The older I get (I'm 36 now - still relatively young) and the longer I do this job (closing in on ten years) the more clear my understanding of world becomes. In one of my favorite movies, Groundhog Day, Bill Murray makes a particularly deep comment about God. "Maybe he's not omnipotent" ponders Murray, "Maybe he's just been around so long, he knows everything." A stand up comedian that is escaping me at the moment (maybe Bill Cosby or George Carlin) explained wisdom the same way. It can only be gained from being around a really long time, like 50 or 60 years. A 25 or 26 year old recent law school graduate may be smart, but they are not wise. It takes time to become wise. You have to experience some of life's highs and lows to become wise; get in the trenches and lose a case you should have won, and win a case you should have lost. After ten years at this I am just starting to get the feeling that I have some wisdom, maybe that's part of the reason I wanted to start blogging.
One piece of wisdom I've acquired is that perhaps the most overlooked aspect of what criminal defense lawyers do is interpersonal interaction (deal with people). Sure we have to know the law and be able to spin creative legal arguments from whole-cloth. But the personality makeup of your client, the witnesses, the judge, and the prosecutor can all have as important an impact on the case as any Supreme Court case or surprise witness.
Along those lines I am also coming to the realization that as far as dealing with the lawyer on the other side of the case (prosecutors mostly for me), you have to remember that you are dealing with a human being, and sometimes you have to deal with a defective one. If you start with a person that is thoughtful and friendly, you are generally going to have a thoughtful and friendly lawyer on the other side of your case. Really, that is about 80% of the lawyers out there. It doesn't mean they aren't trying to crush you and send your client to prison for life; but they will play nice and follow the rules. The same is then true of negative personality characteristics. If someone starts out a belligerent, short-tempered, bully, they will probably act that way as opposing counsel at some point.
Another way to think about this is this: The lawyer that refuses to call you back is probably the same person that always lets his cell phone ring through to voice mail. The lawyer that lies to you is the same guy with a full shopping cart of groceries in the express checkout lane. The lawyer that tries to bully your client is probably the same person jumping the case of the 14 year old McDonald's drive through clerk for not giving him enough ketchup. Granted everyone has a bad day, some people a bad year, but when its all said and done the lawyer in the courtroom does not suddenly change his personality when he goes home.
Obviously, this fact of life can sometimes present difficult situations to deal with in your cases. So what do you do? Honestly, I'm not sure I'm wise enough to know. Currently, I try to practice the forgive and forget method. You deal with the situation as best you can and then try to start fresh on the next case. I'm not sure criminal defense attorneys have much choice but to go this route. There has been a substantial decrease in the turnover rates in prosecutor's offices here in Iowa and as a result you deal with the same prosecutor on half a dozen cases or more every year. As time goes on I am finding that method is becoming increasingly harder to practice because I see the same problems continually crop up with certain attorneys. Most of the time I'm not alone. The frustration is often magnified when you hear your colleagues going through the same problems with the same attorneys too. Other than learn some new deep breathing exercises I'm not sure there's much else you can do. I'm hoping that in the next ten years I get a little wiser in this area.
