The Purpose of This Blog

Lawyers in practice must always be careful about disseminating their words.  If done injudiciously, we run afoul of the attorney-client privilege, restrictions on lawyer advertising, or people’s general sense of what’s appropriate for us to say, write, and publish. 

However, my experience suggests that a very high percentage of practicing lawyers have cherished intellectual interests outside their practices, whether these lawyers are able to pursue those interests or not.  The law is a business of words, and I suspect that everyone in the business of words finds it easy to let the pen get away.  When I was active in the building trades as a designer and builder, I constantly looked for excuses to write, whether in ill-judged, over-long letters to clients explaining aspects of design drawings, or in magazine pieces I wrote on design issues.  I didn’t think of myself as a dilletante in the design/build business (see www.suttondesign.com for proof of this assertion), but perhaps my return to the law as my main profession proves me wrong.

This blog is my outlet for vaguely philosophical musings on topics that intersect with the law but which I cannot usually express in my daily work in the law.  Assisting a client with a Medicare problem, for example, is a quite specific professional task; spouting about the colossal failure and misdirection of our health care system (oops, there I go) is blogging.  And never the twain shall meet, at the risk of malpractice.

Clients or prospective clients who arrive here, be assured that nothing regarding you or your matters will appear, except as part of the store of my experience that informs my writing.  Be assured, too, that I am paying attention to your matter, that I will call you to update you on the status of your case, and that nothing here detracts from the quality of legal representation you’re getting.

Patrick Sutton