When most television shows are wrapping up a season, they aim to hook the viewer into returning after the long summer hiatus. The “Bull” season finale ended with a bang, but for me, that bang was closer to a laugh. Even my 85-year old mother texted me to say, “Good luck writing about that one.” Thanks, Mom. The finale had a decent legal story, but it was full of side plots involving the personal lives…

When it rains, it pours. And on this week’s “Bull,” the rains—both figurative and literal—came with a vengeance. In the episode “When the Rains Came,” Taylor Rentzel—Bull’s ex-Homeland Security cyber hack—has a situation: her brother-in-law, Ralph Kelly, has just been charged with two counts of manslaughter. Mr. Kelly is a 28-year-old prison guard at a private, medium-security unit. He’s married to a very pregnant wife and has two young children. One night while at work,…

This week’s episode of “Bull” — “The Good One” — involves a New York organized crime family. The patriarch, Donovan McCandless, is in prison, just days away from his sentencing hearing, which is expected to be a life term. This upsets Brendan, his oldest son, who clearly inherited the crime gene. The matriarch, Colleen, senses that Pops and Brendan are up to no good, so she asks Connor, the “good” son, to save Brendan from himself. (SPOILERS…

If you read the title, you likely thought about it for a millisecond and formulated an answer or opinion. Whether you realize it or not, you became an active participant in my attempt to communicate. And not only did you actively participate, you did it of your own volition: I didn’t tell you to participate; it just organically happened. The use of rhetorical questions dates back centuries. We see examples throughout the Bible (“Who made me…

In this week’s episode of “Bull,” Dr. Bull and team are representing Trent Bolton, a retired FBI-agent-turned-bounty-hunter whose first gig goes wildly off the rails: He finds his mark, threatens him with a gun, knocks him unconscious, zip-ties his hands and tosses him into his trunk for a secure delivery to the bail bondsman. Unfortunately, the guy in the trunk—Michael Cole—isn’t the actual target. Oops. Upon learning of his mistake, Bolton takes the unconscious Cole…

Technology is an absolute given in the courtroom. No matter your venue, jurors expect to see multimedia, digital images, and a big screen (or at least a decent sized flat screen monitor). I always make a recommendation to my clients to pony up the extra cost for trial technology, and while some balk in the beginning, once they see everything fall into place, they readily appreciate the added value. In fact, I have a client…