You ever go to Central Islip? You ever hear of it? Neither had I till today when a major oversight in trial preparation had me scrambling to figure out where Central Islip is located. It isn’t in Brooklyn!
$230 taxi ride and an hour later than scheduled, I begged the court for mercy for not knowing that there is more than one federal court in the Eastern District of New York.
Now I’m on the $12.75 train back to Penn Station lucky to still be a practicing attorney.
This is an important lesson for all travelers who do not double-check the name of their departing airport and end up with a lot of stress as they arrive at the wrong terminal (see AirAsia terminal Malaysia).
That stress lingers even if you do manage to catch your flight or in this case make a court appearance.
Attention to detail is not my strong suit but I hope my error will not become yours.
Check and re-check! Central Islip!
How long have you worked in NY?
I don’t work here, just handle cases here from time to time.
I was going to say…I think every NY lawyer know EDNY and SDNY have multiple. Good luck in White Plains if you ever need to get there. And sorry that you didn’t know about public transport on the ride out. Glad it all worked out.
Pretty far from Brooklyn. Be glad you weren’t going to Riverhead, that’s another 1.5hrs on top of what you did.
And if you ever fly out of or get diverted to ISP, now you know where it is.
Maybe it’s time to retire and double down on blogging!
You should have asked me. I live in New York. I grew up on Long Island. I know where Central Islip is (and it’s not a bad place). I am an attorney. I am a traveler.
Don’t hate Central Islip. It didn’t do anything to you.
Yeah I should change my post to I hate myself/the office for not informing me of the court location. When they put you up in a NYC office, it is logical to presume that the court would be next door.
Don’t rely on anyone to do your legal research my prof once said. Don’t rely on anyone to tell you where the courthouse is even more obvious but I did and I learned.
Now back to my vacation.
Maybe if you spent less time taking photos & blogging, and a little more time paying attention to what is going on around you and where you’re going, you’d – oh, the hell with it.
Stupid comment. Thanks for trying to make this weak argument. You’re right, nobody should have hobbies because doing more than one thing is impossible.