It is a mistake for those whose liberty is at risk to
assume that all lawyers are the same, can provide the same quality of
assistance, have the same scholarship undergirding their work, and are
similarly motivated to protect people from an increasingly rapacious,
pernicious, and insensitive government.
The redoubtable Justice Gardner once penned sage
insight regarding some people’s distrust of the public defender over less-than-mediocre
private lawyers, and those insights similarly apply to the comparative
strengths of private attorneys, that is that judges can “only
... watch in silent horror as the defendant's family, having hocked the family
jewels, hire a lawyer for him, sometimes a marginal misfit who is allowed to
represent him only because of some ghastly mistake on the part of the Bar
Examiners….”
Fighting things competently, aggressively, and
effectively, I will generally not speak first about what I need when there is a
group of lawyers meeting with the judge and prosecutors in chambers, because I don’t
want others to ride on my coattails about what I demand. So, the other day, I was in chambers,
watching a gaggle of lawyers lined up in front of the judge like supplicants at
the altar of Rehnquist-mania, milquetoastingly pleading with the judge to give
their clients 6 or 10 days jail as a condition of probation for first time
drunk diving. The Legislature does not require
any custody at all for those given probation for first time drunk driving, and
these clowns had taken thousands of dollars to beg for 6-10 days, which
defendants could get themselves if they represented themselves at arraignment!
But the attorneys went into chambers to con their
clients into believing they had accomplished something for them to justify
their fees.
At the end of that disgraceful spectacle, when I was
alone with only a DA in chambers with the judge, I inquired “what the hell did
I just see?” The judge smiled and said “Mike,
it’s not up to me to tell lawyers how to represent their clients.” It was shameful and disgraceful, and that
sort of stuff explains why people have little respect for lawyers.
So, if you or a loved one is in trouble, don’t presume
that everyone with a Bar card and business cards will supply the same service. Make sure the person you are hiring is not “a marginal
misfit who is allowed to represent him only because of some ghastly mistake on
the part of the Bar Examiners.” Does your lawyer merely attend seminars, or is
he invited to lecture at seminars as I am; does he merely belong to the State
Bar, or is he invited to lecture at the State Bar as I am; does he spend his
free time playing golf, or does he spend it studying and reading law as I do;
does he look forward to retirement, or is he committed to practicing his
liberty-protecting craft until the Constitution is restored such as I am; does
he consider the practice of law merely a remunerative job, or is it to him/her
a calling and mission, as it is to me; does he use canned and stock pleadings
prepared by others, or does he research and write everything he presents to
courts, as I do?
Attorneys are not fungible.
Don’t get suckered by fancy clothes and flashy cars
and opulent offices; they are often a preface to shoddy legal work and shaky
commitments. I have seen fancy,
expensive lawyers advise their clients that certain things cannot be won,
cannot be made better, and cannot be accomplished, while standing in unrealized
earshot of me after I have obtained evidence suppressions and/or dismissals on
the same sorts of matters. I have accordingly
been employed to testify in hearings about what the reasonably competent
attorney should have accomplished in matters where they sold their clients down
the river, because I am recognized to know whereof I speak on attorney
competence.
Some lawyers would rather be chums with judges and prosecutors
than to stand with their clients against the gusts of faction that are trying
to blow them over the edge and into the abyss.
Some lawyers have the attitude [which they will occasionally confess to
other lawyers and judges] that they will interact with the client only on one
case, whereas they will be dealing with prosecutors and judges over and over
and over again, so they need to keep the latter groups happy at the expense of
the former.
The legal profession touts itself as being a learned
profession, but learnedness is a diminishing commodity where caprice dethrones
the Constitution all too regularly. I was assailed by a judge just the other
day who scolded me about giving a post-hearing argument in writing, mainly
because it would require the judge to read and study, and it would embarrass his
government lawyer chum into being less able to carry their burden. I shrink not from judicial scoldings, because
my duty is to my client, and I abhor, and do not fear, bullies, whether they are sporting badges or robes.
Many lawyers will take your money but will then put
pressure on you to back down from the fight that the Constitution and Framers
enable and expect you to make. Lawyers
like me, a dwindling breed, put pressure on government to back down, because,
unchecked, government will consume the whole and eviscerate liberty.
So, if you or a loved one is in trouble, don’t be so naïve
as to believe that all lawyers are the same in their zeal and effectiveness to
protect your liberty interests. And that
means that once you have decided on the lawyer you want, don’t dial another one
merely because you have not received a phone call back from the one of your
choice as quickly as you would like. The
Revolution was not won in a day; be patient in waiting for help from one of the
few who lives and breathes the spirit of that Revolution as part of his very being.
