The Heart & the Head: Holistic Sentencing With Mitigation Specialist Victoria Rusk
Mitigation Specialists can be a lawyer’s secret weapon. They help us dig for, develop, and deliver our powerful mitigation narratives. But many lawyers remain unaware of the import and effect of a full mitigation workup, or may not have the resources to do so. Therefore, helping us get set for sentencing is Victoria Rusk, founder…
Over the Rainbow & Into the Land of Legal Narrative (With Story Expert Matthew David)
Watch this episode on YOUTUBE, or listen on APPLE PODCASTS or wherever you get your podcasts! Lawyers are taught that logic is their best friend. BUT, in the real world, human beings make their most important decisions based on EMOTION, not LOGIC. So how do you present your facts in a way that taps into the…
Elizabeth Holmes: Sentencing Post Mortem
Watch this episode on YOUTUBE, on APPLE PODCASTS, or wherever you get your podcasts! On Friday, 11/18/22, a federal judge sentenced Elizabeth Holmes to over eleven years in prison. Ms. Holmes was convicted after trial of a “fake it ’till you make it” fraud involving her company Theranos, and the revolutionary blood testing technology dream machine that…
Rotting With Your Rights On: Indefinite Detention For Incompetent Clients
Watch this episode on YOUTUBE, on APPLE PODCASTS, or wherever you get your podcasts! Ideally, when a person who may have committed a crime is deemed to be seriously mentally ill, a fair and rational criminal justice system will give them meaningful mental health treatment in a humane environment. But, in the federal system, mentally incompetent defendants…
Listening to Understand: What Laywers & Clients Can Learn From Improv
Watch this episode on YOUTUBE, listen on APPLE PODCASTS, or wherever you get your podcasts! I hate to admit it, but we lawyers, we’re really good talkers, but listening? Not so much. When your lawyer puts away the police report, sits with you, and says, “tell me your story, I’m all ears,” then you know you…
Across the Pond: Sentencing in the United Kingdom
Watch this episode on YOUTUBE, on APPLE PODCASTS, or wherever you get your podcasts! We like to think the United States has “the greatest system in the world.” But do we? There’s simply no way to answer that question until we learn how other countries adjudicate crime. Helping us get Set for Sentencing is Prof. Julian Roberts,…
A Richer Measurement of Justice: The Novel Lolita Read as a Sentencing Memorandum
Watch this episode on YOUTUBE, on APPLE PODCASTS, or wherever you get your podcasts! Lawyers have everything to learn from great stories on the screen, on the page, or on the stage. Legal Writing Professor Christina Frohock knows this well, as her latest law review article, Legal Fiction: Reading Lolita as a Sentencing Memorandum, brings into focus…
This Week in Sentencing News: Pot Pardons & Nikolas Cruz
Watch this episode on YOUTUBE, on APPLE PODCASTS, or wherever you get your podcasts! Helping us get Set for Sentencing, Professor Doug Berman, author of the Sentencing Law and Policy Blog. Prof. Berman helps us make sense of two major sentencing events of the past week – President Biden’s blanket pardon for federal marijuana possession and a…
Your Voice Matters: Priorities for the Newly Minted Federal Sentencing Guidelines Commission
Watch this episode on YOUTUBE, on APPLE PODCASTS, or wherever you get your podcasts! For the first time in nearly four years, there is a fully staffed, fully functioning United States Sentencing Guidelines Commission. They have published a list of priorities for the 2022-23 cycle and are soliciting public comments until Oct. 17, 2022. But many may…
Even Stephen: The Skinny on Steve Bannon’s Sentencing
Watch this episode on YOUTUBE, on APPLE PODCASTS, or wherever you get your podcasts! Steve Bannon is set for sentencing on Oct. 21, 2022, after a jury found him guilty of two counts of Contempt of Congress. But, like many of the recent Trump-adjacent prosecutions, we are in uncharted waters. Therefore, helping us get Set for Sentencing…