Guilty or Not Guilty? Tips on How to Choose the Best Defense Attorney

If you have watched either devil advocate, you will get to appreciate the benefits of having a great defense attorney. When you are dealing with a criminal case, your defense lawyer will play a crucial role in either you will be a free bird or you will be spending your time behind bars. Who wants to spend their life behind bars? Definitely not you. In this blog piece, we shall have a look at the top tips of choosing the Criminal Defense Attorney.

• Attorney response time

They say time is money however when it comes to criminal cases, time determines whether you will be spending your time behind bars Any attorney will tell you for free that time is essential, and losing time is losing a criminal case. In terms of choosing the best attorney ensures the attorney is responsive. All of these start with the initial contact. When you contact a defense attorney, the attorney should be able to organize a meeting with you within 24 hours. This will allow you better control of your case.

• Determination

Guilty or not guilty, your attorney should ensure that you get the best results. Additionally, the lawyer should ensure that all of your constitutional rights are well protected. Additionally, the lawyer should ensure that the criminal justice system has humanely treated you. However, the truth of the matter is that not everything will go according to plans and there are possibilities that the court ruling will not favour the suspect. No matter the case, a great defense attorney should fight tooth and nail so that the client gets the most favorable decision.

• Firm experience

In most criminal cases, you will require a legal team that will go through all the facts of your case. Here is where the firm experience comes in place. You need to check the number of years, the firm has been handling criminal cases. It is prompt to ensure that the firm has been tackling similar criminal charges in the past. Opting for a firm that has a few years of experience tackling your criminal charges is a rookie mistake that can lead to you receiving a verdict that does not benefit your interests.

• Former client reviews

When hiring the best defense attorney it is vital to ensure that the attorney has great reviews from their former clients. Former client reviews speak a lot about the attorney and the firm. Chances if former clients were dissatisfied or were treated badly by the attorney, do not expect anything less than that. When looking to hire a great defense attorney ensure that you read all of the available reviews. If you are having difficulties locating past clients’ reviews you can always ask the attorneys where to find the reviews.

• Professional and Educational Credentials

How many top law colleges do you know? If you have no idea of the top law colleges spending a few minutes checking them out will do you no harm. Like any other job, you need to check the defense attorney’s professional and educational credentials. Don’t shy away to ask the potential defense attorney where he/ she got his law degree. Additionally, you can ask which law bar association does he/ she belongs to. Thereafter you can counter-check whether the answers are legit. Asking these questions will help you understand the legitimacy of the defense attorney.

• Experience in handling similar cases

One of the biggest mistakes a lot of people make is forgetting to look at specialization. Like any profession, lawyers come with specialization. For most people, they tend to pay close attention of attorney having a law degree from one of the fancy colleges without paying attention to the area of specialization or practice. Instead of opting for going for a jack of all trades, you need to ensure the attorney practices criminal cases. Additionally, the attorney should be up to date with the recent criminal law changes.

As mentioned earlier you need to check the defense attorney’s years of experience. However, your research should be more detailed and specific. In respect to the case, you are facing it is vital to ensure that the defense attorney has years of experience tackling cases similar to yours. This is what separates a jack of all trades attorney from a great defense attorney.

The success rate of the defense attorney

Yes, finally you have been able to locate a defense attorney who has experience when it comes to tackling cases similar to yours. It is a good start. The next step is to ensure and check the attorney success rates. Does the defense attorney have a solid success track record of winning similar cases? In most cases, defense attorneys with years of experience tend to have a solid winning record.

A defense attorney with a proven success record is great as he/ she can give you the comparison of your case and the previous cases. Additionally, after the comparison, the attorney can help you develop a winning strategy. However, when it comes to choosing the best defense attorney you need to ensure to avoid an attorney who requests trial experiences. Why? Well, it all comes down to the financial liability you will be submitting yourself. For trial experiences, you will pay so much more.

In most cases, criminal cases tend to be resolved in pretrial phases and there is no need of taking the case to court for trial. At first, the trial experiences may appear great decisions because it allows for the attorney to be aggressive and fight your case out, but you are submitting yourself to more liabilities. Take it from legal experts defense attorneys who insist on trial experiences are more concerned about getting paid than getting the best possible results.

• Team or a single defense attorney

When looking at getting the best defense, you need to ask whether you will need a single defense attorney or a team of attorneys. Going for a single attorney is a dangerous move as criminal cases tend to be complicated and no single attorney can deeply look at all aspects of your case. It is for that reason you need a team of an attorney who will look at your case with surgical precision. However, you need to know for a team of attorneys you will need to dig deeper into your pocket as it is not a cheap affair as compared to hiring a single defense attorney.

Conclusion

Guilty or innocent, this is a question that you need to ask yourself when hiring a defense attorney. Having a great defense attorney helps get a not guilty verdict. Using the above tips will help get the best defense attorney. Additionally, it will help in reducing all of the stress that comes with handling criminal cases.

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