i apologize for my language ma'am.

You can doubt if you want...makes no difference to me, and you'd probably be a fool to accept what a random internet poster claims in this regard anyhow. But, as I said before, happy for a mod to confirm it.

And I doubt you were a law student, because if you were, you'd know almost everyone wants to do defence law and get their mug on tv, in the papers etc. Insurance lawyers don't become famous.

All our Barrister/Solicitor id cards have pics...as I said, you need them for entry to jail. If you meant business cards, well mine doesn't have a pic. But to each their own for people who do put their pic on it...not my style.

Are you talking about Bond University here in Australia? The University named after a bankrupt who subsequently spent years in jail, where you can get a law degree in 2 years? If yes, I'm not sure I'd be bragging about that...lol. Though I don't mean to disparage all lawyers who come out of there, some are very good, but the fact the man that it was named after is now a convicted criminal, has to be a bit embarrassing.

if he was convicted because he talked to the police that would really make my day.

Good stories

Accepted. Have fun here, see you in the Martin thread.

Max, sadly, once a client is charged, their chances of them avoiding trial, with the exception of where a deal is done, is close to nil, irrespective of the exculpatory evidence you have available and disclose to the opposition. In fact in some cases, they have exculpatory evidence they deliberately withhold from the Defence, despite their legal obligation to disclose it. Sad, but true. In the lacrosse case, weren't the prosecutors aware the DNA proved the accused's innocence, yet failed to disclose that fact? We've had similar cases here.

Canada

Out of 505 students we had one who wanted to be a Crown and two who had aspirations of being super star defence lawyers. It is simply not something people go to law school to be. Unless you are a super star there is absolutely no money in criminal defence work. There is no way to make going to law school worth it and I imagine in the States where law school is much more expensive it would even be worse.

Law school is very cliquey and by year two your future is well known to your peers. Anyone not going Bay St is looked at by the other students as someone with a fatal illness. I don't necessarily agree with this because people can be happy making less but also working less, having a better quality of life, and just enjoying their work more but that is a personal view. The law school culture is Big Law / failure.

ozzie female <--- Is this the picture on your card

still just for piece of mind can you confirm you did actually get the point being made.

now i feel bad for posting that video so early in the thread. really wasn't expecting the huge derail as ignorant farmers disagreed with supreme court justices and veteran defense attorneys.

my story (henry was right, i didn't get tough with the cop):

i was trying to get home from work on lunch hour to pick up medication i needed, 70 in a 45, woop woop pulled over

"howdy do officer"
"70 in 45 etc"
" medication, just had surgery a week ago, plz?"
"you can explain it at court the judge is really nice"

in other words, i gained nothing by talking to the police. the judge was really nice though, i said your honor and sir and he smiled, i wore my very best suit, went from 6 points to 2 points and $300.

I agree...though from experience I can say that most of us regret our decision, because after a certain number of years it's not all that much fun, and the money is lousy compared to the corporate lawyers. For example, here Legal Aid pay you the same rate whether you were admitted 2 weeks ago or if you have decades of experience. I'm not talking about salaried legal aid lawyers, but private lawyers who are paid by the government to represent defendants.

I wasn't bragging about it nor do I know anything about the school's reputation. It was just one school out of four that we exchanged students and profs with at the time. The choice of Bond was actually pushed for strongly by a professor who wanted to go for the surfing.

I think you'd be shocked how many times I've had to say to clients "the police wouldn't have a case against you at all if you hadn't answered questions". And yes, many of these are people that may be innocent and told lies about little things that they thought were irrelevant, or made a mistake or have police or another witness contradict what they said (whether maliciously or mistakenly) etc.

LOL...no need to apologize...in my line of work, I'm pretty used to it, and then some!

I might kill Howard Beale for starting this abomination in OOT but nobody tell the cops tia.

Meh, maybe it's just a sample size issue.

The two main guys I'm referring to, one is one of the best Self Defense specialists in the country. He represented me during my officer involved shooting, that's typically his line of work is justifiable UoF.

The other is a (self admitted) douchebag DUI attorney with radio ads that play every half hour and multiple TV spots.

He puts his picture on his business card LOL (and buses, park benches, billboards etc).

Neither of them appear to be struggling financially either. I understand the issue with the legal aid people, but I was under the impression these two were somewhat standard criminal defense types.

Guess not.

LOL... I don't recall the details of the case, it was many years ago, but I suspect he had good lawyers and followed their advice and didn't talk!

He was bankrupted and sent to jail shortly after the university was established...it's not a bad school, but it's a bit odd it didn't change the name after he was sent to jail for 4 years.

Seems like an odd sentiment coming from a former penal colony

LOL...as I said above, no pic on my business card, or website.

I got the point Tsao was making....and the rest was a bit irrelevant, imo. The bottom line to me is the professor and cop in the video got it totally right, and any experienced criminal lawyer worth a grain of salt, will always advise you not to answer questions without an indemnity or formal deal in place. While it may help in one in a million cases, it is so rare as to not be worth the chance. I get that the average person who isn't in the profession might find this all very cynical and hard to believe, but it is the truth.

But I'm asking about situations before your client has been charged and you have exculpatory evidence.

Not an expert....but in the US I'm pretty sure it is illegal for the prosecution to withhold evidence that proves the innocence of a defendant....but I'm not sure how the state doing something illegal means you should never cooperate.

It's probably not all that different to how it is here, with the exception that american defence lawyers doing public defence work may be paid better.

Some of my colleagues love their job and wouldn't do anything else, but I'd estimate 70% of us would do something different if we could start over again.

Your lawyer who defended you that was the Self Defence specialist was getting paid by a police union perhaps? Our lawyers that do that work get paid very well. As for the guy with the ads, those are generally the type of lawyers that can make the most money. When I first started out, I wanted all the "big" trials etc, but now I'd much rather have a practise like him, as the work he does would be privately paid, and relatively simple compared to trial work. At the end of the day, I'd rather make more money for the work I do, than do high profile work now.

The stats aren't much different for lawyers in general here...I think something like 50% drop out of private practise here within the first 5/10 years, which given how many years we study, is quite substantial, and speaks volumes of how much "fun" this work is...lol.

LOL. Perhaps.

Yes, I think you're right and think the prosecutors in the lacrosse case may have even done some time. We've had prosecutors prosecuted for it before too. It happens. It probably doesn't come as a surprise for me to tell you that not all lawyers are nice honest people.

Makes sense.

FWIW, after my shooting I didn't talk to the police until my attorney met with me at the hospital.

However one asked me where I was coming from St Patricks day and I answered.

Guess its all relative to the situation.

Sounds like it all worked out well for you and that you were lucky to get such a good lawyer on your team!

Back to the DUI guy....he can make more money doing a DUI plea and get home by lunch time, than a lawyer doing a 17 hour day in a publicly funded Trial will make. Crazy!