2015.48: To the Potential Client

 Posted on March 28,2015 in Uncategorized

Dear PNC (we call you PNCs, for "Potential New Clients"; it's redundant, I suppose, but "PC" is already assigned to "probable cause" and "personal computer" and "politically correct"):

You have told me repeatedly that you are innocent. You don't mean "legally innocent"-that is, unconvicted-but "factually innocent." I don't know whether you're telling me the truth or not (people lie to me all the time), but please know that it doesn't matter to me. It won't decrease my fee, and it won't make me do any better job.

I consider the act of putting people in boxes to be fundamentally immoral in virtually all cases, and I don't believe that I-or any human-have the wisdom to distinguish the few cases in which putting people in boxes is moral from the many in which it is not. So it doesn't matter to me whether they're factually innocent. If anything, I prefer factually guilty clients-there is less stress, and I confess that I get impish joy from cutting loose a malefactor. I'll do the same job on behalf of the innocent, but there is no innocent-client discount.

You might wonder whether I believe your protestations of innocence. Don't wonder. At this point, I listen without judgment. I neither believe nor (unless your story is bad to the point of incredibility) disbelieve. You don't want a dumb lawyer, so if you are factually guilty, you don't want a lawyer who is dumb enough to believe you when you lie to him. And you don't want a lawyer who thinks it's his job to judge you, so if you are factually innocent, you don't want a lawyer who is judgmental enough to care.

I have been training for more than twenty years for this fight against the people who are trying to put you in a box. Law school, Trial Lawyers College, trial upon trial, appeal upon appeal, hundreds upon hundreds of hours of teaching and studying continuing legal education, hundreds upon hundreds of hours of psychodrama and improv training, board certification: everything has led up to your case.

If you really want someone to whom it is important whether you "did it," who won't take your case or will do a lesser job if he believes you to be factually guilty, you can get that for a lot less than my fee, but you will be buying a duller blade.