On a client’s changing expectations

by Jamison Koehler on August 19, 2022

Folks used to come in for their preliminary job interview at the Philadelphia community defender’s business in a panic:  “I am so frightened of likely to jail,” they would say before we have been even seated.  “I will do just about anything, anything at all, if you can just stop me from serving any time.”

These kinds of fears were frequently needless. Probably the human being was a to start with-time offender.  Maybe he/she was billed with a small misdemeanor.  In individuals circumstances you could re-assure the shopper that, even in the worst case circumstance in which the situation went to demo and the consumer was observed guilty, it was nonetheless not likely he/she would be sentenced to just about anything a lot more than probation.  

So re-confident, the shopper also re-assessed.  But I have young ones, the consumer stated.  Or I have a task.  I cannot be stressing about coming into the city to see a probation officer.  

In other words and phrases, about the course of a 30-minute interview, the consumer would have gone from “please no jail time, I will do anything” to “my daily life is as well occupied to be bothered with probation.”  This is really unfair.  Is that the most effective you can do for me?

That is how swiftly customer expectations can adjust.

A huge element of our job is to manage these expectations.  Specifically, we have to have to make guaranteed these expectations are both equally informed and practical.

I commonly start communications with a consumer with a dialogue of trial technique:  How can we conquer this circumstance?  This places the emphasis in which it must be:  fighting as opposed to surrendering.  It also signals to the customer that I am on his/her side.  

When I go out to the jail to see a consumer, I ordinarily bring together my notebook so we can with each other overview the body worn digicam (BWC) data files, any surveillance recordings, and so on.

Even though observing the witness’s statements to police, for case in point, I will position out possible inconsistencies and other weaknesses.  I may also position out problems with the way the job interview was executed.  

But I have to be thorough not to oversell the strength of our likely defense.  For instance, that police officers interviewed witnesses in the presence of other witnesses, thus potentially contaminating their testimony, is a achievable location of cross-assessment that might or may well not resonate with the jury.  

But that, in and of itself, will not show deadly to the government’s situation.  It is achievable that, regardless of these complications, the jury will even now think the testimony.  

It is a delicate equilibrium.  On the just one hand, we can’t be too optimistic.  We do not want to give the shopper unrealistic anticipations about the likelihood of prevailing at trial. At the similar time, we do not want to existing also grim a picture both.  

I have difficulty any time a client asks me for my suggestion.  You are the attorney, they say.  What do you think?  

In individuals instances, I come across myself making use of –reluctantly — that most lawyerly of phrases:  It depends.  

This is your everyday living, I answer.  I can only lay out the possibilities – the execs and negatives – for you to come to a decision what is greatest for you.