In reinforcement of our image as lawyers to self-adulate and cock-a-doodle-doo our talents and prowesses, lawyers have the benefit of an annual glitzy magazine called Super Lawyers.  Yes, once a year, we self-designate ourselves (for our regional Super Lawyers group, nearly all with Boston offices) “SUPER,” and proudly publish pretty color ads accompanied by press releases to our home town media. Dare I ask if there is any difference between this publication and the pictures of the lawyer guys and gals whose faces are known to us from full...

I love having things in writing. I love pictures of text messages, even if they are damaging to my clients’ cases, because it arms me with knowledge of what was actually said between two people and therefore a chance to submit evidence to put it into a context that makes it less damning or even helpful when the jury hears it. And you can bet your tush that I’m looking through the history of my clients’ text and other interwebby messages with any interested party. And this is before I draft a Complaint or Answer. I want to get the story...

In re Female Marines Lawyers savvy on the subject of illegal discrimination in the form of “profiling” should be curious about a recent Marine Corps study comparing all male combat units to those that are mixed, i.e. “integrated” with women. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and the Chief Marine Kahuna (I forget his name) are considering what to do with a recent study that determined, empirically, that all-male squads performed better in the areas of speed, “lethality,” marksmanship (markswomanship?), and generally, in the performance of basic...

Spend a few minutes some time in a courtroom when lawyers are arguing to a judge or jury. You will hear, all too frequently, common threads of lawyer speak, words that aren’t generally heard in your living room or when you are talking with friends and at work. When did you last tell someone (your spouse? your business associate?) that what he did was egregious – or that she was making no sense because she was missing a prong in her explanation or reasoning of some matter?  When did you last refer to someone you just met as your brother...

When someone asks me what kind of law that I practice, I answer “civil litigation.” The response is usually a puzzled-then-accepting-without-questioning look or the question: “What is that?” The civil legal arena covers a broad area that does not include criminal or family law. Beauregard, Burke & Franco has handled the whole gamut of civil cases. There’s the classic personal injury suit, be it a motor vehicle accident, or a slip and fall; or an employment case, which can include contract disputes, wrongful termination, and...

Forty years of civil litigation – jury trials in major personal injury and death cases, court challenges to government officials who abuse their powers over public employees, taking business and commercial disputes to trial, and dealing with the wide variety of clients involved in these cases – has taught me lessons worth passing on to you who engage in reading blogs. First – do not be bamboozled (not a legal term) by yellow page ads, advertising on the sides of buses, highway billboards, or flashy issues of the Boston publication “Super...