Monday, September 27, 2004

Our Goal: Educate, Elucidate, and Eradicate. HERE WE COME!!

Welcome to our first edition of the Long Island (NY) Criminal Trial Lawyer weblog or "Blog." Our goal here is to educate, elucidate, and eradicate. Discussion of these words might give you all an idea as to why we are here.
Webster's Online dictionary defines Educate as follows:
1 a : to provide schooling for b : to train by formal instruction and supervised practice especially in a skill, trade, or professions a : to develop mentally, morally, or aesthetically especially by instruction b : to provide with information : INFORM3 : to persuade or condition to feel, believe, or act in a desired way

Elucidate: to make lucid especially by explanation or analysis. : to give a clarifying explanation synonym see EXPLAIN

Eradicate: 1 : to pull up by the roots
2 : to do away with as completely as if by pulling up by the roots synonym see EXTERMINATE

We want to help inform trial lawyers and others involved with the defense and prosecution of criminal allegations. We will be commenting on cases both large and small. We also hope to train lawyers and others in our aggressive but courteous style of advocacy. We will explain different approaches and techniques, provide helpful hints and articles as well as links, to further the abilities of criminal trial lawyers. We hope to provide a bright and focused place for these harried, busy people to visit and learn about the law the courts and the profession.

But we also want to persuade or condition those that come here, that the world of the criminal trial lawyer does not just include those cases taken on behalf of individuals charged with crimes. The world that we inhabit is one that has allegations of crime and misdeeds in family and matrimonial law, on the internet and in the office (costing people their families and their property). It is one where people who are victims of others or of the government go to get redress.

Thus on this sight you will find issues dealing with Civil Rights and basic freedoms, You will find discussions on Whistleblowing or Qui tam cases where it is alleged someone has cheated the government; you will find business advice to help you avoid being the victim of fraud. You will learn of innovative rehabilitation and sentencing techniques. We will address issues that deal with families of both the accused, and the victim, as well as those of the professionals who deal with these matters day in and day out. We will speak out on these and on other issues in the courts that we serve.

As this is a "Long Island" view we will mostly focus on the cases and issues that effect those within the boundaries of US District for the Eastern District of NY and the areas that make up the Second Judicial Department of the NYS Supreme Court. This area is much larger than just Nassau and Suffolk Counties in NY. But Long Island, with it's suburban air, it's smooth and rocky beaches and it's "small" village life, is where we hail from and so we are bound to color our work here with our own "Lawng" Island "accent." Nevertheless I promise to follow the advice of a fellow Long Islander and keep a "New York State of Mind" when commenting here so that we may all benefit from the work put into this effort.

For all to get the most out of this experience, We need you to post your questions answers and opinions both on our take on things and on what is happening around here. Please don't just lurk, but let us know what you are thinking by coming here and leaving a message. But do try to keep it polite if you can, after all law is nothing if not an attempt by civilized man to address life's hardest times in a way he can be most proud of. A civilized, measured path to a solution is an"ideal" of law. Although often maligned, the trial lawyer is the keyholder to society's success in this experiment in civility.

It is our hope that through education and explanation, we will help eradicate some of the fear, and the frustration so many feel toward the courts and lawyers in general. Not an easy goal, but nothing worth doing is ever easy. Join with me and take the journey and I hope you will find that your heroes, like mine, are my fellow Criminal Trial Lawyers.
Tony Colleluori
www.Colleluorilaw.com