The Rhode Island federal district court had a grand total of six trials in calendar year 2018, according to recently announced statistics. That includes both civil and criminal trials. With 855 new cases filed in the Rhode Island federal district…
Author: Tim Baldwin
Tim Baldwin, Esq. is the editor of RICourtBlog and an attorney at Whelan, Corrente, Flanders, Kinder & Siket, LLP
The Princess Bride Movie Was Right: R.I. Supreme Court Says Civil Death Statute Makes You Dead, Unless There’s True Love, and Then You’re Only Mostly Dead
Spoiler alert for those not in the know — in one of the best scenes in the Princess Bride (1987), one of the great movies of all time, the hero lies in a non-responsive state, apparently dead. He’s been tortured…
The Federal Judiciary Just Released A New Harassment Policy For The Courts. It’s Bound To Impact Private Employers.
Private employers can minimize the risk from sexual harassment claims with a good set of personnel policies. Under federal law, for sexual harassment inflicted by a co-worker (as opposed to a supervisor), the employer is liable for a hostile work…
Paean to Pro Bono: Applying Economic Theory to Why Pro Bono is Good for Lawyers and Clients
Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. For the bulk of lawyers who charge for services by the hour, their most valuable asset for revenue is their time. Attorney choices on allocating the scarce resource of time…
Law Clerks From Soup to Nuts, Or More Accurately, From September to August
Chief Justice Roberts’ recent 2018 Year-End Report is largely a description of the federal judiciary’s efforts to address sexual harassment, but he begins with a lengthy description of law clerks and their special role in the federal courts. The report…
New R.I. Federal Court Rule On Discovery Likely To Save Clients At Least A 100 Large A Year
Unlike other countries, the so-called “American Rule” requires each side to pay their own attorney’s fees in litigation regardless of who wins. Unless a statute or contract shifts attorney’s fees from one side to the other, or one side behaves…
Which One’s Bruno? Judge McConnell Issues Important Decision on Anonymous Lawsuits
Brown University is not known for effervescent school spirit at sporting events, but the ol’ “which one’s Bruno?” cheer has stood the test of time. It usually starts with one really loud person yelling, “Let’s go Bruno!,” and then someone…
At The Turn Of The Tide: July 2018 R.I. Bar Exam Results Have Historically Low Numbers
Fantasy novels are a challenging genre. The author must construct a world from scratch that is close enough to the human experience to be plausible. The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien is one of the best and…
FPOLAD: Federal Probation Officers Love Acronyms and Data. A New PCRA Report Could Have A Positive Impact on the PTRA and Bail Decisions.
If you’re in the company of a federal probation officer long enough, it’s only a matter of time before the acronyms start to fly. A statement like “let’s use a CBT/MRT with evidenced-based practices to lower those dynamic risk factors…
Good Things Come in Threes: Three New Calendar Orders for Kent County
Growing up my older brother played hockey, so of course I did too. One perk of being a squirt (that’s a hockey term) was trips to the old Boston Garden to watch the Boston Bruins. Tradition held that if a…