There hasn't been a photo of a courthouse put up here in well over a year. I missed my opportunity to do that, fragrantly, when I tried a case in the State of Colorado's Denver District Court a couple of months ago. I spent the whole week in and around the courthouse and never took a photograph of it.
In my slight defense, I couldn't remember if I'd photographed it before, from the outside. I had not. I should have, just as a precaution. And because it's a beautiful courthouse, and because I was also inside it, which I hadn't been.
I was busy, and just didn't.
It's a shame to, as the courthouse in and of itself gives us a real view of how things were in the law, and how they now are.
As odd as that may seem, that's my introduction for a blog post I'm linking in here, which is the following.
GERALD RUSSELLO, R.I.P.
I suggest you read the post. It's about somebody who was obviously very decent.
Normally I wouldn't post that here. If I were to do so, it would be on one of our companion blogs, but I'm doing this here as lawyers work in courthouses and well it just feels like it should be here.
Part of the reason the last photograph of a courthouse that was put up here is so long ago has to do with COVID 19. The last photo was in February 2019. Now, there weren't any from February for the rest of that year either, so its not all due to COVID 19. Truth be known, I've taken photos of nearly every courthouse in Wyoming, with two exceptions I can think of, and there are very few let in the state to photograph as a result. I was also taking a lot of photographs of out of state courthouses, but I had a lull in travel to new places in 2019 and then 2020 effectively was the year of no travel. Indeed, I haven't been on an airplane since some time in 2019, due to COVID 19. It's been a huge change in my work habits.
And not only in mine, but in everyone's. Now some lawyers are so acclimated to Zoom depositions they'll take nothing else. I had hoped that would go away, as I hate them. It shows no signs of doing so, however. We may be stuck with Zoom depos and the age of lawyer travel may be over forever. It'll probably sound odd for me to say it, as I'm not a natural traveler, but I miss that part of the practice.
Anyhow, another thing I've really been noticing since COVID 19 is the decline, and changes, at least in my view, in all sorts of things law related. Some people are having a really hard time simply resuming work. Finding new lawyers to come to work for a firm has become increasingly difficult and some young lawyers don't seem to want to really work at all, at not least in private practice.
And I've become disgusted with lawyer hypocrisy.
On the day I read this, which is to say today, I already read the news about a lawsuit being filed which contains a lie. I know one of the lawyers associated with that complaint, and back when we were in law school that lawyer would have dismissed any concept that they'd file a suit containing a lie, but now its happened. I'm not going further into it, but this sort of thing is appalling.
Just the other day I sat through a CLE in which another lawyer I know made a statement about how lawyers are essentially the guardians of society and advance what needs to be advanced in society. After a year in which plenty of lawyers were associated with an effort to advance a political fabrication, that's at least open to question, but at the same time, the courts deserve enormous praise, and they're part of the law, for keeping that from occurring. The legal profession can and should be really proud of that while, at the same time, we should be deeply ashamed of those members of our profession who acted in an antidemocratic manner.
Also at that CLE I heard another lawyer speak about how he became a lawyer as he loved cross-examination. I don't know if I buy that. How would you know if you loved cross examination if you weren't a lawyer already? It's like claiming you love saudero tacos if you've only ever had Taco Bell. Come on. Anyhow, that sort of thing gets to me.
I've tried lots of cases over the years, but it bothers me when people claim they love destroying people on the stand. I've done it, and I've seen it done. Recalling it as a war story is one thing, but to claim you love it in the abstract is quite another. It's a skill, like argument is for a lawyers, and like killing is for soldiers. A person needs to be cautious about what the claim to love. The day we took Hill 502 is one thing, the other thing is something else.
All of which gets me to this.
I don't know who Gerald Russello was and I don't know Morgan Pino is. But as expressed in this article, they're decent human beings, and maybe even better than decent human beings. They're the way that lawyers ought to be.
