Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University Professor Joe Mistick spends his weekdays teaching Criminal Law, Election Law, Land Use Law, Public Policy and the Executive Branch. He is also founder of the campus’ award-winning Urban Development Law Clinic, operating it since 1995. In addition, for the last 22 years, he has written weekly Sunday columns in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. He recently compiled an anthology of all his columns from the past five years in his new book Mistick Speaks.
Mistick, who has nearly 50 years of experience in public service, started his career
as a writer before becoming a lawyer. He explains that writing in a legal fashion
is very different from writing for a general newspaper circulation and he missed that
latter style of writing as time went on. He decided to pitch the idea of writing an
Opinion Editorial to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. “By the end of the day, I was
a regular Sunday columnist,” Mistick said.
He writes his columns—mostly political—from the perspective of someone who grew up through the fifties, sixties, and seventies, in a blue-collar family. His political perspective was honed from his family, who always served their country, civic pursuits, and politics.
“They were solid. Generally, what I learned was from them,” he said.
Columns in Mistick Speaks are organized into chapters, ranging from Elections and Voting to National Politics to Leadership, Civility, and Ethics to Life in America to many other topics. His personal favorite column, “Ukrainian tough,” which he wrote at the beginning of the Russia invasion of Ukraine is included in the book. That heartfelt column draws on his personal experiences with a Ukrainian family who were his neighbors when he was a young boy.
Mistick created weekly material since 2002, drawing from the events surrounding him. “Some weeks tougher than others and some weeks there are three hot topics to choose from,” he said.
The book was compiled with help of Duquesne Kline School of Law faculty and staff, including Dana Neacsu, director of the Duquesne Kline School of Law Library and associate professor of legal research, and Amy Lovell, assistant director for resource development and metadata services. Mistick credits them both for their work in organizing and editing the book. He also thanks Duquesne Kline School of Law Professor John Rago who penned the book’s forward.
The book is available for free from the Duquesne Kline School of Law library site. It is also available as a Kindle download to any device from Amazon. And it should be available in paperback from Amazon soon.
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