About

CAN YOU AFFORD TO BE JUST ONE MORE CASE? YOU CAN AFFORD THE BEST AND A PERSONAL LEVEL OF SERVICE.

Success in trial courts and appellate courts, by trial and by written brief, mark my career, as do so some landmark properties and written reported decisions of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. I am a widely experienced sole practitioner, a downtown firm lawyer originally.

Some examples of things I've done that really meant a  great deal to the client:

There's the individual who had his third breathalyzer refusal and then, while I had just won an appeal on his third, got his fourth breathalyzer refusal charge, and was faced with a loss of license for five years and perhaps indefinitely. I won the trial on the fourth and won the appeal on the third and got it dismissed at trial. My client never had another problem, proving that justice was served.

There's been an Au Bon Pain on the East Side for more than twenty two years now, because I handled a controversy constructively. That Au Bon Pain has really anchored that portion of the street and it seems the street was the better for it.

There are persons who faced a criminal sentence that did not receive a sentence because of how I handled their case. There are people who were told an accident was their fault by a consensus of all other persons, but I still recovered damages for them. There are people who were unfairly targeted by their employer and fired, but who were compensated with more than a severance. There's a machine manufacturer whose designer will be more careful where he puts the valve next time and an injured worker paid was paid not only workers' compensation but a settlement with the machine manufacturer.

I've handled matters for an important utility and a municipality too. There are rate payers for a utility who didn't absorb the costs of costly installations because, as part of a team, we showed they weren't necessary.

There's a client whose property couldn't sell for a year at $350,000 so I marketed it differently, drew up the contracts the deal required and sold it for $499,900.00. The lender concurred in my valuation.

There was the student with top grades and approving teachers, yet the City Superintendent and his big downtown law firm thought they were going to suspend my client from school indefinitely because of one provoked remark defending himself from a bully. A letter stopped their 'politically correct' harassment and the boy went back to school where his teachers had always described him as a pleasure to have in class.

There was a disabled woman, a special needs trust beneficiary who needed someone to get involved and de-escalate tensions that would have wasted her trust resources on litigation costs.

I've never been afraid of the difficult case. I am a natural born contrarian and independent enough to make my own judgment. It simply has to be worth our time and effort, yours and mine, and have real merit. It can't just be about revenge or malice or greed or falsity. If it's that, I don't want it. But when you have been wronged and hurt by it, or are accused and at the mercy of others, I will stand by you.

I grew up in Cranston, Rhode Island, sort of the youngest of six kids, as my twin was ten minutes older than me. I worked my way through college, (University of RI '84) was proud to graduate in four years right on time, to be commissioned as in officer in the Field Artillery. I went on to law school after some military education and again, sold furniture, clerked in a law firm and served in the National Guard as I attended and graduated in three years. I returned to RI and started clerking in a downtown firm where my writing sample from law school demonstrated training and ability in obtaining 'Summary Judgment,' a great way to win a case on the law when the facts are not genuinely in dispute. I put that right to work and thus got to the Rhode Island Supreme Court very early in my career. Student loans dogged my lifestyle and high taxes on a single man with no dependents left me needing to keep more of what I earned, so I became a home office professional in my own practice on January 1, 1993.

Solo practice led me into criminal law and I became a federal defender on the Rhode Island panel and served until they opened a staffed defender office, at which time I had begun serving as an assistant counsel to the Chief legal Counsel for the Providence Water Supply Board where I handled everything other than Public Utility rate cases. This involved me in administrative enforcement actions and also lots of municipally related litigation. I've also successfully handled product liability and wrongful death. The litigation and courtroom skills I began in an excellent second year course taught by a former Justice Department Litigator, and honed as a law clerk at a Springfield Law firm and mastered in a downtown Providence defense firm, have been critical to my clients. As part of a firm, I have represented clients such as Stop and Shop and St. Joseph Hospital and all manner of clients who bought an insurance policy and found themselves being sued. I pride myself on strong, persuasive legal writing skills, strong insight and analysis skills, good fact finding skills and a steady, articulate resolve in any courtroom.