

The Defenders was American television's seminal legal drama, and perhaps the most socially-conscious series the medium has ever seen... The series concerned the cases of a father-and-son team of defense attorneys, Lawrence Preston (E.G. Marshall), the sharp veteran litigator, and his green and idealistic son Kenneth (Robert Reed)... Certainly The Defenders exploited the inherent drama of the courtroom, but it did so by mining the complexity of the law, its moral and ethical implications, and its human dimensions...

Must-see P.D. TV

A preview of Feige's big TV series, Raising the Bar:

I say: All about public defenders fighting the good fight against the system while everyone else gets annoyed by their whiny do-gooder attitudes and cheap haircuts. Embarrassingly enjoyable...

More love for Feige

From Newsday:

Seton Hall law prof teams with 'NYPD Blue' producer on TNT series

After pouring his heart and soul into a 2006 book about his experiences as a public defender in the Bronx, David Feige knew exactly who he wanted to shepherd the project to the small screen... Feige, a professor at Seton Hall University's School of Law, wrote (Steven) Bochco an impassioned letter enumerating the reasons he wanted to work with him. It convinced Bochco, and the result is "Raising The Bar," scheduled for 10 episodes on TNT this fall...

The Wire has a proud ex - p.d. for a fan

In summing up "The Wire," Postlapsarian recalls a previous line of work:

I mean one of the reasons why I chose to be a public defender was to get immersed in a gritty world that I wouldn’t normally be a part of — and I wanted that to be conveyed realistically.

The Wire is the first and only show to do it... Amazing. If they had The Wire on while I was in law school, I think I would have all five seasons of it and not gone into criminal law at all...

"The Wire": Götterdämmerung

Farewell to "The Wire," this time for real, and welcome to our new criminal defense colleague, Cedric Daniels.

Sunday night priorities

Reasons why I took the John Edwards button off the blog:

- didn't want to split the crucial A & C readers' anti-Hillary voting bloc;

- "Obama Loves the Wire; I Now Love Obama."

Excellent return of "The Wire" tonight, with an extra something for us criminal defense types: they turned Herc, one of the biggest mooks on the force, into an investigator for the Barksdales' old lawyer. Decidedly not family viewing, though: before the show this evening, the son and I took in some live "Neverending Story" together instead.

"It's a Mountie thing"

Due South? Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP, relocated to the States, remember that show?

"You are innocent," Fraser tells Willie. "The police have no reason to incarcerate you." And the public defender... says tiredly, "Not from around here, are you?"

I liked that show.

Bochco, Feige lens p.d. pilot

The Indefensible Man's TV show is going before the cameras! From Ashleigh Raine:

This was the first day of filming for this pilot and I gotta say... if I hadn’t been told, I never would’ve known that this was day one. It was waaaaaay smooth. I played a ‘public defender’ in an office setting... If this pilot actually airs, I’ll likely be in it. I counter-crossed Mark-Paul Gosselaar a few times.

Best thing since Cop Rock!

The David Feige media juggernaut rumbles to the next level! From The Hollywood Reporter:

Bochco drama has legal dream team

Jane Kaczmarek, Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Gloria Reuben lead the cast of Steven Bochco's new legal drama for TNT. Also cast in the untitled project, which was picked up to pilot in April, are Melissa Sagemiller, Currie Graham, Teddy Sears, J. August Richards and Jonathan Scarfe.

Written by Bochco and lawyer-writer David Feige, author of the 2006 book "Indefensible," the ABC Studios/Steven Bochco Prods.-produced drama revolves around young lawyers who have been friends since law school but now work on opposing sides...

Yay, Feige!

Prisonville 96130

From Sentencing Law and Policy, word of this upcoming installment of PBS' POV series, "Prison Town, USA":

What happens when a struggling rural community tries to revive its economy by inviting prisons in? The story of four families living in a modern-day prison town, as told in "Prison Town, USA," is a riveting look at one of the most striking phenomena of our times: a prison-building and incarceration boom unprecedented in American history...

...(A)n article called "An American Seduction" by Joelle Fraser (download a PDF file of the article)... very vividly captured what the town feels like. People in Susanville say it's a world of cops and cons...

Watch the trailer.

I knew someone who spent some formative years in Susanville; how the place has changed.

Parents in the pen

One advantage of living with a seven-year-old: I know that tonight Nickelodeon is showing "Kids of Cons," a news program on children with parents in prison, including one kid from Tacoma.

The promo's up now, but after tonight the whole 22 minute feature should be available for streaming at the Nick News site.

(and now you also know whatever happened to Linda Ellerbee, now host of Nick News, and once co-host of the coolest TV news show ever, NBC News Overnight)

Gee, Officer Krupke

Thanks, KCTS, I needed that.

"When kids get life"

An unsolicited unpaid advertisement: (Clicking on the picture will link to the show's PBS Frontline website. Coincidentally, on Monday I'm starting a trial where my 15-year-old client faces "juvy life": JRA incarceration until his 21st birthday.)

Kyle Sampson: the executioner's song

Slate calls him "the reluctant executioner." Crooks and Liars has links to video highlights from TPM Muckraker of D. Kyle Sampson's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Such hubris going in, and then:

the culmination of the hearing, where a very, very tired Kyle Sampson admits that if he had it to do all over again, well...

Surely this has been hard on the fired USA's and their families, too, but I'm feeling a twinge of sympathy for the presumptuous little hack, variations of whom I've known from grade school through law school and beyond.

WA: Stephen Colbert analyzes my congressman on TV

The Colbert Report salutes the Washington 3rd, birthplace of grunge and the Vancouver Sausage Fest, featuring advice from Brian Baird (D-WA) on where to find the best recipes for home-made meth.

WA: TVW open house, Guantánamo lawyer interview

This weekend Joseph and I went to the new studios of TVW, Washington State's version of C-SPAN. Joe got to check out both sides of the camera. I thought that Joe handled his interview well, and stuck to his talking points in the face of some tough questioning. When asked, have you ever watched TVW, he said "no." Asked if he would watch TVW if they carried Pokémon, Joe said "yes."

There's law-related news on "The Docket," TVW's legal affairs program, if you're into that sort of thing, not to mention Washington Supreme Court action.

Seeing as how it's five years to the day when "Guantánamo" started becoming synonymous with "Gulag," perhaps you'd be interested in this month's Docket episode, featuring an interview with LCDR Charles Swift, one of the lead attorneys in Hamdan (extended (as in almost an hour long) video of the Swift interview is available here as a Windows Media file).

ND: "it's almost schizophrenic..."

From North Dakota, video of the former DA put in charge of the statewide p.d. system, and a few upbeat words from one of her deputies. From KXMB:

North Dakota Opens New Public Defender Offices

"We're all state employees, full-time attorneys, working actually against the state. It's almost schizophrenic, the state hires us to fight the criminal process."

"The tricky thing about doing contract work is that a criminal contract is a bit like a cancer, it grows, it consumes all of your time and so it basically takes over your practice so that your private cases can suffer."

Let's see: comparing our public defender work to schizophrenia and private p.d. work to cancer, stressing how unpopular our job is... somebody could use a hug (and some p.r. training).

Bonus link goes to Vera Institute for some ways to argue how public defender offices are a positive for the community.

Santa's son defended by p.d.

I wouldn't have believed it, but I saw it on cable - a Christmas movie for (Christmas - celebrating) public defenders and their kids:

Santa Jr.

This family holiday film concerns Chris Kringle, Jr. who unfortunately gets picked up by two cops while trying to deliver gifts. While he's under arrest and interviewed by his public defender (Lauren Holly), she starts to believe in his story and wants to help save Christmas...

Kind of goofy, but a feel-good movie with a p.d. and an elf? And something my seven-year-old can watch and say, that's what Daddy does? And did I mention that the public defender learns to love again? You can catch all that and more on the Hallmark Channel on December 23.