I'm Back

Bennett & Bennett are back from seven days in Paris.

A few of the things the French do exceedingly well:

• Food and drink.
• Subterranean transport.
• Historic preservation.
• Clothing.

Something the French do less well:

• Technology.

While the hotel at which we stayed in the 7th Arrondissement provided, in theory, a high-speed internet connection, that mostly-theoretical connection didn't work well enough to stay online for long enough to do more than just check email. And while I had planned to have GMail forward emails from our answering service to SMS on my French cellphone, I discovered that this was a non-trivial undertaking, and that my French -- limited mostly to cognate words of Spanish -- was not up to the task of explaining what I wanted to the cellco's customer service reps. Even in league with the hotel's concierge and the sales guy at the cellco store across the street, I was unable to make the email-to-SMS connection.

No matter, though. I needed a week away from constant and instantaneous communication with clients, potential clients, and everyone else who needs my help from time to time. It was, as I noted before, a well-deserved break; I recommend it highly.

I did check email a couple of times a day, and had young criminal defense lawyer extraordinaire Sarah Wood covering for me, so the practice didn't self-destruct. But, with wine to drink and museums to tour, I couldn't be bothered to blog much, or even to keep up with happenings in the practical blawgosphere. So I was pleasantly surprised on my return to find that Gideon's post about whether it's about justice or winning had triggered some discussion of one of my favorite topics: the nature of the criminal "justice" system, especially as it affects the players' roles and responsibilities. I'll have a good deal more to say on that a little later today.

Until then, here are the contributors to the discussion so far: Malum, Norm Pattis , Stephen Gustitis , Scott Greenfield , and Matlock (thanks to Scott for the links); and here are some of my earlier posts related, generally, to the topic: A Truly Compassionate Profession Redux, Different Sorts of Justice, Who Are You Helping and Who Are You Hurting?, Right v. Legal -- an Example, Right v. Wrong, Vanity, and Unimpressive.