Author Archive

The Long, Strange Trip Continues There may be no better time than the holiday slows and the two-year anniversary of the site to take stock of what’s happened and what lays ahead.   A year from now the civil trial will be over.  We joked that by the time this project was completed, we could’ve almost been lawyers.  That assumes of...
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White Shoes and Black Hats? Ten years ago the American Civil Trial Bar Roundtable published a white paper (later revised in 2006) that addressed how the “Lack of respect and confidence seems to have developed in the public’s mind for the trial practice…”    Lawyer bashing is as old as the Bard, and more than likely even predates that famous...
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For Sale, No Sale or Sold?  According to a large real estate display add in the local community paper, The DuPont Current, 1509 Swann Street is still up for sale and it remains listed at $1,599,000.  Quite a stocking stuffer. Yet there is some confusion over whether the house is still on the market or not. ...
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“Who’s on First?  What’s on Second?” It’s a feature of DC Superior Court, and perhaps with other jurisdictions for all we know, that judicial calendars rotate annually.  Stick around these parts long enough and you get to see this play out more than once. A year ago at this time, defense counsel and the government were...
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Judge Brook Hedge’s Lasting Impact The dust has settled from last Wednesday’s jam packed status hearing.  Judge Hedge ruled officially on five pending motions. Oral rulings in court parlance; there was no paper released on any of her decisions, so the only public record we have of that day is by way of the DC Superior Court database.  And...
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Plaintiffs Win the Day at Status Hearing Frigid weather and long, long lines greeted the Court Set at Moultrie on Wednesday morning.  Jurors, attorneys, defendants, media and even judges braved the cold and stood in lines that snaked around the building, some waiting nearly an hour just to make it to security and the mags. The long...
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Going Back to Moultrie It’s been nearly six months since the verdict came down in the criminal case.  Judge Lynn Leibovitz’ summertime dose of  cold comfort has given way to an unseasonable blast of frigid weather here in America’s Hockey Capital. Today marks our second trip to Judiciary Square since the June 29 ruling; the last was...
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Plaintiffs Reply to Defense Opposition on the 5th Under DC Civil Code Rule 30(d)(2), the plaintiff is entitled to one day of seven hours of deposition testimony for each defendant, absent a further order of court. Multiply that by three and Kathy Wone has the opportunity, if her Covington team chooses to run out the clock, to...
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Defense Fires Back on Interpreting the 5th The level of tension in Covington’s conference room on November 10, for Dylan Ward’s deposition, must have been off the charts. Plaintiff’s counsel Ben Razi hammered away at Ward with question after question, while defense counsel Robert Spagnoletti did all the talking for his muted client.  Razi wanted Ward to directly...
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Set Another Place at the Table In Harry Jaffe’s treatise, we’re told that Eric Holder gave Robert’s close friend Jason Torchinsky “…the sense that Robert Wone was considered part of the Covington family…”  and that the law firm would represent the Wone family in every way possible.  So far that has proven to be the case. That family...
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