The Other Problem With Hourly Billing

Scott Greenfield writes about why hourly billing doesn’t work for defenders:
First, sometimes our clients are criminals, and hence a tad short of trustworthy. Second, our clients can be mercurial, and their desire to pay fluctuates with their impression of how the case is going. Third, “stuff” happens, so even the best intended clients [...]

How is Baseball Like Trial?

I am in New York right now helping a person accused in a federal drug case that’s pending in the Southern District of New York (in Manhattan); last night I got to watch the Yankees play the Mets at Shea Stadium (which isn’t going to be around much longer — they’re building the new park [...]

My Voir Dire Fetish

Anne Reed has posted a list of my recent posts on jury selection. Five posts on jury selection in four days is almost embarrassing (especially since I posted nine other times in those four days — is that writing or typing?).
I really love jury selection, though; it’s my second-favorite part of a trial. (My favorite [...]

The Bar Poll

The results of the Houston Bar Association’s annual Judicial Evaluation Questionnaire are out. Here are the results for Houston’s federal judges and Harris County’s Criminal District Court and County Criminal Court Judges (they’re excerpted from the results for all judges touching Harris County cases, including appellate judges, here).
The numbers include number and percentage of “outstanding,” [...]

Getting the Jurors’ True Feelings

In commenting on my post, A Prosecutor’s Voir Dire: Lessons, Gideon wrote:
I’m just afraid of jurors not answering questions like: “Do you have any preconceived notions of what a sex offender looks like” truthfully in front of others.
That’s a valid fear whether the others are their fellow venirepeople or two lawyers, a judge, and a [...]

Prior Inconsistent Statements

Anne Reed of Deliberations blogs about Prior Inconsistent Statements. It’s good to know what jurors think of such statements, both for the sake of our cross-examinations of government witnesses, and for the sake of our clients who probably haven’t always told the whole truth about the incidents that brought them to criminal court.

A Prosecutor’s Voir Dire: Lessons

As promised, the lessons I learned from the prosecutrix’s voir dire today:
1. If you’re prosecuting a child sex case, you can do a bad voir dire with impunity. The prosecutrix did three of the four bad things to do in voir dire (See Bad Voir Dire / Good Voir Dire): she lectured the panel extensively; [...]

Why I Do It

A law student reader wrote: “I definitely do enjoy reading your blog and will say it has me rethinking my relegation of a criminal law career.” (I had never seen “relegate” used without a destination; thanks to my correspondent for this elegant locution.)
I went into law school thinking that I wanted to be a criminal [...]

In Trial Again . . . Almost

This morning I went to court in Richmond (Fort Bend County, one of those abutting Harris County, and an area from which many people commute to Houston), geared up to try an indecency with a child case. When I got to court, I learned that another indecency case was up before mine, and that it [...]

Three Rules for Dealing with the Media (When You Can’t Talk to Them)

From Houston trial lawyer Rusty Hardin, who spoke at the TCDLA/HCCLA Dealing With the Media seminar last week, three rules for dealing with the media when talking to them won’t help your client:
1. Return their calls.
2. Tell them the truth.
3. Tell them why you can’t talk to them.

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