Today Avvo has a post today entitled Lost. Avvo categorizes the post as "How to Choose a Lawyer," but it's really about Avvo's research into people's experiences hiring lawyers. Among other things, Avvo asserts that Over the past two years, 25 million Americans were faced with a situation in which they considered hiring an attorney, but they didn’t because they didn’t know how to choose one.I'm pretty

I wrote here about the implicit cost-benefit analysis involved in deciding whether to plead guilty or proceed to trial. As I noted, describing this analysis in mathematical terms is an approximation of a vague and fuzzy calculus. There are other ways to describe the plea-or-trial decision-making process. One is as an commercial transaction: when an accused pleads guilty she gives up one thing in exchange for another.

Stephen Gustitis and Robert Guest blog about lawyers' fees. Robert writes, "The more you charge the less clients you get. However, those clients get personalized service and better reperesentation. Never compete on price. Compete on quality and service." I agree -- in part. I blogged here about ethical fee-setting and the idea that it might be unethical for a lawyer to charge too little to an accused.

This morning (Sunday) a friend called me; one of his friends had gotten himself arrested in Austin, Texas last night. I told him I would look into the matter. I looked up fellow blawger Jamie Spencer's phone number, and dialed it. Jamie answered the phone himself. Friends, I know that you like to have your receptionists and secretaries answer your phones for you. I know it makes

Do you doubt that prosecutors don't have to be brilliant to win trials? Check this out: Oh, and the prosecutor had a PowerPoint for his closing arguments. His closing arguments, frankly, annoyed me so much they made me want to acquit. It was really, really bad, but not surprising, considering that in his opening statements, we got a riff on "stop asking questions of the government, so

The existence of silly website Avvo.com has raised the excellent question of how people are to choose lawyers, if they can't reliably do so based on Avvo's 0-10 ratings (and they can't). Scott Greenfield blogs about some ways to choose a lawyer. I'll write more about the best way to choose a lawyer (specifically, a criminal-defense lawyer) soon, but for now I call your attention to the

As defenders, we often have to help people decide whether to plead guilty or proceed to trial. Sometimes the question can be simplified to this: how does the assured outcome of a plea compare to the accused's punishment if we do not, multiplied by the proability that we will not? If the probability of prevailing at trial is 50% and the punishment if the accused loses will

An anonymous commentator said the following about my recent More on Avvo post: 1. You seem to be saying that because Avvo cannot replace the best possible method (live, face to face interviews and comparisons) of choosing one particular kind of attorney (criminal defenders) that it therefore has no value at all. What about people who need a lawyer but, for whatever reason, can't avail themselves of

It all started with these two blog posts, Lucky Stars and Four More Good Things, in which I listed some of the good things about the criminal "justice" system in Texas. These posts weren't really about New York (actually, they weren't really about why lawyers have it better here, or I would have listed "good crime" and "low cost of living" as well as "more beautiful women"

If you haven't already, read David Feige's (Indefensible Blog) Slate editorial on the disbarment of Mike Nifong. Some highlights: [I]n the rollicking back and forth of a normal state trial, it is a rare case in which problems involving the withholding of potentially exculpatory evidence (as Nifong was accused of doing) don't arise. . . . There are, of course, a few particularly egregious cases that leave