That’s where you come in—be steerable. Leave the unitard at home. Compliance is a two-way street, and an attorney can only do so much good for a stubborn client. To truly be muy simpático, clients need to come into a relationship with a new attorney like baby birds, ready to slurp up all the legal goodness we’re trying to regurgitate into their hungry mouths.
I’m well aware that some prospective clients need a road map, a list of things to do. I’ll close out this part of our chat with something you can write down or bookmark. Go ahead, take it with you to all your future meetings, and ask the following questions before you put your legal life in someone else’s hands:
1. Have you done this before? By “this,” I mean the kind of case that has you in the hot seat. If they haven’t actually been, you know, practicing the law, things are going to get a little awkward, and you may find that you walked into the wrong office suite. It’s odd that no one mentioned anything before you sat down. But assuming you are in the right place: ask questions specific to your case. Every attorney has to learn their craft, but you don’t want to be anyone’s first time. Just invite a few exotic dancers to your nephew’s bar mitzvah to discover how quickly and messily that can end.
2. How are you going to do this? Not with magic law beans. There are some moving parts to this one—what are the possible resolutions? Is there another way to go—that is, is this something that requires a lawyer? What approach will you take? Strategies in civil or criminal law can be as different as lawyers themselves. Some attorneys will be bulls. Some will be bulls in china shops. Others will be shaved sloths wearing expensive watches. Avoid the latter.
3. How broke will I be? Attorneys don’t want you homeless or bankrupt—as that might send you to a different lawyer altogether—but everyone wants to get paid. You have a right to see rates and to know when you will get the bill. Also, don’t hesitate to ask for an estimate of what the final tally might be, once expenses and other fees are taken into account.
That’s a good start, but we’re not done yet. Just for fun, let’s explore what happened to a few other folks who decided to go pro se. All smart guys, so what could go wrong?
Raleigh was a Renaissance man—he actually lived during the Renaissance. He was a poet, a lawyer, a colorful wild man about town, a noble at court… and he allegedly committed one of the finest moments of ass-kissing on record when, legend has it, he covered a puddle with one of his expensive cloaks so Queen Elizabeth could cross without getting her dainty feet wet. And even if Raleigh didn’t really ruin a perfectly good cloak for points in the Queen’s court, those who knew him could believe he did it.
He led a long and productive life, but in spite of his masterful ability to suck up to people in power he still ended up a prisoner in the Tower of London. Queen Elizabeth had died and King James wasn’t about to be impressed by lesser nobles dropping cloaks over puddles on his behalf.
Sir Walter went up against a tribunal that accused him of plotting to bring down the King. He presented his own defense like a true master.
The case against him was pure olde bull shite and he knew it. Naming Lord Cobham, an accuser who’d written an affidavit against him then recanted, Raleigh said to the jury, “Consider, you Gentlemen of the Jury, there is no cause so doubtful which the King’s Counsel cannot make good against the law. Consider my disability, and their ability: they prove nothing against me, only they bring the accusation of my Lord Cobham, which he hath lamented and repented as heartily, as if it had been for an horrible murder: for he knew that all this sorrow which should come to me, is by his means. Presumptions must proceed from precedent or subsequent facts.”
“It’s all hearsay and you know it,” was Raleigh’s point, and he wasn’t just right, he was beautifully right. It might have been a peak moment for anyone defending anything in a court of law. But he was convicted and sentenced to death anyway, because it was a time in Merrye Olde Englande when the people in charge really enjoyed their regular days out chopping off the heads of the guilty, the just, and sometimes the guys the King thought looked at him funny that one time.
Only a last-minute reprieve from the King kept Sir Walter’s head on his shoulders. Then, the royal decision-makers let him cool his heels in the Tower of London for the next thirteen years.
And though he was released and even went to South America searching for El Dorado, the legendary city of gold, Sir Walter Raleigh still ended up with his head on the chopping block two years after his sentence had ended.
So you can represent yourself with Shakespeare-level eloquence like Sir Walter Raleigh and still end up in the Tower, or worse. Also, poor guy never came anywhere near that City of Gold.
Late congressman Jim Traficant was a pretty good example of a pro se defendant who had spectacular success. Look, a role model of sorts for you to hang your hat on! Maybe all my fuss about the dangers of self-representation was unfounded…
The honorable gentleman from Ohio was a humble county sheriff in the mid-1980s when he found himself facing charges of bribery and racketeering. He decided he was his own best defender and damned if he wasn’t right! Jim Traficant had gone up against a case that fell under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act—RICO to folks who don’t have all day—and he won. No one ever wins against RICO.
It gets better. Sheriff Traficant realized he’d developed serious name recognition in his district and he doubled-down: he wanted to be Congressman Traficant. He ran for the seat and won. Hell, he kept winning, returning to D.C. for eight more terms.
Then in the early 2000s, Traficant found himself in court again. Once again he was hit with his old nemesis, racketeering. Not to mention bribery and tax evasion.
Traficant figured he was still fighting the fight he’d won in the 1980s. Seeing no reason to reinvent the wheel, he defended himself—but it didn’t go very well. It’s tricky to say what a lawyer might have been able to achieve in his stead, but on his lonesome the congressman was convicted on ten felony counts and sentenced to federal prison. So, maybe he shouldn’t be your historic North Star, either. Rats.
Give it to Jim, though—he wasn’t about to let prison get in his way. He ran for his seat again while behind bars and still managed to snag 15 percent of the vote. He passed away five years after he was released from prison. I hope that even though he’s gone, the possibility someone can beat RICO still lives on.
Time to get a little dark for a minute and talk about serial killers. Well, one serial killer. Teddy-boy, Theodore Robert Bundy, the clean-cut, affable face of butchering bright young college girls in the 1970s.
Ted was a shark in human disguise, complete with the classic dead fish gaze if the camera caught him at the wrong moment. On the surface he was a buttoned-down, conservative dude—a law student and wannabe politician. He even had a great courtroom voice: low, no identifiable accent, smooth as silk.