Mark Bennett writes about the “victory” of getting a client life plus 20.  Lest you misunderstand, this can be a huge victory when plan B is a death sentence.  But even this is a bitter pill to a criminal defense lawyer, who by nature and vocation is more inclined towards a fight.  Mark notes:

A part of me says that he should have kept on fighting, that there is always a chance of winning, and that twelve years or so in prison followed by a needle in the arm is no worse than life behind bars.

But as succinctly noted in a comment by Colin, “idealism works a lot better when it’s not your neck.”  True dat.

Real defense lawyers, and by this I mean those of us who are, in the truest sense, ready, willing and able to try our case, giving up for anything less than a dismissal with full apology is painful.  We want to win.  Yes, there’s an interest in justice (provided justice means we win), but our gut motivation is that of the gladiator in the arena. 

Those who think that lawyers should somehow bear personal responsibility for a “just” outcome (as in, if your client is ‘really’ guilty, then we should slam the jail door shut on our own) will not be happy about my attitude.  But then, that is not our job.  Our job is to zealously represent our clients within the bounds of the law.  Or as I like to say, to win.

Mark likes to win.  He’s really not a half a loaf sort of guy.  He believes in justice with a passion.  And he wants to win.  So taking a hit like life plus 20 is just slightly better than sticking a needle through his eye.  Sure, he can rationally explain why it was the smart thing to do.  He can provide a list of reasons why it benefited his client.  And he sits there feeling pain and anguish at taking the plea.

There have been many posts around the blawgosphere lately about how to pick a lawyer.  This is the thing you, dear client, need to see in a lawyer.  The passion and ability to win.  No, of course it doesn’t guarantee you a win.  But its lack pretty much assures you that you won’t win.  The lawyer who is thinking plea bargain from the second he pockets your payment is the lawyer who slams the jail door on you.  Unfortunately, this is about a fire in the lawyers belly, not a slick rap to potential clients.  Talk is cheap.  It’s the lawyer who feels the pain that has the passion.

It’s become trite for a lawyer to say that he will “fight for your rights!”  Take a look at the sidebar for my “Angry Lawyer” video (I love this video).  It’s makes for a great joke.  This happens when the cynical and incompetent come to recognize that mouthing the words that come naturally to a real lawyer will get them clients.  And the real lawyers, the ones who are the gladiators (update, my dear wife thinks I’m getting far too macho here. Mea cupa), appear to be the same as the scam lawyers.  Mark thinks clients can see through this.  I think otherwise, but then I’ve got a few years on Mark and have seen a bit more than him. 

A current client, who is awaiting trial when the police finally return from the donut shop to be prepared as witnesses, recently asked me if I cared enough about him to win.  He asked in a whiny voice, clearly concerned that I tell him that he mattered as much to me as my own son.  It soon became clear that his father had gone to trial with a lawyer who wrote a check when he was retained that he couldn’t pay at trial.  He lost.  The lawyer was miserably bad, and he didn’t want his son to suffer the same fate.

I explained to my client that I would try that case as if he were my son.  But not because I cared about him like I would about my son.  Unfortunately, he was a client to me, not that being a client was a bad thing.  But I would try that case as if he were my son anyway, because that’s how I try cases.  I try them to win.  I prepare to win.  I develop a strategy to win.  Because I try cases to win.

Winning is part of a greater strategy, which may include giving up a lesser charge to beat the top, but sometimes that’s how a win is defined.  And, I stared my client square in the eyes, I do it because I want to win.  I do it for me.  He just gets the benefit.  I doubt he fully understood, but he walked away happy.  I believe the only word he heard was “win”, and it was the only word he wanted to hear.