A defense lawyer plays a crucial role in the judicial system. A criminal defense lawyer must know the law thoroughly, and have a clear understanding of the case he is dealing with. The availability of hundreds of criminal defense lawyers makes it difficult to select the right one. So how does one choose the right defense lawyer? Before choosing a criminal defense lawyer, you must do the following things:
- Check out his reputation from reliable sources.
- Check his success rate.
- Meet him and see if you are comfortable with him.
- Check whether he can be trusted with your secrets.
How to select a Criminal Defense Lawyer:
Representation of Clients: Try to gain information about how the criminal defense lawyer you are thinking of engaging represents his clients in the court. Many times the quality of presentation has a great bearing on the outcome of the case.
Listen to Clients: This is the most important feature that every criminal defense lawyer must possess. Good listening skills ensure that the criminal defense lawyer is able to collect all the required information, which would help him in effectively dealing with the case. A criminal defense lawyer must listen to each and every detail of their clients, in order to drive the testimony home. If your defense lawyer does not possess this skill, you must look for someone who does.
Do Proper Homework: The successful criminal defense lawyer is the one who has worked hard behind the scenes. The quality of the homework done for a case determines its success or failure.
Other Qualities to Look for before Choosing a Criminal Defense Lawyer
Apart from the above mentioned qualities, there are some other qualities that you must look for before choosing a criminal defense lawyer to solve your case.
- Your lawyer must be well versed in criminal law
- Must be confident and bold in court
- Must protect the rights of his clients and be passionate about winning
- Honest with clients and fair in dealings
- Should be able to act well when required in order to elicit the required emotions from the judge and jury.
- Must have handled and won similar cases before
- Friendly with police, detectives and other criminal defense lawyers who can help in finding out facts and information
- Must have good understanding of police work, and must be able to find out facts and clues himself