Vignettes
All of the names and
some of the details have been changed, but you get the point.
Ellen thought she had it made, getting a job with a white-shoe
firm right out of law school. Then Big
Law took it in the shorts, and suddenly Ellen was on the street with a
$1700-a-month tab on a student loan staring her in the face. She always kind of liked criminal law, or at
least thought she did, so she gets on the assignment list -- you've got to sit
second-chair through two trials -- and hustles for assignments. Not just dropping off a card for the judge in
the arraignment room, but hitting up the bailiffs for probation violation
hearings. It's tough; criminal defense,
at least in this town, is a Boy's Club, and an older Boy's Club at that. She does manage to get some, and had her
first jury trial six months ago. She
won. She'd gone out to the scene, gone
out to interview witnesses, went over to see her client in the jail every week,
researched the law, prepped for the voir dire and cross of the State's key
witness... That's a lot of work, and she'd
blown through the $500 cap a month before trial. There's no substitute for experience in
criminal law - she'd almost made a critical mistake by putting her client on
the stand, but some older lawyers talked her out of it. But dint of hard work can cover up for a lot
of errors. She enjoyed doing the work, and
it's not like she had anything else to do.
Scott is going places.
His dream has always been to be top-notch criminal defense lawyer, and
you can tell that he has the skills: the
charm, the smarts, the good looks, the voice.
He had a much easier time getting assignments than Ellen did, and he
also works the cases hard and gets good results. After all, Scott's looking to build his
reputation, and a win in a big assigned case is worth as much as a win in a
retained case. Every time he gets an
assignment, he wishes it were his last, and that he could get off the list and
get on with the business making the kind of money that a top-notch criminal defense
lawyer makes.
Mark used to live in the shadow of his father, one of the
top criminal lawyers in Ohio in his day, but that day was a while back, and
Mark's been able to carve out an identity of his own. Criminal law is in some people's blood, and
Mark definitely got the genetic code for that.
He may not have the book smarts, but he's got street smarts, along with good
people skills. That's so important. So much of criminal defense -- so much of
being a lawyer -- is the ability to make quick and accurate judgments about
people -- judges, prosecutors, clients, witnesses, jurors. Even deputies: knowing one of their names might mean the
difference between him taking you to the holding cell to see your client and
coming to get you ten minutes later like you told him to, or you and your client
spending twenty minutes after that staring at each other. Mark likes what he does, and he's reasonably
good at it. Considering what the county
pays him on assignments, it's getting several times a return on its investment.
Fred is a big, friendly guy, always quick with a greeting
and a smile. You see him in the
courthouse a lot, because he's always got a case there. Often, they're assigned cases. Fred got about $20,000 in assigned fees last
year, which paid the rent and a few other bills. This is an important part of Fred's business
model, and he treats it accordingly. He
takes only 4th and 5th degree felonies -- none of that messy stuff with guns
and blood. For that matter, he wouldn't
qualify for the major felony list anyway.
He hasn't tried a case in six years, and didn't much care for the
experience. Besides, spending twenty hours
on a case where you're only getting paid for spending ten is not part of that
business model. If a case looks like
it's going to trial, Fred files a motion to withdraw, and the client's
generally not too unhappy with that result.
George is a plodder. Most
of his income comes from assigned criminal cases, because he lacks the personal
and legal skills to attract much in the way of retained clients. He knows the basic law, simply because he's
been doing it for a long time, and has a rudimentary grasp of procedure and
evidence. He can provide competent
representation for simple low-level cases, but you really wouldn't want him
handling anything more than that.
Dan's been doing criminal law for a long time, and he's on
the short list of the top trial lawyers in Cleveland. He still handles assigned cases, maybe
fifteen a year, but rarely anything less than a murder or a first-degree
felony. He does it because he really
enjoys criminal law, and it keeps him sharp.
If you're a defendant, winding up with Dan as your assigned counsel is
sort of like finding out that your blind date is Scarlett Johansson.
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