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About Cingolani & Cingolani | Butler, PA Attorney
Do lawyers take it personally when a client questions their skill, abilities, and how good they are as a lawyer?
Most clients take their lawyer at face value and do not question the skill, ability and “how good” the attorney may be. Sometimes, if a hearing goes badly, the lawyer may be blamed and then probably terminated because a negative outcome at a hearing tends to be assessed against the lawyer, as the client never blames himself or herself for a loss. Any deficiency in a client is presumed by the client to be papered over by the act of hiring a lawyer to cure that defect. Very few people hiring lawyers have much capacity for self-introspection or any capacity for risk assessment so negative outcomes are always a surprise to them.
After many years of representing people, I find that in the first interview, if the client is questioning how good you are, doubting whether you have the skill or ability to represent them, it is best to wish them well and send them on their way for if you undertake representation from the first interview until the end of representation -and there will be an end of representation - that sort of client will constantly be observing counsel’s deficiency in skills, abilities and goodness and will have all sorts or critiques as to words used, office decor, the quality of counsel’s staff and the type of paper used in letterhead and whether there is a typo or wrong word choice in communications. The client will constantly doubt whether their lawyer is competent or knows what he is doing and the client will probably complain aloud to opposing counsel and the court about their chosen counsel. In many ways these expressed opinions will be highly entertaining, although they indicate the client and counsel are in conflict as to strategy and personality. The client will probably already have a long history of not getting along with anyone from parents to spouses to employers.
Even the the money is good, it is not worth the effort to placate the client or to try to justify why your service is useful to the client. If he or she doubts you from the beginning you can not start out by denying you do not lack the skill or ability to represent them. You certainly can not prove the truth of your assertion that you are a good lawyer when their question asserts that you are not by the mere asking. You have to wonder why they are still sitting in your office talking to you when they are dubious as to your ability to represent them from the beginning. No, when confronted with this type of personality, it is best to say at the outset that you do not see a future for this experiment of representation.
Finally, now when a client says I am not happy with my current counsel and would like to change counsel, I am sure they will not be happy with me either. Now some naive and altruistic counsel may object and say the client just needs the tender ministrations of fresh and appropriate counsel, as if counsel and clients can be scientifically matched with proper social engineering. I would assume such counsel is inexperienced or needing the next retainer. When a client complains about prior counsel, they will next be complaining about you. When the client begins by doubting and not trusting you, that is his or her signature trait. They doubt and do not trust anyone or the system. They are suspicious of you and everyone else. They are dogs experienced in biting people and if you go for a walk with any of them, they will bite you. It can be amusing fun for awhile, but it is tiring and exhausting and will be a futile exercise in the end.
What happens with the defendant and the case after an acquittal?
After acquittal, the jury is dismissed. Sometimes they are hurried out. I try to thank them the moment after the verdict is announced. Sometimes the judge and prosecutor hold them in the jury assembly room and ask them why the prosecution failed. Sometimes the jurors hang around outside the courthouse to tell me why they acquitted my client. It is always a moment of high tension and many jurors want a chance to say how they reached their decision and why it mattered.
After a loss, they refuse to look at you or the defendant and are reluctant to talk although they may express an opinion. Still emotional, but cold.
What happens after that? Even though the defendant is acquitted and retains the presumption of innocence, many people in the community still believe the accused is guilty. There is no ticker tape parade. After hugs and tears the accused will often ask me how he can get his name and reputation back. He can’t. He will be despised by the victims and the district attorney. The judge will always think he is guilty, most of them anyway. Rarely does a district attorney shake my hand after I win an acquittal. They ought to, it is a contest involving human life, but few have grace or honor.
Often they ask me if they can sue the victim for lying, or the State or the judge or the prosecutor. I suppose you can, but the case will be dismissed. The court will not let the defendant pursue a revenge on his accusers. It does not happen. It was a trial. The system holds the result as final. There can never be an appeal of an acquittal. So the case is over. By the way this is why it is foolish to think you can learn how to go to trial by reading appellate court opinions. They tell you why the State wins. There is no record book of victory, except living it. It is quite an experience and when you win, your feet do not touch the ground and you are like a victorious Roman General. No one can steal victory and everyone knows what you did. People o not like challenging defense counsel who win. You have magic. You have done what is rarely done.
The defendant gets to go home. He gets to sleep in a bed in his own home or with his family. It may not seem like much, but he is free. That is a big deal. If he lost, his future is defined by spending nights confined in jail He would be owned by the system and dominated by the system’s people. So the defendant may be broke and poor and have few friends and he may have lost all his possessions, his employment, and maybe even his wife and family like Job in the Bible story. But he has a chance to recover, to rebuild. He can be in public and go anywhere. Often a person has made a bad judgment which causes a chain of events which leads to him being charged with a crime. If he has the capability of introspection, and the ability to learn, he can change his path and he will live a better life.
Mostly people are ruled by their emotions especially anger and frustration and they are impulsive. They do not learn. Maybe they think they won once, they can win again. Fortune is fickle. If she allows you to win once, she certainly not be likely to grant favor for an error again. Still, people rarely change and old habits are hard to resist. If you drink, you will do something stupid again when you are drunk. If you get away with clobbering a fool in a mutual fight, you will probably be hot enough to fight again the next time some fool insults you. Why do I say this? Because after many years of doing this I often see the man once acquitted going on trial again for something else. Some call me again . Some are ashamed and look away when they see me again at a status conference or call of the list for their new case. They have never won twice. Only a lawyer knows how to win.
Should Defendants elect to choose a Bench Trial before a judge instead of a jury?
While Judges and prosecutors invite Defendants to choose a bench trial over a jury trial, a Defendant should never accept this temptation, no matter how graciously offered. It is a velvet fist and the fist underneath is in an armored glove. You will be convicted. Every time. In the trade, we call this a slow plea because the result is always that you will be convicted. Maybe the sentence will be lighter than offered but it is always an irrevocable conviction permanently blackening your record. If you are going to trial, take a jury trial. As flawed as any group of humans are, if there is a chance, and your lawyer can express some emotional humanity and not just paint by numbers, you stand a chance of winning. Even in hopeless cases, sometimes the lawyer can save something. One time I lost a robbery trial, but when I was done, the jury acquitted them of the robbery with a gun charge because I somehow convinced the jury and the victim that there was no gun pointed at the victim. I still don’t know how I did that. This reduced his sentence by 7 or so years. Another time I went to trial where the girlfriend was charged with burglary and theft of her boyfriend’s house while he was in jail and his parents caught her in the house. While he gave her permission to be there, they hated her and thought she was a bad influence, The jury acquitted her as they loved her.The prosecutor wanted her tried because mother worked at the jail. The judge, and he is a very good and decent man and judge, asked why we went to trial after the case was over and said he would have given her a summary trespass or disorderly. He thought he was being fair. Innocence is irrelevant to judges, Pick a jury every time.
Do Lawyers Experience Guilt for Rescuing Someone Guilty? (A question I answered on Quora)
Most of the time a “Guilty” person is going to be convicted because the evidence is really beyond doubt. For example, if a defendant is driving drunk, conviction only requires he or she be, on a public roadway, in possession of a moving vehicle while impaired (with additional refinements of degree of impairment or kind of impairment). If one of those conditions is not met, conviction is difficult. However it is generally easy to cross each phrase for the conviction. Should counsel make a condition an obstacle and the defendant is acquitted, there is no need for the lawyer to feel guilty.
Often when a person is acquitted, they commit the same offense again, though on the other hand, often when they are convicted they repeatedly commit the same offense again. The lawyer did not commit the offense, the defendant did. Feeling guilty is coupled with doing the offending act, such as I stole with the right hand or choked a being with the same hand and I knew it was wrong and hence I desire that a proper punishment be the cutting off of my right hand.
But I think the question raises the issue of a more general, less specific guilt. The question is does the defense lawyer comer to consider himself a filthy, reprehensible guilty creature because he persists in associating with the human garbage who has no sympathy for fellow humans and casually hurts, addicts, harms, steals, robs, rapes, molests, burns and tortures innocent men women and children. That is a harder question and it applies more generally to other care giving humans as well namely doctors, nurses, priests ministers, children and youth workers, psychologists ambulance drivers, EMTs, firemen, teachers, probation officers and police. No one in public service can avoid touching the crippled and malignant soul. He has children, he is injured perpetrating his own crimes by being shot or stabbed or having an accident. he has children, wives and girlfriends, parents and, of course, the victims.
All of them are stuck like pinned insects in a butterfly collection on a wall by the criminals acts of the defendant. No matter what you do and who you are you are touched by the wrongs and harms of others. Society is constructed by the good acts the bad acts, the chaos and order generated by the beings in the system. You are the product off every act causing many consequences from the death injury and despoliation of beings to birth and redemption.
Sometimes, when you re a defendant rearrested for rape or murder or drug dealing you feel a twinge of regret or even guilt as you know if he had not been acquitted or released early because of your work, this act would not be done. In the meantime, he may have fathered a child, or a woman gives birth to a baby and maybe they are doomed by their parents choices or maybe it is a fresh start. No matter the temptation to cast a person out, to turn away because they disgust you, that is not the move you should make, as that is jaded and evil in itself; the move to make is to help so the family is not destroyed, the child has a chance to grow up and live a worthwhile life and the man or woman who sinned gets a chance to do better and help others rather than harm them. That is an act of faith, and if you think you are good, you must make that choice.
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What happens with the defendant and the case after an acquittal?
After acquittal, the jury is dismissed. Sometimes they are hurried out. I try to thank them the moment after the verdict is announced. Sometimes the judge and prosecutor hold them in the jury assembly room and ask them why the prosecution failed. Sometimes the jurors hang around outside the courthouse to tell me why they acquitted my client. It is always a moment of high tension and many jurors want a chance to say how they reached their decision and why it mattered.
After a loss, they refuse to look at you or the defendant and are reluctant to talk although they may express an opinion. Still emotional, but cold.
What happens after that? Even though the defendant is acquitted and retains the presumption of innocence, many people in the community still believe the accused is guilty. There is no ticker tape parade. After hugs and tears the accused will often ask me how he can get his name and reputation back. He can’t. He will be despised by the victims and the district attorney. The judge will always think he is guilty, most of them anyway. Rarely does a district attorney shake my hand after I win an acquittal. They ought to, it is a contest involving human life, but few have grace or honor.
Often they ask me if they can sue the victim for lying, or the State or the judge or the prosecutor. I suppose you can, but the case will be dismissed. The court will not let the defendant pursue a revenge on his accusers. It does not happen. It was a trial. The system holds the result as final. There can never be an appeal of an acquittal. So the case is over. By the way this is why it is foolish to think you can learn how to go to trial by reading appellate court opinions. They tell you why the State wins. There is no record book of victory, except living it. It is quite an experience and when you win, your feet do not touch the ground and you are like a victorious Roman General. No one can steal victory and everyone knows what you did. People o not like challenging defense counsel who win. You have magic. You have done what is rarely done.
The defendant gets to go home. He gets to sleep in a bed in his own home or with his family. It may not seem like much, but he is free. That is a big deal. If he lost, his future is defined by spending nights confined in jail He would be owned by the system and dominated by the system’s people. So the defendant may be broke and poor and have few friends and he may have lost all his possessions, his employment, and maybe even his wife and family like Job in the Bible story. But he has a chance to recover, to rebuild. He can be in public and go anywhere. Often a person has made a bad judgment which causes a chain of events which leads to him being charged with a crime. If he has the capability of introspection, and the ability to learn, he can change his path and he will live a better life.
Mostly people are ruled by their emotions especially anger and frustration and they are impulsive. They do not learn. Maybe they think they won once, they can win again. Fortune is fickle. If she allows you to win once, she certainly not be likely to grant favor for an error again. Still, people rarely change and old habits are hard to resist. If you drink, you will do something stupid again when you are drunk. If you get away with clobbering a fool in a mutual fight, you will probably be hot enough to fight again the next time some fool insults you. Why do I say this? Because after many years of doing this I often see the man once acquitted going on trial again for something else. Some call me again . Some are ashamed and look away when they see me again at a status conference or call of the list for their new case. They have never won twice. Only I know how to win. That is my domain.
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