Here's another Albany lawyer profile. Keep in mind these are generally semi-fictional.The Master is one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the Albany area. All the judges, cops and criminal lawyers know his name, but not everyone recognizes him on sight. He flies just below the public radar. His name does get in the paper every once in a while, but he doesn't knock people over in order to

The following is another in my occasional Profiles in the Albany NY legal community. Keep in mind these are generally semi-fictional.The Glory Hound is well known to most attorneys in the area. He is a vigorous promoter of both himself and a cause or two. He brims with self-confidence. Listening to him, he has inside knowledge about all the movers and shakers at the local, state and federal level

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

My last post was about one minor player in the local criminal law community, and this one is about another. I've named him Rodney after Rodney Dangerfield, one of my favorite comedians. Unlike the comedian, I'm happy to say that this Rodney is still alive.Dangerfield's signature line was about not getting any respect. Our local Rodney is a bit like this. He often makes negative remarks about

One minor figure who stands out to me in the Capital Region legal community is a criminal lawyer whose nickname, for purposes of this post, is Snidely. I don't know him well at all. I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me, though I don't know why (there are plenty of good reasons).There are things about Snidely that I noticed the first day I saw him. He has what seems like a permanent sneer on his

There's one particular firm in the area that stands out in so many ways. They are clearly the best at what they do. They exemplify what it means to be good lawyers. They are passionate about their work, ethical to the extreme, decent and polite to all they deal with, diligent in researching the law, and to top it all off, they're interesting.I struggled with this for a while -- what to call them,

It's been a while since I've done a profile. I checked and it looks like I started on this idea in August of 2006, and ran out of steam. One profile I did seemed to get a lot of attention: The Bully. It was a semi-fictional and unflattering profile of an area judge. A surprising number of lawyers seemed to know who I was talking about, and they all thought it was the same judge. I even heard that

While I will maintain anonymity as best I can on this profile, this person's nickname is for real and is known by many in the legal community. If I know it a lot of people must. I'm not worried about it because this will be a flattering profile.The Fixer is a successful criminal defense lawyer. He is not a high-profile guy. You don't see him in the papers or on TV much. I've known him for some

In the past 10 years I've handled cases in something like 20 counties, in traffic court, lower level criminal courts, higher level criminal courts, Family Court, Supreme Court (New York's main civil trial court, at least in the Albany area), the Appellate Division (Third Department), as well as federal courts in Manhattan, Albany and Syracuse.I've practiced in front of quite a few judges -- well

I had an idea in the last couple days. To make this blog more interesting, I'm going to start doing some profiles of lawyers and others from the Albany area (and by that I mean the greater Capital Region). The profiles will not identify the person, and along the way I may create some entirely fictional profiles. Some profiles may be blends. Some profiles will be flattering. Others will be less