The Valley Viewpoint

When someone asks me, “Do you think you make a difference?” I feel a little embarrassed.

But depending on how the question is asked, I can also feel hurt.

Sometimes it sounds less like a sincere question and more like a challenge: Do you really believe anything you do matters? In that moment, the question can make you doubt yourself. It can cause you to look back over the years and wonder whether the work, the worry, the advocacy and all the times you showed up for other people meant anything at all.

That hurts because most of what I have done was never about receiving applause. I did it because I cared. I did it because I believed someone needed to speak, someone needed to listen and someone needed to show up.

For years, I have used the radio, my writing and whatever platform I have been given to talk about the issues affecting our communities. I have asked difficult questions, challenged people in positions of authority and spoken up for those who sometimes feel that no one is listening.

Did any of it make a difference?

I hope so.

I hope an interview helped someone understand an issue a little better. I hope something I wrote caused a person to stop, think or see another side. I hope asking an uncomfortable question forced someone in authority to provide an answer. I hope telling someone else’s story helped that person feel seen.

My work with the law has given me other opportunities to make a difference. Sometimes it has meant helping someone find a job. Sometimes it has meant listening to an employee who was struggling, guiding someone through a difficult moment or simply treating people with dignity when a workplace decision affected their life.

But the older I get, the more I realize that the greatest difference we make may have very little to do with our jobs, titles or public accomplishments.

It may be found in answering the telephone when a friend needs to talk. It may be in checking on someone who has been unusually quiet, sitting beside a person who is hurting or reminding someone that they do not have to face a difficult moment alone.

I have tried to do those things for my friends, for the people I love and, most importantly, for my daughter. I have not always gotten everything right. None of us does. But I have tried to show up. I have tried to listen. I have tried to speak when something needed to be said and remain present when there were no words capable of making things better.

Maybe that is why the question can hurt so much. It reduces a lifetime of caring to a moment in which I suddenly feel required to defend it. How do you prove that you made a difference? How do you measure the value of a conversation, a friendship, a word of encouragement or simply being there?

You cannot put those things on a résumé. There is no award for the private moments when you helped someone carry something heavy. Often, the only person who knows what your presence meant is the person who needed you.

The question also embarrasses me because I do not want recognition for caring about people. I do not want kindness to sound like an accomplishment. These are simply the things we should do for one another.

Still, I cannot deny that other people have made an enormous difference in my life. Friends who called at exactly the right moment. People who believed in me. Listeners who encouraged me. Colleagues who trusted me. Those who loved me enough to see beyond the person I showed the rest of the world.

Most of them probably have no idea how much their presence mattered.

That makes me wonder how often the same is true in reverse. Perhaps something I considered small became important to someone else. A conversation I barely remember may have helped another person through a difficult day. Something I said on the radio or wrote in a column may have reached the one person who needed to hear it.

So, do I make a difference?

The question still embarrasses me, and sometimes it hurts more than I would like to admit. But I hope the answer is yes.

Not because I believe I have changed the world, but because I have tried to make my small corner of it a little more honest, a little more compassionate and a little less lonely.

Perhaps that is the real measure of a life—not how many people knew our name, but whether someone’s burden became a little lighter because we were there.

One of the things I remember from my Jesuit education is the idea of accompaniment—walking with someone, being present, and not allowing another person to face something difficult alone.

As I’ve gotten older, I think I understand that lesson differently.

For me, the ministry of presence can be very simple. And sometimes, it isn’t particularly glamorous.

It means making sure Claire doesn’t have to go to a doctor’s appointment alone. I can be there. I can sit beside her. Sometimes, that’s enough—and it’s the least I can do for someone I love. 

It also means being willing to accept help.

I’ve recently found that in a new friendship with Randi. She’s been helping and encouraging me with my diet and making better choices. It would be easy to say, “I’ve got this.” But sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we need someone to walk beside us. And I’ve learned that accepting help is just as important as giving it.

It means helping a blind friend who lives on a fixed income when his landlord suddenly wants to charge him for upgrading the cable TV connection in his apartment. Maybe it’s just a cable connection, but to him, an unexpected charge matters. So we challenge it.

And that brings me to something else I’ve learned over the years.

The only real fun in practicing law is not letting people push other people around.

That’s really what I enjoy about it.

I don’t particularly care about the fancy arguments, the long documents, or the occasional 47-page email that could have been three paragraphs. What I like is stepping in when someone is being taken advantage of and saying, “Wait a minute. That’s not right.”

Maybe that’s another form of accompaniment.

Standing beside someone when they need someone to stand beside them.

You don’t always have to fix everything. You don’t have to have all the answers. Sometimes you just have to show up.

The older I get, the more I realize that presence doesn’t have to be dramatic.

It’s a ride to the doctor.

A phone call.

A friend checking in.

Helping someone challenge an unfair charge.

A little encouragement when the diet isn’t going particularly well.

Someone sitting beside you.

Someone saying, “I’ll go with you.”

Or sometimes simply being willing to say, “Yes, I could use your help.”

The Jesuits taught me a long time ago that we are not meant to walk through life alone.

I think I’m finally beginning to understand just how true that is.

Sometimes we walk beside someone.

Sometimes someone walks beside us.

Sometimes we help.

Sometimes we need help.

And sometimes the greatest thing we can do is simply show up.

I’ll be there.

That may be the ministry of presence.

And if it occasionally involves fighting over a cable bill, helping a friend make better choices, or making sure someone doesn’t get pushed around, well…

that’s not a bad way to spend a life.

I was going through some old newspaper columns today when I pulled out one I had been saving for years. The story had appeared on the front page of both the Detroit Free Press and USA Today.

The headline read:

“Study: 25 Percent of Americans Have No One to Confide In.”

I stopped and read it again.

No one to confide in.

Is there a lonelier sentence than that?

According to research published in the American Sociological Review, the average American had gone from having three people with whom they could discuss important matters to just two. Even more troubling, one in four Americans said they had no one at all.

The sociologists offered many of the explanations you might expect. People live in the suburbs and commute to jobs in the city. We walk around with headphones covering our ears. We retreat behind televisions, computers and smartphones.

But we cannot blame the machines for everything. After all, we are the ones choosing to disappear inside them.

I think the problem may begin much earlier—perhaps as far back as high school.

Many of the people we consider our closest or lifelong friends entered our lives when we were young. Stephen King captured that feeling perfectly in The Body, the story that later became the film Stand by Me:

“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12.”

There is a reason that line stays with us.

When are the strongest friendships formed? Usually not while we are racing from one scheduled activity to another. They are formed while riding the bus home from a game, lying in the grass, kicking a can down the street or sleeping on the floor of a friend’s basement. They grow during long conversations, shared secrets and those uncontrollable fits of laughter that leave everyone gasping for breath.

Friendships may be photographed at parties, reunions and celebrations, but they are forged in much quieter moments.

Some of the guys I knew when I was 13 are still men I can call today. The friends with whom I shared midnight pizza and endless conversations in high school are still people I can confide in more than half a century later. We did not realize it at the time, but all those seemingly ordinary hours were building something that would last a lifetime.

A trusting friendship needs room to breathe. It needs time when nobody is competing, accomplishing or staring at a screen. It needs hanging around, listening, laughing and sharing even the boring moments.

Perhaps that is something parents should remember when deciding what their children must accomplish—especially during the summer. There is value in allowing young people to slow down, wander a little and spend unstructured time with the kids who live nearby.

Those kinds of summers may not produce diplomas, certificates or trophies.

They may produce something far more valuable:

A lifelong friend—and someone to confide in when life becomes difficult.

Sometimes the most important lessons have very little to do with the law.

In a recent Law.com reflection, an attorney recalled an encounter with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. When Scalia entered the room, the assembled lawyers remained seated. He noticed.

After looking down for a moment, Scalia expressed his disappointment. These attorneys, he observed, had sat there “like bumps on a log” rather than rising to greet an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. He then added that, in his day, he automatically stood whenever a woman entered the room.

His criticism was blunt. It was also about far more than whether someone stood up.

Scalia was talking about respect.

We have become increasingly casual about the small gestures that once helped hold society together: standing when someone enters the room, looking a person in the eye, offering a firm handshake, holding a door, addressing an elder properly and allowing someone else to speak without interruption.

None of these customs requires us to surrender our independence or pretend that every person deserves our agreement. They simply acknowledge the dignity of the person standing before us.

You could disagree with Justice Scalia’s judicial philosophy and still rise when he entered the room. Respect was never supposed to mean ideological approval. It meant recognizing the office, the institution and the human being.

That distinction has become increasingly difficult for us.

Today, disagreement is often treated as permission for contempt. Political opponents are not merely wrong; they are evil. Public officials are not questioned; they are shouted down. People routinely say things online that they would never have the courage—or the indecency—to say while looking someone in the eye.

We have confused informality with equality and rudeness with authenticity.

The lesson Scalia offered those lawyers was not really about etiquette. It was about discipline. A good lawyer must know how to control the room, but first must know how to control himself. That means listening carefully, respecting the court, understanding tradition and recognizing that professionalism is revealed in the smallest moments.

The same is true outside the courtroom.

Character is demonstrated when there is nothing to be gained from showing courtesy. It is saying “thank you” to the person clearing the table. It is putting down the phone when someone is speaking. It is treating people with dignity regardless of their job, politics, education or usefulness to us.

Justice Scalia’s words may sound old-fashioned to some. Perhaps that is precisely why they are worth remembering.

Not every tradition deserves to survive simply because it is old. But the customs that teach humility, gratitude and respect should not be discarded merely because they require a little effort.

Sometimes getting yelled at makes us defensive.

Sometimes, if we are willing to listen, it makes us better lawyers—and better people.

We are just a few weeks away from the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001.

Twenty-five years. It is difficult to comprehend how much life has happened since that morning—how many people have entered my life, how many have left it and how much I have changed along the way. Yet some memories of that day remain as clear as if they happened yesterday.

I remember feeling frightened and vulnerable in a way I never had before. I remember the unbearable sadness of knowing that so many lives had been lost. I remember the smell of the smoke drifting across the water and the feeling of dread that settled deep in my stomach.

And through all of it, there was only one person I desperately wanted to reach: my daughter.

She was just ten years old, experiencing the fear and loss of security that came with that terrible day. All I wanted was to get hold of her, hear her voice and tell her, “We’re okay. I’m here.”

At that moment, nothing else mattered. I simply needed my little girl to know that her father was alive, that I loved her and that, whatever came next, she would not face it alone. Of all the memories I carry from September 11, that overwhelming need to reach my daughter remains one of the most personal.

I also remember the courage. I remember the pride I felt in ordinary Americans who rose to an unimaginable moment—some knowing it would be their last. I remember people from every background reaching for one another, helping strangers and standing together as one country.

We saw what hatred could destroy. In the days that followed, we also saw what love could begin to heal.

I spent time standing outside in the darkness during those days, trying to make sense of what had happened. I felt incredibly grateful to be alive and untouched by the immediate horror, yet almost guilty that I was free to return to my life when so many others never would.

In that darkness, I understood just how fragile life really is. It can change—or end—in an instant. We know that, of course, but most of us don’t live as though we know it. We assume there will always be another day, another conversation and another opportunity to tell someone what they mean to us.

September 11 reminded me that every day, every hour and every minute we are given is precious.

That day also began my journey as an advocate. Something changed inside me. I could no longer be comfortable remaining silent when people were hurting, when institutions failed them or when those without power needed someone willing to stand beside them.

I didn’t know then where that journey would take me—into advocacy, radio, writing and public life—but I knew that simply watching from the sidelines would no longer be enough.

September 11 gave me a deeper understanding that a life is measured not merely by how long we are here, but by what we do with the time we are given and whether we are willing to use our voice for someone who may not be able to use their own.

Shortly before my mother died, she told me, “There is no death. People die only when we forget them. If you can remember me, I will be with you always.”

I have carried those words with me ever since.

People come into our lives, and people leave our lives. But the people we love never truly leave us. They remain in our stories, our memories and the quiet places in our hearts that belong only to them.

Ten Xavier graduates were killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center that morning:

John Ryan ’74
Edmund McNally ’78
Christopher Hanley ’84
Michael Andrews ’85
John Farrell ’87
James Riches ’89
Matthew Burke ’91
Sean Lugano ’91
James Coyle ’93
Charles Heeran ’96

As a Xavier graduate, their names feel personal to me. We walked the same hallways on 16th Street. We were shaped by the same traditions and taught the same responsibility to be men for others. I may not have known each of them, but they were—and will always remain—my Xavier brothers.

This remembrance is dedicated to them, to everyone we lost that morning and to those who have carried their absence for the past 25 years.

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.”

Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

And forever, brother, hail and farewell.

Democratic leaders love describing their party as a “big tent”—a broad, welcoming coalition with room for people of every race, religion, background and point of view.

It sounds wonderful.

It is also increasingly difficult to believe.

A genuinely big political tent would contain people who disagree with one another. It would welcome the union worker who supports legal immigration but wants the border secured. It would have room for the Catholic mother who supports programs for the poor but believes abortion ends a human life. It would include the lifelong Democrat who supports equal rights for every American but does not believe biological sex is something society can simply redefine.

A big tent would welcome Jewish voters who support Israel without forcing them to apologize for it. It would respect Black and Hispanic parents who want more police in their neighborhoods—not fewer. It would listen to working families who believe climate change is real but cannot afford higher electric bills, gasoline prices or another government mandate.

That would be a big tent.

What today’s Democratic Party increasingly offers is a tent with a very large sign out front and a remarkably narrow entrance.

You are welcome—as long as you agree.

You may enter—as long as you accept the approved positions on immigration, abortion, gender, policing, climate policy, education and Israel. Question any part of the agenda and the language of inclusion quickly disappears. Suddenly, you are ignorant, intolerant, extreme, dangerous or guilty of spreading “misinformation.”

That is not diversity. It is ideological conformity dressed up in the language of compassion.

The Democratic Party was once held together by an unlikely but powerful coalition: union households, working-class Catholics, Black voters, immigrant families, rural communities, urban liberals and middle-class reformers. These groups did not agree on everything. They did not have to. They were bound together by the belief that government should stand up for working people and provide opportunity to those willing to work for it.

Today, much of that economic message has been replaced by cultural lectures delivered by people who appear increasingly disconnected from the families they claim to represent.

Working people are told that the economy is strong while they struggle to pay for groceries, housing, insurance and electricity. Parents are told that their concerns about schools are rooted in intolerance. Residents worried about crime are accused of fearmongering. Citizens who want immigration laws enforced are portrayed as hostile to immigrants.

Then, when those voters begin drifting away, Democratic strategists rarely ask whether the party has stopped listening to them. Instead, they question the voters’ intelligence, motives or morality.

That is a peculiar way to maintain a coalition.

Here in the Hudson Valley, most people are not ideological extremists. They are practical. They may support environmental protection while opposing policies that make energy unaffordable. They may welcome immigrants while insisting that the country maintain an orderly border. They may support gay rights while questioning whether every disagreement over gender should be treated as hatred. They may believe government has an important role while also recognizing that Albany taxes too much, spends too freely and regulates too aggressively.

These are not radical positions. They are the everyday opinions of people who live outside political bubbles.

Yet the modern Democratic Party too often treats moderation as a betrayal rather than a bridge. Its “big tent” has become a collection of carefully selected identity groups, each publicly celebrated—provided every member accepts the same political doctrine.

Real inclusion would mean accepting that a person can be compassionate without being progressive, tolerant without surrendering common sense and patriotic without apologizing for America. It would recognize that disagreement is not violence, questions are not hatred and political opponents are not enemies.

The Republican Party certainly has its own factions, contradictions and purity tests. No political party is immune from hypocrisy. But Democrats have made inclusion central to their identity. That makes the distance between their rhetoric and their behavior especially glaring.

You cannot call yourself the party of diversity while demanding uniformity of thought.

You cannot claim to represent working people while dismissing their concerns about prices, crime, immigration and schools.

You cannot preach tolerance while treating disagreement as a moral defect.

And you cannot keep calling something a “big tent” after chasing half the guests out of it.

If Democrats genuinely want to rebuild their old coalition, they will have to do more than change their slogans or find friendlier ways to deliver the same lectures. They will have to listen to voters they no longer understand, tolerate opinions they do not share and stop assuming that anyone who disagrees with them must be motivated by ignorance or malice.

Until then, the “big tent” is not an invitation.

It is advertising.

It’s campaign season again.

Across the Hudson Valley, elected officials—and those hoping to move into higher office—are inviting local business owners to forums, roundtables and listening sessions. The stated purpose is almost always the same: Tell us what businesses need to succeed.

The latest invitation comes from Pleasant Valley Town Councilmember Meghan Borland, who is calling on current and prospective business owners to attend a meeting on September 8 at the Pleasant Valley Town Library.

The invitation is worthwhile. Local officials should hear directly from the people who sign the leases, meet the payroll, pay the taxes and take the financial risks necessary to keep a community’s commercial corridors alive.

But business owners have attended plenty of these meetings before.

They have filled out surveys, joined advisory committees and sat through presentations about economic development. They have explained their difficulties finding employees, obtaining permits, navigating zoning rules and absorbing continually increasing costs.

The question is no longer whether government is willing to listen.

The question is whether anyone is prepared to act.

Anyone considering opening a business in New York quickly discovers that the challenge is not one particular regulation. It is the cumulative weight of all of them.

Before serving the first customer, an entrepreneur may have to form a legal entity, register with the state, obtain a sales-tax Certificate of Authority, secure the appropriate insurance and determine which state and local licenses apply.

Depending upon the nature of the business, there may also be zoning approvals, building permits, fire inspections, health permits, professional licenses, parking requirements and restrictions on signs.

If the business is organized as an LLC, New York still requires notices to be published in two newspapers for six consecutive weeks. In the digital age, this antiquated mandate provides little meaningful public protection. It simply adds another expense for someone who has not yet earned the first dollar from the new venture.

Then the owner hires the first employee, and an entirely new layer of government obligations appears.

The employer must register for unemployment insurance, withholding and wage reporting. Workers’ compensation, disability and Paid Family Leave coverage will generally be required. New hires must be reported to the state, taxes must be withheld and quarterly wage reports must be filed.

Employees must receive written wage notices and detailed pay statements. Employers must comply with minimum-wage, overtime, sick-leave and paid-prenatal-leave requirements. They must adopt workplace policies, distribute notices, maintain records and provide annual sexual-harassment prevention training.

Additional requirements may apply depending on the size and type of business.

Many of these rules serve legitimate purposes. Employees deserve to be paid accurately, work in safe environments and receive reasonable protections when they become sick or need to care for their families.

But Albany rarely considers the cumulative burden created when one mandate is placed on top of another.

Large corporations have lawyers, accountants, human-resources departments, payroll specialists and compliance officers. A person opening a neighborhood restaurant, repair shop, professional practice or retail store does not.

For that owner, every hour spent trying to interpret a regulation is an hour not spent finding customers, training employees or improving the business. Every application, consultant, insurance policy and filing fee consumes capital before the doors even open.

Regulatory complexity inevitably favors businesses large enough to hire people whose full-time job is compliance. It punishes the first-time entrepreneur and the small employer considering whether to hire one more person.

Pleasant Valley cannot repeal state labor laws or eliminate Albany’s LLC publication requirement. But local government is not powerless.

Town officials can examine whether their own approval process is understandable, predictable and timely. They can ask whether applicants receive consistent information from the building, zoning, planning and fire offices. They can establish a single point of contact to help prospective businesses navigate town requirements.

They can publish a straightforward checklist explaining what approvals are required, which department handles each one, what the fees will be and how long a decision should reasonably take. They can review whether zoning and signage rules still reflect the needs of today’s businesses. And they can ensure that applicants are not sent from office to office receiving different answers along the way.

That is what should come from the September 8 meeting—not simply another photograph of public officials seated around a table with local business owners.

Councilmember Borland deserves credit for extending the invitation. Now the meeting should produce something measurable: a list of the obstacles identified, the officials or agencies responsible for addressing them and a public follow-up explaining what will change.

Business owners do not need another official to tell them they are the “backbone of the community.” They have heard that line before.

They need clarity. They need consistency. They need reasonable timelines. And they need government to recognize that every additional delay or expense can determine whether a prospective business ever opens its doors.

New York regularly says it is open for business. Local forums such as this one provide an opportunity to demonstrate that those words mean something.

Listening is a good beginning.

But for Pleasant Valley’s current and prospective businesses, what happens after September 8 will matter much more.

The most disturbing question raised by the Lindsay Clancy case may not be whether she was too mentally ill to be held criminally responsible.

It may be how a woman could repeatedly seek psychiatric help, encounter numerous professionals, receive multiple medications—and still deteriorate so completely that three children lost their lives.

Cora, Dawson and Callan are the innocent victims at the center of this tragedy. Their father, Patrick, must live with a loss beyond comprehension. Nothing about examining the failures in their mother’s treatment diminishes their lives or excuses what happened to them.

But neither should we ignore what this case appears to reveal about America’s mental-health treatment industry.

According to the New York Post’s examination of the case⁠, Clancy was surrounded by providers but seemingly cared for by no one. There were psychiatrists, therapists, social workers, telehealth appointments and psychiatric medications—but no single professional taking responsibility for the whole patient.

Everyone treated a piece of her. Nobody took command of her care.

One provider reportedly testified that she did not review another clinician’s notes because she wanted to approach Clancy with “new eyes.” But psychiatric treatment cannot consist of a collection of isolated encounters in which each professional begins again. When a patient is deteriorating, continuity and communication are not optional administrative details. They can be matters of life and death.

Clancy reportedly participated in 14 telehealth sessions lasting between 17 and 30 minutes. One occurred the day before the killings, yet she was apparently not directed to an emergency room or required to undergo an immediate in-person evaluation.

We should ask what the mental-health industry has become when a desperately ill mother can be assessed through a screen, prescribed one medication after another and sent back into her home without anyone ensuring that she—or her children—are safe.

This is healthcare reduced to appointments, prescriptions and billing codes. The providers can document that the patient was seen. The insurer can record that a service was delivered. Every box can be checked while the human being at the center of it all continues to fall apart.

There is also a troubling shortage of professionals properly trained to recognize postpartum psychosis. It is a rare but potentially catastrophic psychiatric emergency involving delusions, hallucinations, confusion and a loss of contact with reality. Yet women suffering from it may enter a system staffed by clinicians without specialized perinatal training—and constrained by insurers that dictate which providers they may see, how frequently they may be seen and how much time can be spent with them.

We have built a mental-health industry that speaks constantly about “access to care.” But access means very little when the care is fragmented, rushed and incapable of recognizing a psychiatric emergency unfolding in plain sight.

None of this settles the question of Lindsay Clancy’s criminal responsibility. That decision belongs to the jury. Medical negligence does not automatically eliminate personal responsibility, and a failed healthcare system cannot simply be placed on trial in her place.

But the system must still answer for itself.

What is the purpose of having multiple mental-health professionals involved if none is responsible for coordinating treatment? What is the value of repeated appointments if no one recognizes that outpatient care is no longer enough? How many medications, sleepless nights and pleas for help must accumulate before someone intervenes?

Three children are dead. A father’s life has been shattered. A mother may have been consumed by an illness she could no longer understand.

The mental-health industry cannot promise compassion, collect payment for treatment and then disclaim responsibility when a patient disappears through the spaces between its providers.

Lindsay Clancy asked for help. The system gave her appointments.

Her children needed that system to give her care.

How a Federal Civil Court Turned Privacy Into Punishment

In a case that should alarm anyone who values civil liberties, a federal court imposed shackles, sanctions, and silence on a woman who never committed a crime—because she pushed back against overreach.

Jennifer Kowalski, a former Prudential employee, became the target of escalating judicial punishment after she came into possession of internal corporate materials provided to her by Prudential’s own e-discovery vendor, Epiq.¹ These documents—later described as “inadvertently produced”—exposed Prudential’s unfettered ransacking of her personal devices and digital accounts, raising serious legal and ethical concerns. Rather than confront the implications, Prudential sought to claw back the files and demanded sweeping access to Kowalski’s cloud platforms, including her Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive accounts—along with passwords and multi-factor authentication.³⁴

When she resisted—raising concerns about the scope of the request and the invasion of her personal data—things quickly escalated.

Rather than adjudicate the matter with fairness, U.S. District Judge Victor Bolden stripped Kowalski of her legal footing. He imposed a default judgment, barred her from mounting a defense, and ordered her to pay $181,175.26 in Prudential’s legal fees.⁵ Worse, he ordered her remanded—twice—into the custody of the U.S. Marshals for civil noncompliance.

At a key evidentiary hearing in 2023, Kowalski—who had no legal representation—was forced to proceed pro se while shackled in handcuffs and leg irons, in the presence of Prudential’s legal team and witnesses.²

No trial. No lawyer. No criminal charges. Just a civil litigant treated as if she were a felon.

Then came a critical turning point: the U.S. Bankruptcy Court discharged the debt.⁶ Another federal judge, in a separate jurisdiction, wiped out the six-figure sanction—implicitly repudiating the severity and legitimacy of the original order.

That ruling doesn’t just relieve Kowalski of financial liability. It reframes the entire episode as a disturbing example of coercive judicial conduct under the guise of civil procedure.

NBC Connecticut reported on the cloud account dispute in 2024.⁷ What it did not capture was the deeper story: how an unrepresented litigant—without resources or recourse—was crushed by the weight of a civil process that had veered far outside the bounds of fairness.

This case exposes more than a rogue decision. It reveals how the tools of civil litigation—discovery orders, sanctions, contempt—can be wielded as blunt instruments of punishment, particularly against those who refuse to be quietly compliant.

Jennifer Kowalski’s story is not just about one judge or one court. It’s about the need for serious oversight when civil justice is used to punish rather than resolve. When due process becomes optional. And when the judiciary polices itself with little consequence.

The sanction is gone. But the trauma remains. And the questions are just beginning.

Who authorized a courtroom where a civil litigant could be shackled like a criminal? Why was she denied the basic dignity of representation? And how did a routine discovery dispute turn into a judicial exercise in domination?

If this can happen in a federal court—with cameras just outside the doors—it can happen to anyone.

Because when justice wears chains, the law itself becomes complicit.

⸻

References

1. NBC Connecticut (Aug. 2024). “Former Prudential Employee in Legal Battle Over Personal Cloud Access.” Link
2. U.S. District Court, D. Conn., Case No. 3:21-cv-00541 — Transcript of Evidentiary Hearing, July 2023
3. Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel, May 2023. Prudential characterizes the production as “inadvertent”
4. Motion to Compel Cloud Credentials (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive), May 2023
5. Default Judgment and Sanctions Order, Doc. 160, U.S. District Court D. Conn., Sept. 2024
6. U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Case No. 25-35105 (KYP), Discharge Order, April 2025
7. NBC Connecticut report, ibid.

When someone is experiencing a mental-health crisis, the presence of a trained behavioral-health professional alongside law enforcement can mean the difference between treatment and incarceration, de-escalation and confrontation—even life and death.

That is why Putnam County should find a way to preserve its Co-Responder Team.

The program began in 2024 with the help of a $400,000 federal Department of Justice COPS grant. It paired law enforcement with mental-health and social-services professionals, giving deputies access to specialized assistance when responding to people in crisis.

But when the federal grant expired on June 30, 2026, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office ended its participation.

Sheriff Brian Hess raised legitimate concerns. The annual cost of assigning a full-time deputy was estimated at approximately $250,000. He also questioned the program’s utilization, saying the dedicated deputy responded to only about 3 percent of mental-health-related calls. In addition, the Sheriff cited the absence of a formal memorandum of understanding and an inconsistent command structure among the agencies involved.

Those concerns demand correction—not abandonment.

If the team was responding to too few calls, county officials should determine why. Was it unavailable when needed? Were dispatchers failing to activate it? Were the Sheriff’s Office and Department of Social Services using different definitions or tracking systems?

The county’s Department of Social Services and Mental Health disputes the Sheriff’s utilization figures. That disagreement alone should prompt a transparent review of the data. Putnam County should know exactly how many crises the team handled, what outcomes it achieved and whether its presence reduced arrests, hospitalizations, injuries or repeat calls.

The lack of a formal agreement is also fixable. County government routinely creates interagency agreements defining authority, responsibilities, staffing and accountability. A clear memorandum of understanding and unified command protocol should have been in place from the beginning. Their absence is an argument for strengthening the program, not eliminating it.

Legislator Nancy Montgomery and others have expressed a willingness to explore alternative funding or intermunicipal agreements. That discussion should move forward immediately.

The answer may not be to preserve the program in precisely its original form. Putnam County could consider an on-call model, cross-train multiple deputies, share resources with neighboring municipalities or pursue state and private funding. It could also establish performance standards ensuring that the team is available when and where it is most needed.

But allowing the program to simply disappear because a federal grant expired would be shortsighted.

Mental-health crises will continue. Deputies will still be called to homes where families are overwhelmed, people are frightened and circumstances can escalate quickly. Law-enforcement officers perform an extraordinarily difficult job, but they should not be expected to serve simultaneously as police officers, social workers, therapists and psychiatric clinicians.

Co-responder programs recognize that reality. They give law enforcement another tool and provide people in crisis with a better opportunity to receive appropriate care.

Temporary federal funding should never become an excuse for local government to avoid long-term planning. If Putnam County believed this program was important enough to launch, it should now determine what worked, repair what did not and build a sustainable version that taxpayers can support.

This is not a choice between compassion and fiscal responsibility. A well-designed Co-Responder Team can serve both by reducing unnecessary arrests, emergency-room visits, repeated calls and the enormous human and financial costs of untreated mental illness.

Putnam County should bring everyone back to the table—the Sheriff’s Office, mental-health officials, legislators, municipal police departments and community providers—and find a responsible path forward.

The grant may have expired.

Putnam County’s obligation to respond effectively to people in crisis did not.

Yesterday, while driving home from my office in Jersey, I spent nearly an hour on the phone with my long-lost cousin Geraldine. Somehow, it felt like only a few minutes.

We talked, laughed, and shared old family stories—the kind of memories that can instantly transport you to another time and place. I was so grateful to relive those moments with her and reconnect with a part of my life that remains deeply rooted in who I am.

When you have a strong sense of family, no matter where life takes you or what you may be dealing with, you always have a foundation to return to. Family reminds you where you came from, helps you remember who you are, and gives you a sense of belonging that neither time nor distance can erase.

Yesterday’s conversation was a beautiful reminder that some connections never truly disappear. They simply wait for us to find our way back to them.

Thank you for the memories, Beans—and for making an hour feel far too short.

When I heard about the death of actress Hayden Panettiere, my first response was not as a fan of television or film. It was as a father. I thought about how young thirty-six truly is. I thought about her daughter, her father, and everyone who loved her away from the cameras. Most of all, I thought about the fear every parent carries somewhere inside: the fear that, despite all our love, we may not be able to protect our children from every pain they will face.

Hayden spent almost her entire life in public. Audiences watched her grow from a child performer into an accomplished actress known for roles in Heroes, Nashville, Remember the Titans, and the Scream films. From the outside, her life could appear extraordinary. She had talent, recognition, beauty, and success. Yet her story reminds me that what the world sees is never the whole person. Fame does not remove loneliness. Achievement does not make someone immune to suffering. A smile in a photograph can exist beside a private battle that few people fully understand.

As a parent, that truth is difficult to accept. We want to believe that if we love our children enough, teach them well, and remain available, we can keep them safe. But parenthood eventually teaches us the limits of control. Our children become their own people. They enter a world that can be generous one moment and cruel the next. We can guide them, listen to them, and stand beside them, but we cannot fight every battle on their behalf and sometimes they face there own demons and all a parent can do is tell them that they will always reside forever in their parents heart.

Hayden spoke openly about addiction, depression, and recovery. I respect the courage required to acknowledge those struggles publicly. People often treat vulnerability as weakness, but a parent knows how much strength it can take for a child—at any age—to admit that something is wrong. Her openness may have helped others feel less ashamed and less alone. That part of her legacy deserves to be remembered alongside her performances.

Her death also reminds me to be careful about judgment. It is easy for strangers to look at another person’s life and decide what they should have done differently. It is harder to respond with compassion. At the time of this writing, the official cause of Hayden’s death has not been determined. Rumors cannot explain a life, and speculation cannot honor one. As a father, I would hope that if my own child were gone, people would remember her humanity before discussing any mistakes or struggles. I owe Hayden and her family that same dignity.

I find myself thinking about her father. He had already endured the death of Hayden’s younger brother, Jansen, in 2023. Now he has lost both of his children. I cannot pretend to understand the depth of that grief, but as a parent I can recognize the nightmare within it. We expect our children to outlive us. We imagine their futures even before they are born. To lose a child is to grieve not only the person but also every tomorrow we assumed they would have.

I also think about Hayden’s daughter. A child should have the chance to know a parent not as a public figure or a collection of headlines, but as a human being. I hope she grows up surrounded by honest and loving memories of her mother—memories that include Hayden’s strength, humor, talent, courage, and affection, not only the difficulties she faced. No person should be defined solely by the hardest chapters of their life.

This tragedy makes me examine my own role as a father. It reminds me that providing for my own child is not enough. I must also make space for her to speak without fear of disappointing me. I must ask how shes doing and be willing to hear the real answer even when the answer is not forthcoming. I must tell her that asking for help is not failure and that value does not depend on appearing strong. Most importantly, I must not assume there will always be another opportunity to say what matters.

Hayden’s death is not meaningful simply because it teaches the rest of us something. Her family’s loss is real, personal, and devastating. Still, those of us who hear about it can choose how we respond. We can respond with gossip, or we can respond with empathy. We can reduce her to her struggles, or we can remember the full life she lived. We can move quickly to the next story, or we can pause and consider the people in our own lives who may need patience, attention, or reassurance.

As a father, I am left with a renewed awareness that children never stop being their parents’ children. They may become adults, build careers, raise families, and become known around the world, but a parent still sees the child who once needed a hand to hold. Hayden Panettiere was famous to millions, but to those closest to her she was a daughter, a sister, a mother, and a loved human being.

Her life should be remembered for more than its ending. She brought memorable characters to the screen, used her voice for causes she believed in, and spoke honestly about experiences that many people hide. Her struggles were part of her story, but they were not the total of her worth.

Tonight, I remind myself to listen more carefully, speak more gently, and love more openly. Tomorrow is something parents hope to give their children, but it is never something we can guarantee. What we can give them today is our presence—and the certainty that whatever they face, they do not have to face it alone.