A recent law school graduate and experienced criminal defense and civil rights lawyer blog about the law.
Mike loves the law, and his political views are hard to peg. In law school he served as the chapter president Pepperdine’s chapter of the Federalist Society, and was a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
He graduated from Pepperdine Law School, and also served nine years in the National Guard and Army Reserves, where he was the youngest graduate of Officer Candidate School and was honored as the runner-up for Brigade Soldier of the Year (second best soldier out of thousands). He was honorably discharged after resigning his commission in 2004.
During law school he earned a perfect "100" in Constitutional Law: Federal and State Power Relations. He won additional awards for obtaining the highest class grades in Advanced Constitutional Law: Supreme Court Seminar, Civil Rights Actions, and White Collar Crime. Additionally, he was also selected to serve as a moot court judge to help Dean Kenneth Starr prepare for a United States Supreme Court oral argument.
Mike worked as a research assistant to three law professors, helping them with books on federal courts and Section 1983 actions, constitutional law, and closing arguments. He also worked as a teaching assistant for Advanced Legal Research, and assisted with Henke’s California Law Guide (7th ed.). Recently, he wrote a book review on Constitutional Chaos and submitted numerous entries on criminal and constitutional law for the forthcoming Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties.
Mike has worked on dozens of Section 1983 cases, doing everything from pre-filing consulting to helping write cert. petitions. His criminal law experience is also deep, and includes motion and brief work in everything from marijuana possession to murder, from cases involving complex fraud to computer crimes. Notably, a brief he wrote challenging a state criminal law under the First Amendment persuaded a judge to strike down the law, resulting in a dismissal of criminal charges.
Mike has also studied trial advocacy under some of the greatest trial lawyers in the country: He graduated from Gerry Spence's Trial Lawyers College Regional Seminar, and Gerry Spence's Trial Lawyers College Advanced Regional Seminar. While still in law school he attended over 50 hours of ATLA seminars.
Mike can be reached via e-mail at CrimeAndFederalism [at] gmail [dot] com.
Norman A. Pattis is an accomplished lawyer and writer. Mr. Pattis practices law and owns a rare book shop just outside of New Haven, Connecticut. He recently formed his own firm, specializing in criminal defense, civil rights, appellate work and representing lawyers in professional disputes.
Notable civil rights included Kevin King v. Mark Verdone, et al., in which he obtained a judgment of more than $2 million for a prisoner beaten during an escape attempt; Peterson, et al. v. City of Hartford, in which nine white and Hispanic firefighters won a $3.1 million reverse discrimination verdict against the city's fire department; Broadnax v. New Haven, in which he won a $1.5 million verdict on behalf of a the city's highest ranking female firefighter. In Higgins v. Burleigh, et al., Pattis won a $700,000 verdict for a young boxer beaten by police officers outside a nightclub.
He recently obtained a $600,000 verdict in a First Amendment case for a Hartford police officer who was the subject of retaliation by his chief. The plaintiff had cooperated with federal prosecutors investigating corruption in the Hartford Police Department.
He has also won many other federal civil rights verdicts for police brutality, false arrest, malicious prosecution, denial of equal protection of the law, discrimination and other civil rights. He once tracked down the financier of a brutal contract shooting, forcing a settlement after the man filed bankruptcy to avoid the civil trial, and after several days of cross-examination of the financier and his ex-wife designed to show that their "divorce" was little more than a fraudulent conveyance.
Pattis has also represented those accused of crimes in state and federal courts. He obtained an acquittal on two counts of attempted murder of police officers arising from the point-blank shooting of two Middletown officers during an arrest. He also won an acquittal for a man accused of felony murder in the course of a high-speed chase in which a police officer died. In another case, he won acquittals for two men accused of beating several police officers. He has successfully defended weapons charges, narcotics charges, cases alleging sexual assault, bank robbery and embezzlement.
He has defended capital cases on both the trial and appellate level. His defense of Lon Grammer and Tonica Jenkins, both accused of fraudulently obtaining admission to Yale University in separate incidents, attracted national attention.
A former member of the staff of Gerry Spence's Trial Lawyers College in Wyoming, Pattis has also served as a faculty member for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy. He has also been a guest speaker before bar association groups, including the Idaho Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Pattis also writes a weekly column for the Connecticut Law Tribune, found most weeks at www.law.com/ct.
He is a frequent commentator on legal topics on television and radio. His first attempt at fiction, Dark Justice, was published in serial form by The Connecticut Law Tribune.
Pattis has argued in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second and Sixth Circuits, and appeared before the United States Supreme Court in prisoner's rights litigation.
You can reach Mr. Pattis via e-mail at NormPattis [at] gmail [dot] com, by visiting his firm's website, or by contacting him via mail or telephone:
Norman A. Pattis
649 Amity Road
Bethany, CT 06524
203.393.3017
