I'm careful about who I refer potential clients to. The referral reflects on me, I think, and I would rather leave someone to find a lawyer on his own than refer him to a lawyer who isn't going to do an excellent job on his case.In Texas, I have a good list of criminal-defense lawyers whom I trust to do work that I'd be proud of. I

Believe it or not, sometimes criminal defendants have a serious lack of judgment, reason and/or common sense. Some even possess what might be considered a reckless disregard for what’s in their best interests. (Not my clients, mind you, but I’ve noticed that other criminal-defense lawyers seem to represent people who are a mess.)Todd Taylor, Your Lawyer's Ego & Plea Bargaining

Here’s a picture from Harris County’s 263rd District Court yesterday. The prosecutors trying a murder (?) case had laid down a blue tape outline of the dead person’s body, chalk-outline style, early in the trial:When I saw this, my first reaction was: awesome! (coincidentally, that was my nine-year-old’s reaction as well). The prosecutors, Brad Hart and Katie Warren, became my trial advocacy heroes of the day. (Sorry,

As I’ve grown older and more insightful (and, Jen would say, crankier), I’ve realized that competence is very important to me, and incompetence annoys me.General competence—being able to deal with whatever adventures life might hand you—is a certain virtue in my world. I had a next-door neighbor for the last few years, Jack, who had a high level of general competence. He was a former Marine EOD

I talked to a lady this weekend who had been looking for a criminal-defense lawyer for her dad (I had a conflict; she wasn't seeking to hire me). She said that one of the lawyers had asked for "ten thousand dollars to start."Ten thousand dollars is would be on the low end of the range of reasonable fees for the case, but "to start" is dangerous language

To figure out who to send the subpoena to for cellphone records, go to NANPA Central Office Code Utilized Report.Fill in state and NPA (area code).Find your exchange (first three digits) in the third column of the chart. The company name is in the fifth column of the chart.

Greeley, Colorado lawyer Todd Taylor asks, Are Money & Social Media Ruining the Legal Profession?, a bit of a paean to “small-town” practice:

My friend Josh Reiss and I were at Rice together, and now he’s a prosecutor at the Harris County DA’s Office. The love of Josh’s life, his wife Anh, is fighting a blood cancer called Myelodysplastic Syndrome, and needs a bone marrow stem cell transplant. The following is a guest post from Josh:There are times in life when you never realize something is a problem until it

Heard at the criminal courthouse:We are 99% animal and 1% civilized, and it's the one percent that gets us into trouble.It's true, I think. Not because the one percent of us that is civilized motivates us to do the bad things that get us into trouble, but because the one percent likes to pretend that the 99% doesn't exist. Like Paul Smith says, "I Spent Most of

Police officer to me: "I do have some questions for your client, but I'm not goofy enough to think you're going to let him answer them."