Bar Exams

Yet again, writer’s block hits me this week, as practically any subject I’d care to hit I’ve hit before.  Here goes.

I graduated from George Mason University School of Law (GMUSL) – now Antonin Scalia School of Law – in May 1993, with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, just months before joining the US Supreme Court, as our commencement speaker.  I do not recall her speech, and I’m led to understand from an unnamed classmate (also male) that the speech was directed at the half of our class who shared Ms. Ginsburg’s gender, i.e. not me.

Fortunately, I was employed by an attorney (Jerry) at the time, so my next task, Juris Doctor (law degree) in hand, was to pass the bar exam.  My comrade Greenside and I drove down to Roanoke on a Monday in July 1993, to endure two days of bar examin-ing, in suit & tie, no less.  Not sure if it’s still required, but back then, the Virginia bar required you to actually dress up to take the exam.

Virginia.  July 1993.  Tuesday was the essay portion – three hours in the morning, three in the afternoon, 10 short essay questions.  Wednesday was the Multistate portion, all multiple choice, for which on any given question you had 25% of getting it right even guessing at random.

Maryland.   July 1993.  Greenside would not be taking the Maryland exam because he lives down in Virginia Beach.  So I flew back on Wednesday night, driving up to Timonium, Maryland near the state fairgrounds, to take the Maryland essay exam on Thursday morning.  Unlike Virginia, Maryland does not require formal business attire.  Their essay portion was 2 hours and 15 minutes morning and afternoon, and very long, multi-part essay questions.  With that, I was done.   Jerry and I went on to handle a three day jury trial in US District Court in Baltimore – a drug dealer suing cops for police brutality.  Not a sympathetic client.  Anyhow. 

Results?  In October 1993, I received the news:  I had FAILED the Virginia bar exam, by mere points.  On reconsideration, the bar examiners insisted that I had still failed.  I would have to take the February 1994 exam.  D’oh!

In November 1993, I received the GOOD NEWS that I had PASSED the Maryland bar exam.  In early December 1993 I took a mandatory professionalism class in downtown Baltimore, and on December 16, 1993, in Annapolis, Maryland, I was sworn into the Maryland bar.  I was now an attorney – albeit only in Maryland.

February 1994.  The next Virginia exam was down in Norfolk.  To make matters worse, they had completely changed the format from July 1993: now it was long, detailed essay questions (75%) followed by fill-in-the-blank questions (25%), though working with Jerry I knew most of the answers from practical experience.   However, due to the new format, the bar review courses (BAR/BRI, etc) were useless, and simply advised everyone to study as much as possible and hope for the best.

On returning to the office the following Monday, I got the bad news from Jerry that he was laying me off.  D’oh!  He gave me the month of March as severance – full pay, don’t have to work – but that was it for the time being.  I now had a surplus of free time.  I bought a textbook on auto mechanics and went from being clueless about how cars worked to being able to pass ASE exams and taking classes at NOVA-Alexandria, right next door to where I live today.

In April, I came back from wherever I had been during the day, to find a small envelope in my mailbox, from the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners.  It was their ecstatic pleasure to inform me that I had somehow managed to PASS the February 1994 Virginia bar exam.  “Await further instructions”.   That meant another mandatory professionalism course – I recall Judge Bach, of the Fairfax County Circuit Court, telling us the story of an attorney who insisted her criminal client “studied at George Mason University School of Law”, only to have to admit that the defendant wasn’t actually a law student, he merely read books in the law library.  Way to go, counsel. 

On June 6, 1994, in downtown Richmond, Virginia, I swore into the Virginia Bar.  Now I was finally licensed in Virginia – albeit without a job.  That December, Jerry hired me back, and that lasted until May 1998, at which point Jerry got hired by a huge law firm that didn’t want me, and he closed the firm.

Waive-Ins.   Aside from actually taking a state’s bar exam, you can waive in, if you’ve been practicing somewhere else for some time.

DC.  I waived into DC in 2012.  That involved a brief, informal meeting with DC lawyers at the courthouse on Indiana Ave.  They were impressed enough to recommend my admission, and a few months later I was sworn into the DC Bar. 

I’ve had only a few DC cases to date.  As yet, the majority of my experience (60%) is in Virginia (plus admission to the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia) with the balance (38%) in Maryland, also admitted to the US District Court for the District of Maryland.  I never got around to being admitted to the US District Court for the District of Columbia.   Note that being admitted to state bar does NOT give you admission to the federal courts in that state.  You have to be sponsored by an existing member, and formally admitted.  My primary purpose in doing so is to handle bankruptcy cases, which are 100% federal law.

New York.  Avoiding that notoriously difficult NY bar exam, I waived in.  In December 2013 I failed to impress a three lawyer panel in Albany of my merit and character.  I appealed that decision, and in December 2014 I went back up to Albany for a formal hearing, which Jerry attended over the phone, testifying as to my character.  This panel, a different trio of lawyers, felt considerably better about me and recommended my admission.  In June 2015, I went back up to Albany a third time and swore into the New York Bar.  

As yet I have had NO NY clients and have yet to set foot in any courtroom in New York.  My inclination would be to sit in and listen, but with my current relationship status (no longer romantically linked to anyone in Fort Lee, New Jersey) and the COVID drama – which is pushing many court appearances online to avoid the virus – that looks extremely unlikely for the near future.

“Suits”.  While I’m on the topic, I’ll bring up this TV show.  It takes place in Manhattan, New York, and covers a major law firm in the city which exclusively hires Harvard Law School graduates.  Meghan Markle, who plays Rachel Zane, wound up marrying Prince Harry.  Yes, that guy.  The main character is Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams), who apparently has photographic memory:  he need only read a page one time and can remember it verbatim.  For some reason, he could NOT get into law school or get a J.D., however, he took and passed the bar exams, fraudulently doing so for other applicants who presumably did have law degrees but weren’t nearly as astute at taking exams (you know, like the exams you have to take in law school).  He’s hired by the firm’s senior partner, Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) as an associate (employee attorney on salary, not a partner).   Again, not only is Ross not a licensed attorney in ANY jurisdiction (least of all New York) he doesn’t even have a law degree.   Of course, they have to keep this a major secret.  I’ve finished season 1, and so far I’ve seen at least one episode where he appears IN COURT, in front of a judge, representing a client as an attorney.   He also has to attend a Harvard Law School alumni function and of course, no one recognizes him.  The utter implausibility of the entire premise doesn’t completely undermine its entertainment value, so I suppose I may continue watching….

The White House

Yet another instance where a local attraction – the White House – has remained unvisited despite its close proximity until relatives from out of town – my sister and her two daughters – requested a tour.  My Mom and my brother Matt also went along.   Matt had gone earlier with his family.  My parents actually used to work there:  my mom was the nurse for President Johnson (Lyndon, not Andrew or Gary), and my dad worked for BOB.  That’s probably how they met.

Just the Basic Facts (Can You Show Me Where It Hurts).   It’s in DC, on Pennsylvania Ave.  To the west is the Old Executive Office Building.  To the east, the Treasury Dept. Building.  To the north, Pennsylvania Ave and Lafayette Square.  To the South, the Ellipse and Constitution Ave.  If you see a square edifice with four columns, that’s the NORTH Portico, which looks out onto Lafayette Square.  If you see a semi-circular edifice (e.g. the photo above), that’s the SOUTH Portico, which looks out onto the vast expanse of south lawn and the Ellipse.  It was built during Washington and Adams’ administration, and Adams (John, Chief Executive #2) moved in at the end of his term, thus Jefferson was the first President to live there for a full term.   During the War of 1812, the British torched the place when they captured Washington, DC, but it was rebuilt soon thereafter.   The West Wing dates from the early 1900s, and during Truman’s administration the whole building was completely rebuilt. 

NOTE:  The Oval Office, the press room, and all the offices, are in the West Wing – so the “business” of the country, insofar as it occurs on the President’s watch – as opposed to Congress’ or the Supreme Court – occurs in the West Wing.  What occurs in the White House proper are social gatherings and functions, e.g. Grover Cleveland’s wedding, formal dinners, and dead Presidents (Lincoln & Kennedy) lying in state. 

A few warnings are in order.

Warning #1.  Approval & Access.  You cannot simply walk up to 1600 Pennsylvania, ring the doorbell, and ask to be let in.  You have to apply in advance and then, a few weeks and a background check later, you will be approved for a date and time, for the specific individuals identified in your party (i.e. bring ID).   Keep this in mind if you have a DC trip coming up.   Also, the form letter articulating the guidelines (helpful advice like “don’t bring weapons or pot” alongside the less obvious but still significant stuff mentioned below) is your entry pass.  Don’t chuck it after reading it, you’ll need it to gain access. 

Warning #2.  Waiting in line.  First you wait in line on Fifteenth Street, on the street with no cover – better hope it doesn’t rain.  Then you wait in line for your first ID check.  Then you’re let in to wait in line for a second ID check.  All of this is with no shelter from the elements.  Then you wait in line to be x-rayed or whatever by something you simply stand next to.  Presumably it weeds out Mystique, Odo, and other shapeshifters.  Finally you wait in line for a regular “empty your pockets” metal detector thing.

THEN you can enter the East Wing.  From there you enter the bottom floor of the main house, go up the stairs, tour the middle floor (top floor off-limits) and eventually emerge from the North Portico which faces out to Lafayette Park.  The stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue running in front of the White House is now closed to vehicle traffic.

Warning #3.  No access to bathrooms.   Make sure you take care of business first.  The Visitor Center located in the north part of what we’d consider the Department of Commerce building has bathrooms and a gift shop (though the dry-your-hands blowers are a sad joke). 

Warning #4.  There is no visitor parking for the White House itself.  It’s downtown, so street parking is nonexistent.  The nearest Metro station is several blocks away.   However, there is a large parking garage in the Ronald Reagan Building across from the Dept. of Commerce, and there are a few other parking garages scattered around the area, a few blocks away; it helps if you know where they are and plan ahead of time.  I took Uber both ways and that worked out fine.

Warning #5.   West Wing.  The Oval Office and all that stuff is off-limits – as is, most obviously, the Lincoln Bedroom (is there a Clinton Bedroom?).   When you think about it, the fact that the Presidential Mansion is open for tours at all is actually somewhat remarkable.   Theoretically the First Family is upstairs (second floor off-limits) and the Big Guy is in his office over in the West Wing – or on a golf course somewhere else – but all us snoopy tourists are ooh-ing and ah-ing around, mostly taking 10000 cell phone pics in front of literally every room that is available.

Warning #6.  That’s it?   Since the areas you can visit are the East Wing, and two floors of the main house, it doesn’t take much to complete the tour – especially if you’re not conscientiously taking pictures of literally everything and everyone in your group in front of something.   Objectively, I found the White House to be somewhat small.  We’ve visited Vanderbilt mansions in Newport, Rhode Island which seem larger – though no one actually lives there anymore. 

We did not meet the President, Vice President, First Lady, or anyone else famous, though there is no shortage of Presidential portraits, even some of the VPs and First Ladies.  Despite his ego, Trump is but one of many Chief Executives depicted in his Palace.  I actually overdressed – perhaps for the remote possibility of being made Great by a meeting with the Donald himself – in shirt and tie, as most of my fellow tourists were dressed accordingly, i.e. fairly casual.  Go in a t-shirt and jeans, as no one cares what you’re wearing. 

Did I enjoy it?  Yes.  Would I do it again?  Probably not.  Would I recommend it to others?   Sure, IF you keep those warnings in mind, and thus your expectations in check.   Thank you, Sarah for arranging this.

Graduation and Commission

Recently I had the pleasure of attending both the college graduation and the ROTC commissioning ceremony of my GF’s son, Alex.  I had been at his high school graduation (Bergen Catholic) four years earlier and witnessed him progressing through four years at Rutgers (the state university of New Jersey, main campus located in New Brunswick), and three of his four Air Force ROTC awards ceremonies.

            We had a special treat, as the commencement speaker for Rutgers was none other than Barack Obama, the President of the United States, and Alex’s school commencement speaker – the subsequent ceremony where each student is called by name (diplomas sent by text message) – was Bill Moyers, the White House Press Secretary for Kennedy and LBJ.  I did not know that Rutgers predates the American Revolution (1766), but back then it was called Queen’s College; King’s College is now known as Columbia University.  Nor did I know that Henry Rutgers himself, the Revolutionary War hero and early benefactor, and after whom the school was renamed in 1830, owned slaves.  (“True story.”)

            A few days later, Alex got his gold bar of 2LT, making him an officer in the US Air Force, or as I call it, the American Luftwaffe.  Although he won’t be a pilot, he does have a bright future ahead of him in the service, so we’re all very proud of him and hopeful on his behalf.

This makes me look back on my own track record.

Grammar School. 8^th Grade, Marymount, Paris, France, June 1982.   This was a small, private Catholic school in Neuilly.  Our class was 4 guys and about 12 girls.  There was no special speaker that I recall, but I think I still have my little blue “diploma”.

High School.  American School of Paris, June 1986.  Thanks to the good weather, the ceremony was held at the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial just down the road from St. Cloud.  Here is the one picture where my hair is unfashionably long – and never since.  I don’t recall the commencement speaker.

College.  University of Maryland, College Park, December 1990.   Because I took summer classes rounding up my senior year and technically graduated in August 1990, I attended the December ceremony.  I skipped the general commencement ceremony – I don’t recall who the speaker was – and only attended the specific ceremonies for the Behavior And Social Sciences (BSOS) school (GVPT major) and a few hours later for the undergraduate business school (BMGT major).   I can’t recall either speaker, but neither was someone famous.  They handed out posters and not actual diplomas.

Law School.  George Mason University, May 1993.  This was at the Center for the Arts at the main campus in Fairfax, Virginia, and our speaker was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, at the time still on the US Court of Appeals, but very shortly would become a US Supreme Court Justice.  I don’t recall her speech.  What I do recall is being surprised at receiving my actual diploma on the spot. 

Unfortunately, getting a Juris Doctor (JD) does NOT give you much except the right to apply to take the bar exam.  I then had to take those exams in July 1993.

Bar Admission.  As Alex had his commissioning ceremony, one of eight cadets to do so, I had my bar admission ceremonies.  These are full of pomp and vigor, and typically involve much more than 8 lawyers at once.

Maryland, December 1993.   I passed the July 1993 exam and earned the right to be admitted in December. I took a full day professionalism course in Baltimore.  The ceremony was at the actual Court of Appeals (Supreme Court) in Annapolis.  They staggered the applicants in groups small enough to fill the fairly small chambers (plus guests). 

            Since this was my first, it was the most important.  Now I was an attorney!   Granted, I could only practice in Maryland, but I could call myself a lawyer.  Three years of law school and several months of studying for the bar exam, plus a trip to Timonium (just north of Baltimore) for the bar exam itself, paid off.

Virginia, June 1994.   While I passed the July MD bar, I failed Virginia’s, by mere points.  The Bar Examiners refused my request for a recount, so I had no choice but to study harder and try again in February 1994.  To make matters worse, they upped the application fee from $200 to $600 and added an obnoxious character inquisition which was previously fairly cursory, though no worse than what I endured for Maryland the prior summer.  Finally, and this was the most difficult, they completely changed the format of the exam from short essay (easiest) to long, detailed essay and fill-in-the-blank, so the bar review people had to say, "we got nothing, just study as hard as you can and hope for the best."  The February exam was in Norfolk, so I met my buddy Greenside for lunch.  John had graduated from GMU with me the prior May, but he had passed the July exam and swore in already.

            Upon returning from Norfolk, my boss informed me that he was laying me off. He gave me March 1994 off as severance.   Somewhat despondent, I didn’t realize what the small letter was from the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners was in my mailbox in April.  Having been burned on my last call to the Virginia Lawyers’ Weekly in October, I didn’t bother asking them this time, so it was that letter which let me know… I had passed!   I went down to Richmond in June, for a ceremony held not at the Supreme Court, but just in a hotel ballroom.  Either way, I was now licensed in Virginia as well as Maryland.  Woohoo!  This became more important the following December when my prior boss hired me back again.  From then until May 1998 I was actively working as an attorney in Virginia (60%) and Maryland (40%) mainly doing traffic, criminal, business planning, and divorces. 

            ** Note:  the Virginia Bar requires you to wear a suit and tie when taking the bar exam.

D.C., October 2012.   This came several years later, waiving in, as opposed to taking and passing the bar exam.  Some jurisdictions allow immediate reciprocity (waiving in from other states), some require 5 years active practice in another jurisdiction which has similar reciprocity (DC & NY), and some others like Louisiana and New Jersey have NO waive in at all:  you HAVE to take and pass their bar exam. 

Due to some issues concerning a prior attorney, my bar record was no longer pristine, but a small panel of DC lawyers decided to cut me a break.   I swore in before the DC Superior Court and became licensed in three jurisdictions.  However, my DC practice has been practically nil, and currently I’m inactive.

New York, June 2015.   NY also allowed veteran lawyers to waive in.  That same spotted past caused even more problems with New York.  I had to go up to Albany in December 2013 for an informal three attorney panel, which rejected my application.  I appealed and received a formal hearing in December 2014, also in Albany.  That panel – three completely different lawyers – found “no cardinal sins” and recommended admission, and the NY courts agreed.  So in June 2015 I went to Albany a third time, this time accompanied by my very proud and patient girlfriend. 

New York also has a special place for me, as my father’s side of the family comes from there – Brooklyn.  My uncle was a government attorney, but to my knowledge was licensed in Virginia, not New York. 

As yet I’m still looking for legal work in NY (preferably NYC) so if anyone has a lead, let me know.  

DC to NYC and Back

I don’t want to get into a major comparison of Washington, DC vs. New York City, except to say that as of 2013, the Federal government’s massive role in our country has made DC just about as important as NYC, a state of affairs which definitely did not exist before World War II.  And when you consider the cities, you also have to consider the surrounding metropolitan areas.  For DC that’s Montgomery and Prince George’s County, Maryland, plus Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax County, Virginia – possibly Loudoun, Prince William and Fauquier as well.  For NYC that includes Long Island, Staten Island, and northern New Jersey.  We could think of southern Jersey as a big suburb of Philadelphia. 

So the DC-NY corridor winds up heavily travelled – by myself included.  My first trip up was in March 1991 to visit my friend Dave, who lives out on Long Island.  From then until a few years ago I took several trips to New Jersey to visit my friend Ken, who progressively moved from Bloomfield, to Ford, and then to Hillsborough, and to this day still lives in NJ.  Since June 2009 I’ve been back and forth to Fort Lee, which is on the NJ side of the George Washington Bridge, a part of NJ which is northwest of Manhattan. 

Plane.  Of course you can fly – if you want.  There is a shuttle, and the standard flight takes 30 minutes.  DC is served by three airports:  DCA (Reagan National), IAD (Dulles), and BWI (Baltimore-Washington), while NYC also has three:  JFK, La Guardia, and Newark.  The problem with flying between the two cities is that the logistics of getting to and from the airport mean it will take longer to do so than the flight itself.  I’ve never flown, just to fly between those two cities, although on home leaves we’ve flown from Paris to DC by way of JFK.  If the train is impractical, the plane is even worse.

Train.  DC is served by Union Station, a huge edifice near where 1^st Street, NW, and Massachusetts Ave. converge.  Like many European stations, it began in 1907 as yet another palace of transportation.  When rail travel began to decline after the national highway system gave Americans their own Autobahn, Union Station likewise fell into decline.  Its renovation has been fitful and controversial.  I rarely travel by train, so every time I’d go there the place would be set up completely differently inside. 

On the New York end, Penn Station is now buried deep under Madison Square Garden.  It was built in 1910 and was originally above-ground, just as spacious and magnificent as the other major rail stations.  In 1968 all the above-ground sections were demolished, replaced by the Madison Square Garden skyscraper complexes above, and became completely underground.  My guess is that most modern depictions of a fabulous, Art Nouveau era train station in Manhattan are actually showing Grand Central Station, which is completely different.  Whereas Penn Station is on 8^th Avenue at 33^rd Street, Grand Central is at 42^nd Street and Lexington Ave.  I’ve seen one concert at MSG – AC/DC, during the summer of 1988.  Although we did in fact use Penn Station for train travel to NYC – the only time we’ve done so – it was not in conjunction with that concert, which simply took place during our time in the city.

As for the logistics of it, the train is as rigidly bound by schedules as the bus, but much more expensive, and thus impractical.  That’s why I never take the train to NYC.

Bus.  DC’s bus terminal used to be the Greyhound Station located a few blocks north of Union Station, which only recently moved to Union Station itself.  The bus terminal was a very small, square building and only served the Greyhound intercity bus system.  Today’s “Chinatown” buses stop elsewhere.   I won’t call Union Station a backwater, but it’s really only busy because of itself.

In NYC, the Port Authority Bus Terminal dates from 1950.  I recall going through there as a kid whenever our family went to NYC by bus, or went through NYC on the way up to Glens Falls to visit our relatives in upstate New York.  The PABT also handles considerable local bus traffic, including the 158 bus to Fort Lee.  It’s a huge, multilevel building which occupies the equivalent of 4 city blocks, on 8^th Avenue at 42^nd Street.  Walk out of the building and you’re on the famous part of 42^nd Street leading directly to Times Square.  Very convenient!  There’s also a bronze statue of Ralph Kramden, the famous bus driver (Jackie Gleason) from “The Honeymooners” right in front, and the New York Times building is across the street. 

Nominally the bus takes as long as driving yourself:  4 hours (add more time due to traffic, as necessary).  In my case, it’s more like 7 hours: getting home from work, getting a ride to the bus stop, and at the NYC end walking to the bus terminal and then getting the 158 bus to Fort Lee.  The price paid for dozing off on a bus and not paying gas or tolls is that the logistics eat up 2-3 hours as well:  plus you have to leave according to a schedule instead of whenever you want.  Nowadays Greyhound has competition from various other small private companies who simply run DC-NY routes, in particular TripperBus (the one I use), but there are others, such as the Bolt Bus and Megabus.

The buses are much cheaper than the train, let you relax instead of driving, and take care of the tolls and gas as well.  They sometimes – not always – stop at the rest stops in northeast Maryland, a big new facility in Delaware, or the smaller ones on the New Jersey Turnpike. 

Car.  If you can’t predict when you’ll come or go, or don’t want to be fixed to a bus schedule and are inclined to drive  yourself, you can do so. In addition to the gas you’ve got tolls.  Lots of them, and as of 2013 they really add up.  Fortunately EZPass makes it more convenient, but the cost remains basically the same.

Let’s start with the baseline.  This is the simplest, most direct route which most people will probably take (and the bus takes it).   For simplicity I’ll just go northbound but note toll differences.

1.         95 or 295 (BW Parkway) from DC to Baltimore.  No toll.  This is the first hour out of 4.  To the extent there is any nasty traffic which would make the trip last 4.5, 5, or 6 hours, it’s probably here.  In 2006 it once took me 3 hours to get from Falls Church to Baltimore, and earlier the DC Beltway traffic was so horrendous, it took me two hours to get from Rosslyn just to the exit for 95 North from the DC Beltway, over near College Park. 

2.         Fort McHenry Tunnel or Baltimore Harbor Tunnel (by way of the 895 Bypass):  $4.00 each way.

3.         JFK Memorial Highway, i.e. 95 from Baltimore to Delaware.  $8.00 northbound only.  This is the second hour out of 4 – so crossing into NJ means you’re halfway there.

4.         Delaware Turnpike (95) from MD to the Delaware Memorial Bridge.  $4.00 each way.

5.         Delaware Memorial Bridge (DMB) from DE to NJ.  $4.00 southbound only.

6.         New Jersey Turnpike from DMB to Exit 18, the very end, at the George Washington Bridge.  Note: the Lincoln Tunnel is Exit 16 and puts you downtown most likely where you want to be.  The full turnpike toll is $13.85 both ways.   The halfway point on this part of the trip is Exit 7A.

NJTP charges a different rate for peak vs. off-peak: the full toll in off-peak is $10.40.  Peak is defined as 7-9 a.m. and 4:30–6:30 p.m. M-F and all day Saturday and Sunday.

Trip Toll Total from DC to exit 18 on the Turnpike: $29.85 northbound, $25.85 southbound, round trip total $55.70 ($48.80 off-peak).

Recently I got back from northern New Jersey (Fort Lee) and took a very strange route, which added 30-60 minutes in travel time but eliminated all tolls.   Is it really possible to avoid them?  Yes, but it takes some work.

Toll saver alternate Route 1.   Northbound, take Route 40 in Delaware from 279 (last MD exit before DE) and get back on 95 just before the DMB (NB); if going southbound, get on Route 40 just after crossing DMB into DE and follow it to 279 in Elkton, MD, back onto 95.   Route 40 is a four lane highway with a huge median and not many stoplights. You can stop for gas or fast food.  Total amount saved:  $4.00 each way.  It’s not a bad change of scenery.  I took this route when DE was redoing its toll plaza, causing massive backup southbound.

Toll saver alternate Route 2.  Northbound: immediately after crossing into NJ on the DMB, keep right and take 295 North.  295 goes parallel to the NJTP a few miles to the west.  When it passes Philadelphia it gets very confusing, but follow signs for 295-Trenton and there’s no problem.  But eventually at exit 36 it allows you to go back to the NJTP at Exit 4.   Going southbound, get off the Turnpike at Exit 4, go west for less than a mile, and then take 295 south.  The savings are $2.60 (peak) and $1.90 (off-peak), or $5.20 and $3.80 respectively, round trip.   The junction at the end is right at the bridge, and at Exit 4 it’s about a half mile, hardly noticeable.  Moreover, the bottom end of the Turnpike is VERY boring, especially at night.  295 isn’t much of a scenic route, but at least you’ve got mile-marked exits fairly often (36 to 1).  The big catch is the confusing business around Philadelphia, but if you follow the signs carefully you’ll stay on track without a problem.  I found this to be a worthwhile detour.

Toll saver alternate Route 3.  Instead of veering east for the DMB on 95 in Delaware, veer north towards Wilmington and Philadelphia and take 95 up that way.  Eventually 95 will cross the river, plunge into New Jersey, loop around on a major detour, and …eventually find its way to Exit 7A on the Turnpike.  This is kind of a pain in the ass detour, plus you run the risk of hitting Philadelphia traffic.  The savings are $4.30 peak, $3.35 off-peak, for $8.60 peak roundtrip or $6.70 off-peak roundtrip.  I don’t find this detour to be worth the savings.

Toll saver alternate Route 4.  This is the big one:  off into banjoland Pennsylvania but NO TOLLS.  Roundtrip savings approximately $50.  Additional driving time 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on traffic, but it is a VERY different route and during the day quite scenic and picturesque.  No huge smoking refineries, no huge bridges or rivers, no tunnels, no Dupont ethyl lead plants, but lots of liquor stores, tattoo parlors, farmland, etc. 

It’s a bit different each way, but the general idea is 95 > 695 > 83 > 30 > 222 > I78 > 287 > I80.

1.         Drive up 95 North or BW Parkway to the Baltimore Beltway (695).  Take 695 west/north to Towson.

2.         Take 83 North up to York, Pennsylvania.  This becomes a 4 lane highway winding its way through hills and forests, somewhat reminiscent of the lower Turnpike but more up and down.

3.         Get off (N. Hills Rd/462), continue straight on Hills and take a right onto 30 East.  Follow this for about 30 miles.

4.         Take 222 northeast all the way to Allentown.  This is by far the worst of the trip.  The road varies from highway to two lane road, back and forth, and several times you have to exit 222 onto 222 (???).  The key is to continue on “222” towards Allentown and not get distracted by the route numbers and road changes.

5.         Just south of Allentown, get on I-78 East.  This takes you east into New Jersey and remains a major highway all the way through.  By this time you’re probably fed up with “small roads”, especially if you’re driving at night and can’t see much anyway.

6.         Take 287 North.   This remains a highway, apparently curving up parallel to the Garden State Parkway (which is to the east).  287 N eventually meets the NY State Thruway if you follow it over the NY State Line.

7.         Take 80 East.  The interchange is exit 43 on 80, about ten miles west of Wayne.  Follow 80 East to NYC.

            Overall time:  just under 5 hours and NO tolls.

As noted, southbound it’s a bit different.  It’s still I80 > 287 > I78 … 222 > 30 > 83 > 695 > 95, but getting from I78 to 222 is the tricky part.

1.         Take 80 West to 287 S.  As of 11/13 they’re doing construction on that interchange, so the traffic is nasty.

2.         Take 287 S to I78 West.

3.         Here’s where it gets crazy.  To avoid the toll in I78 in PA, you get off I78 right before PA, at Route 122, getting on Main Street, a winding two lane road through Phillipsburg, NJ, crossing a bridge at Union Square over the river into Easton, PA, through the traffic circle, right on 3^rd St., left on Snyder, which then gets you onto 22 (Lehigh Valley Thruway), which leads to I-78.  

4.         Almost immediately after getting onto I-78, take 100 S, then a right onto Schantz road, which turns into 222 south.  

5.         Continue following “222 South” to get off onto 222 South (???), finally leading to 30 West towards York.  30 crosses the Susquehanna River, a similar two-bridge deal just like all the way down in northeast MD and 95. (the nicer parallel bridge to the south is 462 connecting Wrightsville on the west bank and Columbia on the east bank).

6.         As 30 West hits York at N. Hills Road, take a left turn at a stop light, go down the road about a mile, take a right onto Market, and immediately get onto 83 South.  From there it’s back down to 695 West, 95 South and the DC area again.  NO TOLLS.  

** Note 1: the westbound toll on I78 from PA into NJ is only $1.00; the toll is actually for the bridge itself.  I found it worthwhile to waive the "no toll" concept, eat the $1.00 EZPass toll, and simply stay on I78 from NJ into PA, then take 222 south at Allentown.
** Note 2: When going to/from Frederick, MD to NYC, it works better to take 70 West to Hagerstown, pick up I81, then follow that to Harrisburg and pick up I78 East, which starts there.  

Having a GPS is a huge help with this, as you might imagine.  The Android maps app can be programmed to avoid tolls (I83 route), which gave me a route identical to the AAA TripTik, which is what us twentieth century fossils use. 

I get off in Fort Lee, NJ, without actually going into NYC itself (except on the bus, but then the bus company pays the tolls).  Driving up the Turnpike you’d go into NYC in the Lincoln Tunnel, which dumps you between 42 Street and 34 Street on the west side of the island.  Driving on the alternate route would get you into NYC over the George Washington Bridge, which is up around 175 Street, also on the west side of Manhattan.  From there you can go east to the Bronx (and on to Connecticut), southeast on FDR Drive over to Queens or Brooklyn, or just stay on the West Side Highway.  The tolls for cars on the Lincoln Tunnel and GW Bridge are the same:  $13 cash, $10.25 peak, $8.25 off-peak, and $4.25 “carpool” (3 or more persons).   They only charge going INTO Manhattan – “escape from NY” is free.

I bitch about the tolls, but the real benefit was simply a completely different route than the one I’ve endured since 2009.  I really do NOT like the lower half of the Turnpike, especially at night.  

See You In Court

The new
Fairfax County courthouse is now open! Woohoo! Another palace of justice! I get the same feeling going into a newly opened courthouse as I did when I was a kid on the first day of school (and the last day, of course). The new complex is a big rectangle with a tropical botanical garden in the courtyard. The cafeteria is now a 5 star Brazilian churrascaria, with a Vocelli’s thrown in, and the judges are totally awesome. You can even have the pizza delivered to the courtroom, Jeff Spicoli style, in the middle of a trial.

Some of the above may be a little exaggerated.

The top “palace of justice” in this neck of the woods is still the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division (I’ve never seen the ones in other three divisions). Glass, dark wood, escalators, and 10 floors, even a little cafeteria. It’s justice in style and luxury. Too bad I rarely have occasion to go there as I don’t handle federal cases very often (like once every 10 years). Get caught smoking pot on Fort Belvoir, or drive a little too fast on the GW Parkway, and you may get the pleasure of meeting the velvet glove US Attorneys at this place and getting hosed – or better yet, acquitted.

Arlington’s courthouse opened up around 1995 or so. I was just starting out as an attorney when the older courthouse was still up, which had a real 60s CIA-Langley kind of style. The new one is also clean, light and airy, and well polished. It still looks brand new. The Marv Alpert trial was held there. My ex-boss fixed Greta Van Susteren’s cell phone when the media circus had come to town there. Despite its luxury, it lacks a cafeteria, which even Prince William County has. Fairfax’s cafeteria is huge, and tends to be a staging ground for cases and a great place to settle instead of going upstairs to try a case.

Alexandria (pictured above) is one of the few Colonial-retro courthouses around. Inside and out it looks like it belongs in Colonial Williamsburg. You even have the “bar” fences separating the gallery from where the counsel tables are and the bench, with the little swinging doors, so you have to “pass the bar” in the original sense. Remarkably, they handle all their business with just 4 courtrooms for General District Court and 4 for Circuit Court. Fairfax was bursting at the seams with 16 Circuit Court courtrooms.

Prince William County recently expanded its relatively modest facilities, where they get the J&DR Court, the General District Court, and the Circuit Court all into one building, and like Alexandria managed to cope with only 4 courtrooms per section. This was the site of the Bobbitt Trial (Lorena and John), about the only piece of notoriety Prince William ever seemed to achieve. Neither Manassas nor Woodbridge are much to write home about.

Loudoun County (Leesburg) recently opened up their new, and totally confusing, courthouse. Non-Euclidian geometry? Somehow they managed.

Over in Maryland, Monkey (Montgomery) County still has its 70s era main building and a 30s era District Court in Rockville. I went to the District Court as a kid on a school trip, and now – every now and then – practice there as an attorney. The 60s CIA-retro style District Court in Silver Spring was recently bumped in favor of a glass and IKEA wood new one just two blocks away. I noticed that they conduct many of their criminal hearings, when the defendant is in jail, by closed circuit TV, instead of the usual deal of having someone in a jail jumpsuit make a brief appearance, handcuffed, in the courtroom before being led back into the jail. One of the district courts in Baltimore, on Patapsco Ave., uses a similar system and the courthouse also looks the same. If IKEA designed courthouses, they would look like this.

Prince George’s County has been trying to renovate their courthouse, but a huge fire (“Didn’t you hear? There was a huge fire, the court burned down!”) set that back a bit. Upper Marlboro is kind of way out, so I’m not sorry that I don’t go that way often. This was one of the first courts to use computerized bulletin boards to show the docket, instead of the paper lists tacked to the bulletin board. Fairfax has only recently upgraded, but waiting for the docket to scroll screen by screen can be annoying, and less efficient than actually looking up on the paper.

Baltimore City’s court is located downtown, deep in the heart of the financial district. You may have seen it in “Die Hard 4” (supposed to be in DC but obviously in Baltimore) or “…And Justice for All” with Al Pacino.

Baltimore County, on the other hand, has a huge 60s Langley thing going on. It’s all the way up in Towson, somewhat of a long drive. Actually, having cases there helped me later, as I ended up driving past the Recher Theater and seeing where it was. It came in handy when I went to see Tesla there in 2004.

DC. I’m not licensed in DC, so I rarely have occasion to go to any of its courthouses. The Superior Court over on Indiana, is pretty big, and now has all sort of lighted boards there like airline arrival/departure boards. I went there a few times checking up on the DUI case of a PI client’s nemesis. The chairs in the courtroom, instead of being the usual benches, were single buckets which folded up – like in movie theaters. Some of the smaller courtrooms at the Montgomery County Circuit Court have similar seating. The US District Court (for DC) is more like a 30s retro deal, like the Dept of Commerce or the District court in Rockville.
Some of the courts have their own style, but mostly they fall into certain patterns. The continual upgrading and opening of new courthouses makes practice a bit more interesting than it otherwise would be. Not quite SSDD…

DC Revisited

I live in Northern Virginia – about 10 minutes outside the District of Columbia, better known as "DC", as in Washington, DC. Lately I’ve been going in more often and seeing parts of it I’ve never experienced before. I learn something new about it each time.

 Format. DC is in the form of a diamond, cut into 4 quarters: Northwest, Northeast, Southwest and Southeast. The north-south division is Constitution/Independence Avenues which straddle "The Mall", and the east-west division comes from North and South Capitol Streets. These streets, however, are off-center of the diamond, a few blocks east of the apex, so Northwest is larger than Northeast. Much of what we would think of as "Southwest" is better known as Arlington County, Virginia, cut off from the rest of Southwest DC by the Potomac River, so actual Southwest DC is fairly small.

 North-south streets are numbered (going down as you go east in Northwest towards the Capitol and back up eastwards of the Capitol); east-west streets have alphabet names (A, B, etc. – K Street being the major business area). Diagonal streets are named after states: Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Connecticut being the major western streets (lots of embassies along Mass. Ave.) and New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, and Pennsylvania Ave. being the major east side streets. Georgia Ave, though, runs north-south, also known as 7^th Street. Each of the state streets continues well past the DC-MD line and well into Maryland, becoming major commercial avenues in the suburbs. Wisconsin Ave. turns into 355 and goes all the way up to Frederick, Maryland, an hour out of DC. We knew it as Rockville Pike and grew up along there as kids.

 DC is connected to Maryland by land, with an invisible border you observe by a sign as you drive by on one of the major roads. It’s divided from Virginia by the Potomac River, so the connections there are by bridges and major highways (much more obvious that you’re going from one to the other). 395 comes up to DC from Virginia, but does not connect with 95 coming down from Maryland. They spent the money earmarked for the hookup on the Metro instead, so 95 splits off into 95 and 495 (the Beltway), whereas 395 sprouts off into New York Avenue, Pennsylvania Ave., and the Capitol Bldg. district. 395 goes across the 14^th Street Bridge (final destination of an Air Florida Flight, as Howard Stern famously remarked as a finale to his career as a disc jockey in DC in the early 80s) which puts you on 14^th Street running north-south. Memorial Bridge brings you to the Lincoln Memorial and the Rock Creek Parkway (if you can avoid getting completely confused) – an unfortunately rare destination from Virginia considering the bridge’s beauty and origin from Arlington Cemetary. Route 50/66 put you on Constitution Ave. coming in eastbound from the west. Key Bridge, a close second to Memorial Bridge in aesthetic appeal, brings traffic from Rosslyn to M Street in Georgetown and K Street, so it gets heavy traffic and more use than Memorial Bridge. I used to walk across it when I lived in Rosslyn.

 The Beltway. It’s not just a circumferential highway surrounding DC, Arlington County and Alexandria. It completely surrounds DC and has two bridges across the Potomac, the American Legion Memorial Bridge and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge (which has a drawbridge), each of which connect Maryland and Virginia. It’s been used metaphorically to describe a state of mind: "inside the Beltway" (thinking of Washington’s federal bureaucracy, the Establishment, the insiders, etc.) vs. "outside the Beltway" – everywhere else in the country, a kind of "us vs. them" mentality depending on who is talking. Other cities – including Baltimore, right up to the northeast of DC – have their own beltways, but the DC Beltway has a unique political significance.

 My own experience. I grew up in suburban Maryland, and my father worked at the Department of Commerce. The DOC building is on Constitution and 14^th Street, is one of the last of the huge government buildings built in the 20s and 30s, and the last built without central air conditioning installed. Its official name is the Herbert Hoover Building, though I don’t recall anyone referring to it as such. The lobbies and hallways are archaic and you can tell it’s an old building, cold in the winter, hot in the summer, with the A/C units hanging out of the windows. In the basement is the National Aquarium, which has a decent selection of fish if you consider that it’s fairly small. My dad used to take us there as kids. The Air & Space Museum, and other Smithsonian institutions, were the other reasons for us to – briefly – explore DC.

 In 1979 we moved to Paris, which meant we’d only see the US on home leaves every other even-numbered year. I mentioned 1984, when we stayed in a house on McArthur Blvd., though this is as far southwest DC as you can get without going into the Potomac, and as noted, the house’s poor A/C had us running to McLean, Virginia (right across the river) in search of sanity at our relatives’ house.

 I came back to the US to live most of the year on campus at the University of Maryland, College Park. I missed the DC alcohol age grandfathering by 3 months (I turned 18 in January 1987, instead of October 1986) so my excursions into DC were very limited during this time. One time my friend Phil took me to a place called Brazil Tropical (off Pennsylvania Ave.) for my first caipirinha, ages before I went to Rio de Janeiro and had one there.

Once I passed 21 and my brother and friend were still single, we’d hit two of the major zones for straight 20s something singles: Georgetown and M/L Street (closer to 18^th Street and the K Street district). This would have been the mid-90s as my brother got married in 1998 and my best friend in 1999. No more clubbing after that....

From September 1998 to April 1999, and then again from January 2000 to November 2000, I worked at a government contractor, CACI, on their L Street office. This was at L and 12^th, one block off K Street, and for all intents and purposes well within the "K Street" corridor. I took the metro from Rosslyn to McPherson Square and got to know this central business district, where all the fancy commercial offices are, and the major DC law firms. The deli’s in this neighborhood have names like "Gourmet Provisions" and charge twice what you’d consider reasonable. Thank God the McDonald’s on New York Ave. kept its normal rates, not that I’m a big fan of Evil Clown.

 A few blocks south is the Mall, the southern end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and the Capitol. The Mall is flanked on one end by the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial at the end of the Reflecting Pool (remember "Forrest Gump"?). At the opposite, eastern end is the Capitol. It’s lined by the various Smithsonian museums including, but not limited to, the National Museum of American History, the Museum of Natural History (north side) and the Air & Space Museum (south side). The Mall’s most recent purpose has been grounds for protests, first the Free Mumia series of World Bank/IMF series – from 1999 to 2003 - and then the next set from March 2003 (invasion/liberation of Iraq) onward to the present. However – as "Forrest Gump" points out – the area was rife with protest during the Vietnam War and even the Bonus March of the Great Depression.

Pennsylvania Ave. itself was supposed to have an unbroken view from the White House to the Capitol, but some dumbass Treasury Secretary decided that his ego trumped L’Enfant’s plan and dumped the Treasury Dept. building in the middle. A suitably creepy building along Penn. Ave. going towards the Capitol is the Old Post Office Building, with its tall clock tower, which is now an indoor mall usually full of tourists. The "new" post office building next door dates from...1935. This does it for the tourist part of town.

 DC does have large swaths of ghettos, run-down shithole land, off in Southeast and lots of Northeast. As I noted earlier, Southwest is rather small. Northwest is generally decent territory – it includes very posh residences along Foxhall Road (my uncle, who was a lobbyist, used to live there), and the American University neighborhood is very nice.

Lately I’ve gotten more aquainted with the Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan areas. Dupont Circle is where Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire Aves. meet, crossed by 19^th Street. It’s a trendy district where you can count on seeing too many guys holding hands and fans of "Will & Grace", Judy Garland, etc. ("Not that there’s anything wrong with it!" as they insisted on "Seinfeld"). Adams Morgan is essentially 18^th Street north of U Street, up to and including Columbia Road, and is a multicultural district, primarily hispanic, with plenty of Spanish spoken. When the Brazilian team won their fifth World Cup on Sunday, June 30, 2002, we celebrated the victory right at the top of 18^th Street. It was a huge block party with bongos, cheering, Brazilian flag waving, and shouts of "PENTA CAMPEAO" over and over again.

 Just last weekend we took a walk through the Meridian Hill Park, which dates from the early 20th century. It has a fantastic cascading fountain (like you’d find in Italy, of all places), and statues of James Buchanan, Dante, and Joan of Arc ("which of these things is not like the other, which of these things does not belong") which is, to say the least, a bizarre combination to find in an otherwise beautiful park – even nicer than Parcul Cismigiu or Parc Monceau. 16^th Street goes up a steep hill, and features some of the most bizarre architecture you can see in DC, short of the gothic, Adams Family monstrosity of the Old Executive Office Building or a close second, the Willard Hotel. Much of it dates from the turn of the century, when cable cars allowed development up the steep hills on 16^th Street, Wisconsin, Connecticut, etc. Some resemble castles, some resemble Arabic/Middle Eastern, and even when the neighborhood changes from apartment buildings to houses, you still get the early 20^th century eclectic style, with many bungalows or the mail order houses you could find in old Sears catalogs (yes, you could buy an entire house from the catalog back then). Much of the buildings between Adams Morgan and Dupont Circle share this schizophrenic heterogeneity. Perhaps H.P. Lovecraft would have felt at home here – or perhaps it would have been "too new" for his tastes.

 Getting around. The Metro in DC, unlike New York, London, and Paris, is a fairly recent addition and doesn’t have anywhere close the coverage it does in those cities. In Paris it’s like a station every 4 blocks, in DC it’s more like 10-15 blocks. Driving in DC is a hassle. In theory the city is set up intuitively with the numbered, lettered, and state streets, but in practice it degenerates into insanity with one-way streets, streets ending and picking up half a neighborhood away, the Rock Creek Park cutting the northern part in half, plus terrible potholes and bad drivers, many of them cab drivers from who knows where. Even when you do get to where you’re going, you still have to find a parking space, which is as much a nightmare in DC as in any other city. Walking around the city, however, is fine (as least in good weather), assuming you don’t mind walking long distances. I got used to it in Paris-sur-Seine (and that shithole version on the Dambovitsa) so I don’t mind it too much in DC, it’s the parking BS I can’t stand. Even so, whenever I’m in DC I’m immediately inclined to leave ASAP.