State of California v. Victor D.
I don’t know how many of you reading this are attorneys, although I do know that a lot of you are law students with a good idea of what you want to do in your career (Good luck to everyone by the way!). I of course, am not an attorney, but I have a message that goes out to any future/current defense attorneys that work in or aspire to rake in the bucks in private practice….
DON’T FUCK YOUR CLIENTS!!!
Now, when I say, DON’T FUCK YOUR CLIENTS, I’m not talking about sex (although the implications of that are obvious)…let me explain:
I was contacted by one of the attorneys in my office to interview a client in jail this week. I didn’t know anything about the case, so I requested a copy of his file, which I received right away.
The charges are very simple…The People of the State of California are charging our client with Penal Code 288. Yes, I understand that child molesters are a despicable bunch of people…blah blah blah….I’ve heard it all before. The thing is, I’m not really too concerned with what people think about a guy like this (Innocent until proven guilty gawd damnit!). I’m more concerned about how his case came to our office.
The charges against our client were filed with our local court in late December 2004 and he was arrested in early January of this year. He is a poor Mexican immigrant, (he came here legally for any of you “any immigration should be restricted pricks” reading this). His brother’s family, not knowing any better mortgaged his small house, his wife and sisters sold all of their cars and everyone started working two jobs. Why? They wanted to be able to come up with a retainer to pay for a private attorney of course!
His family understood that he would be eligible for a public defender but all of their friends said, “Don’t get a public defender…If you do, you might as well bring blanket and a pillow to court that you can take to prison.”
His family scraped together about $15,000.00 to retain Mr. Super Private Defender (MR. SPD). MR. SPD was fantastic at first, meeting with the family every day, visiting the client in jail everyday, holding his hand and explaining everything…it was a perfect match! Well, a perfect match until early May of this year when they did the Preliminary Hearing.
MR. SPD explained to my client’s family that they needed to pony up an additional $10,000.00 if they wanted him to continue representing their father/brother/husband. The retainer only covered MR. SPD until the Prelim and he needed additional funding for future hearings and even more if our client chose to go to trial.
I’m holding the Prelim transcript in my hand. It is 24 pages long (including cover pages). MR. SPD is responsible for about 5 pages worth of testimony. MR. SPD did not request ANY investigation into the allegations and had not done ANY work on the case other than meeting with the client in jail and having his family come to his office for “meetings.” How do I know this? I have a copy of his file notes and billing.
There are no notes on anything that MR. SPD did. I’ve talked to MR. SPD several times to try and find out if he had PLANNED any investigation or had any interview notes with the family and he first said that he may have lost them, then he said they should be in the file he gave us, then he said WE must have lost them. MR. SPD and I both know the truth. He didn’t do jack fucking shit. He spent $15,000.00 hard earned dollars meeting with our client 7 times in jail and talking to his family and meeting with them in his office.
I met with our client yesterday and did about a 1 ½-2-hour interview with him in the county jail. He is depressed and scared. I don't blame him. I told him to give me the rundown of the events on the day of the incident (DOI) and also a everything leading up to the DOI.
I have a meeting set-up to do an interview with the victim and victim’s mother tomorrow morning (they agreed to meet with me after one phone call..they said other than in court, they had never been contacted by defense counsel or anyone representing themselves as working in the defense of our client). I have a list of 6 potential witnesses that I will hopefully be able to find before the end of the day is out. I’m moving on this because we have a trial scheduled for the first week of September and we just got this case assigned to us this week.
What motivates a guy like MR. SPD? MR. SPD continues to double park in our county parking lot (I’m guessing he double parks so he doesn’t get his BMW scratched by any people driving beaters), and he comes to court in his fancy suit and is probably fucking over more clients even as I type this.
Our client’s family had almost nothing before they hired MR. SPD, but at least they were surviving. Now, they struggle to get bus and train fare together to make it to the courthouse for our client’s next hearing and they are convinced they are going to lose their father/husband/brother.
Please don’t fuck your clients. It's lunch time, I'm gonna go heat up my Lean Cuisine and cool off.
FYI - I’ve quit trying to avoid cursing on my blog. I just need to fuckin curse, what can I say?
I don’t know how many of you reading this are attorneys, although I do know that a lot of you are law students with a good idea of what you want to do in your career (Good luck to everyone by the way!). I of course, am not an attorney, but I have a message that goes out to any future/current defense attorneys that work in or aspire to rake in the bucks in private practice….
DON’T FUCK YOUR CLIENTS!!!
Now, when I say, DON’T FUCK YOUR CLIENTS, I’m not talking about sex (although the implications of that are obvious)…let me explain:
I was contacted by one of the attorneys in my office to interview a client in jail this week. I didn’t know anything about the case, so I requested a copy of his file, which I received right away.
The charges are very simple…The People of the State of California are charging our client with Penal Code 288. Yes, I understand that child molesters are a despicable bunch of people…blah blah blah….I’ve heard it all before. The thing is, I’m not really too concerned with what people think about a guy like this (Innocent until proven guilty gawd damnit!). I’m more concerned about how his case came to our office.
The charges against our client were filed with our local court in late December 2004 and he was arrested in early January of this year. He is a poor Mexican immigrant, (he came here legally for any of you “any immigration should be restricted pricks” reading this). His brother’s family, not knowing any better mortgaged his small house, his wife and sisters sold all of their cars and everyone started working two jobs. Why? They wanted to be able to come up with a retainer to pay for a private attorney of course!
His family understood that he would be eligible for a public defender but all of their friends said, “Don’t get a public defender…If you do, you might as well bring blanket and a pillow to court that you can take to prison.”
His family scraped together about $15,000.00 to retain Mr. Super Private Defender (MR. SPD). MR. SPD was fantastic at first, meeting with the family every day, visiting the client in jail everyday, holding his hand and explaining everything…it was a perfect match! Well, a perfect match until early May of this year when they did the Preliminary Hearing.
MR. SPD explained to my client’s family that they needed to pony up an additional $10,000.00 if they wanted him to continue representing their father/brother/husband. The retainer only covered MR. SPD until the Prelim and he needed additional funding for future hearings and even more if our client chose to go to trial.
I’m holding the Prelim transcript in my hand. It is 24 pages long (including cover pages). MR. SPD is responsible for about 5 pages worth of testimony. MR. SPD did not request ANY investigation into the allegations and had not done ANY work on the case other than meeting with the client in jail and having his family come to his office for “meetings.” How do I know this? I have a copy of his file notes and billing.
There are no notes on anything that MR. SPD did. I’ve talked to MR. SPD several times to try and find out if he had PLANNED any investigation or had any interview notes with the family and he first said that he may have lost them, then he said they should be in the file he gave us, then he said WE must have lost them. MR. SPD and I both know the truth. He didn’t do jack fucking shit. He spent $15,000.00 hard earned dollars meeting with our client 7 times in jail and talking to his family and meeting with them in his office.
I met with our client yesterday and did about a 1 ½-2-hour interview with him in the county jail. He is depressed and scared. I don't blame him. I told him to give me the rundown of the events on the day of the incident (DOI) and also a everything leading up to the DOI.
I have a meeting set-up to do an interview with the victim and victim’s mother tomorrow morning (they agreed to meet with me after one phone call..they said other than in court, they had never been contacted by defense counsel or anyone representing themselves as working in the defense of our client). I have a list of 6 potential witnesses that I will hopefully be able to find before the end of the day is out. I’m moving on this because we have a trial scheduled for the first week of September and we just got this case assigned to us this week.
What motivates a guy like MR. SPD? MR. SPD continues to double park in our county parking lot (I’m guessing he double parks so he doesn’t get his BMW scratched by any people driving beaters), and he comes to court in his fancy suit and is probably fucking over more clients even as I type this.
Our client’s family had almost nothing before they hired MR. SPD, but at least they were surviving. Now, they struggle to get bus and train fare together to make it to the courthouse for our client’s next hearing and they are convinced they are going to lose their father/husband/brother.
Please don’t fuck your clients. It's lunch time, I'm gonna go heat up my Lean Cuisine and cool off.
FYI - I’ve quit trying to avoid cursing on my blog. I just need to fuckin curse, what can I say?
6 comments:
DON’T FUCK YOUR CLIENT’S
You know, I thought this was going to be a story about a private attorney fucking over this client and the client getting his revenge and you all were now representing him on his revenge charges.
We just started the case, I suppose that anything is possible.
Man, it seems like there's an SPD in every courthouse. All the other criminal defense lawyers know all about the SPD, but the stream of clients and client families keeps coming, just to get dumptrucked and bilked. The lowest form of SPD is the one who lurks in the hallway at court, bad-mouthing the PD's to the PD's clients.
What a terrible story. Ugh.
Why is clients possesive? Don't fuck your cleint's cat? client's mom? Or did you mean clients -- plural. Learn a thing or two young grasshopper.
Thank you Lloyd, I'll make the corrections. How bout you correct my grammar and I correct your spelling?
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