About Andrew Brandt
Andrew Brandt is an editor on Super Lawyers‘ staff. He serves as the editor for the Illinois, Northern California, Upstate New York, Missouri-Kansas, and Texas magazines, and he additionally writes, fact-checks and proofreads for numerous other Super Lawyers issues (and for the website). He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with degrees in English literature and environmental studies, and his byline has appeared in a variety of places, both online and in print.
Articles written by Andrew Brandt
‘That Gift of Life’
How a successful kidney transplant changed Ken LesterMy dad lost a kidney when he was in his mid-30s. Out of the four boys and one daughter in our family, I was the one who inherited the problem. When I was in my 50s, in the early 2000s, I was diagnosed with kidney failure. I was fortunate that it was a very slow process—some of them are real fast—and that over a hundred people volunteered to donate a kidney to me. Though all were disqualified for one reason or another, it’s very, very humbling when you find out who your friends are …
When Todd Julian Has Grown a Beard …
… you know he’s been on another adventureWhenever I travel, I try to combine some aspect of history, culture and adventure. There was a time when I would do anything; I didn’t have a family—a wife or kids, anyway. When I ran with the bulls, a guy was killed the year before. In Nepal, 18 were killed in an avalanche on the same day I was hiking out in the snow. I was in Egypt just six months after the Arab Spring. I was pretty lucky to be able to travel with my family in high school. I spent a summer in Spain, and that really …
Blank Rome Keeps Growing and Growing and ...
Alan J. Hoffman on the firm’s non-competitive cultureIn 1946, Sam Blank and Bill Rudenko—two lawyers that couldn’t get a job anywhere else in Philadelphia because large firms refused to take on Jewish applicants—founded what’s now Blank Rome. “Our firm was founded upon a model of inclusion and diversity,” says Alan J. Hoffman, Blank Rome’s chairman and managing partner. “We’re very much committed to [that model], and we devote a lot of time, money and effort towards it.” Half of Blank Rome’s practice group leaders are …
Why Did I Get an Arrest Warrant Notice in the Mail?
You get an arrest warrant in the mail for a bench warrant because of your failure to appear for a missed court date or scheduled hearing. You can get a court summons for outstanding traffic tickets, unpaid fines, probation violations, misdemeanor charges, or grand jury indictments. Ignoring the notice to appear can result in a contempt of court charge, bail forfeiture, or an active arrest warrant. To respond to a bench warrant, you can voluntarily surrender to the court or retain legal counsel …
Third Time’s the Charm
Patrick Mulligan gives defendants another shot at a second chance“There are three main stages to the proceedings in a criminal case, and most people know of the first two stages: a trial and, if there’s a conviction, an appeal,” says Patrick Mulligan of Mulligan Breit in Denver. The third stage? Post-conviction litigation, in which a defendant can bring a separate challenge to a conviction after the appeal has concluded. If the defendant’s motion is deemed sufficient, the case comes back into trial. Mulligan took on his first post-conviction case …
Full-Court Press
Bruce S. Rosen expands rights in a field he used to work in: journalismDuring his senior year of high school, working as the editor for his school’s underground newspaper, Bruce S. Rosen printed a student’s letter claiming the true “dirty words” in our language weren’t the dime-a-dozen locker-room swears, but words like “war,” “napalm” and “kill.” “They asked our parents to come in and we were dismissed from school for the rest of the day,” says Rosen. “My father started talking about free speech. Having him stand up for me like …
Air Bud
Michael Louis Kelly pilots pups to safetyMichael Louis Kelly has been a lawyer since 1978, but it wasn’t until a year later, when he began representing parties in aviation crashes, that he discovered his primary passion: flight. “I became interested in airplanes and aeronautics, and the engineering aspect of how planes fly—and what makes them stop flying,” the El Segundo attorney says. “The more I hung around with pilots and flew in airplanes with them, the more I wanted to do it myself. It’s kind of a bug that, once it …
Started From The Bottom
Patrick Roberts’ path to the U.S., law and the top floorI came here at 4. I grew up in Savanna La Mar, Jamaica. We were poor, but everybody knew that if you could get an education in the U.S., it would open doors. My dad lived in New York. He’d come to the U.S. years before. After divorcing his first wife, he returned to Jamaica and married my mom, and brought us to East New York, Brooklyn. He was abusive; he was an alcoholic. I don’t know if we made it a year before my mom fled, even though we stayed in the same neighborhood. We didn’t have …
What If I'm Not Read My Miranda Rights?
If you have not been read your Miranda rights, it does not mean an automatic case dismissal because Miranda applies to questioning when in police custody. You have a Fifth Amendment right to silence against self-incrimination and the right to legal counsel. Your defense attorney can get a trial evidence exclusion for police errors and file a motion to suppress statements for questioning under arrest without your Miranda rights. Miranda protections do not apply to spontaneous statements, routine …
Motorcycle Man
Anthony Castelli tries to make the riding easier for Cincinnati ridersAnthony Castelli remembers the first time he got on a motorcycle. He was 21 and decided to try out his new bike—without the benefit of training. “I thought it would be a hell of a rush,” he recalls. “Within about 10 seconds, I laid the bike down, my head hit the ground, and the helmet I was wearing fell off. My sister was just rolling her eyes. But I got up on the bike and away I went.” For more than 35 years, Castelli has been representing Cincinnati-area bikers and drivers …
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