Today marks 250 days since Judge Carole Smitherman created the unconstitutional and secretive Star Chamber to allegedly shield Balch & Bingham from public exposure in the horrific Newsome Conspiracy Case.

We actually feel sorry for Schuyler Allen Baker, Jr., the lead Balch & Bingham attorney on the case, who fought for the foolish Star Chamber at the height, the peak of two federal probes.

Really, what in the hell was he thinking?

We have called the Star Chamber and the questionable and “coincidental” contributions to Judge Smitherman and her husband Alabama State Senator Rodger Smitherman Balch’s Waterloo.

Balch’s Waterloo saw the end of the prestige and honor that Balch & Bingham used to hold in Birmingham, the abdication of brilliant legal minds replaced with what appears to be foolish pettiness.

When Balch fired Clark A. Cooper on March 3, 2017, they should have settled the Newsome Conspiracy Case.

Again we ask, what in the hell were they thinking?

Although we have not been able to write about the Newsome Conspiracy Case for 250 days, as we told an investigative reporter, Balch & Bingham is the gift that keeps on giving.

From keeping indicted partner Joel I. Gilbert on the payroll, to the mass exodus of money-making partners, from dispersing public relations fluff, to the alleged whites-only land grab in Vincent, Alabama, Balch has more problems than that of Burt Newsome.

Gagged by the Star Chamber, Newsome, a blue-collar attorney, father of four young children who paid his way through college and nights in law school, has become the mouse that roared in silence.

Balch, and Schuyler, have learned the hard way as the old saying that mothers like to say: “Be careful for what you wish for.”