Federal Judge William H. Pauley’s sentencing of Michael Cohen to serve three years imprisonment and pay $1.5 million in restitution to the I.R.S., $500,000 in criminal forfeitures, and $100,000 in fines, was a sad road marker on a plunge from heady client meetings at Trump Tower to a federal jail cell. It is reminiscent of Law Journal stories on “hubris” authored by the late Milton Gould and the novels of Louis Auchincloss.

In an age of a 24/7 news cycle, emails and Twitter accounts, these observers of the New York legal scene would likely have had pertinent commentary to explain the public and tragic destruction of a lawyer who crossed a line between serving a client’s legal needs and becoming a co-conspirator in criminal conduct.