I think the best criminal defense attorney for you is the one that you trust, the one that you can communicate with, and the one that you know will fight for you. There’s no one best defense attorney out there, but there is one best defense attorney for you. There are numerous excellent defense attorneys that bring different strengths to each case, but the most important thing is that you as a client feel comfortable with your attorney, trust your attorney, and know that their experience can help you in the courtroom. And so those are the things you should be looking for when hiring an attorney.
Well, I think that experience in court as either a prosecutor or a defense attorney is something that everyone should be looking for. You don’t want to hire an attorney, no matter how earnest and smart they may be, who’s never set foot in the courtroom before because they just will not know how to address the judge, how to address the jury, how to negotiate with the prosecutor, how to cross-examine witnesses, the rules of evidence, and all the things that make a defense attorney a good attorney.
So, I think experience is something you should look for and once again I think you should look for someone who communicates well with you and has shown a willingness and tenacity to fight on your behalf.
Open communication and trust on both sides, both from the client and the attorney. And one kind of leads to the other. If the client trusts that the attorney has their interests in mind they will likely be more open when communicating with them. And when the attorney trusts that the client is being open with them the attorney will be in a better position to help present the best defense possible. I think trust and communication are key factors that someone should be looking for in hiring a defense attorney.
Trust is of utmost importance, if you do not have a trusting relationship with your attorney and if your attorney does not have a trusting relationship with you, then you are not truly working together towards the ultimate goal of getting you the best result at trial. There needs to be complete trust that what the attorney is doing is in your best interest and conversely the attorney must trust that they are getting all the information that they’ve asked for and that the client is working with the attorney.
This is because the ultimate goal is to put the client in the best possible position whether by winning a trial or having the charges dropped, altered, amended, or reduced, and if convicted of anything minimizing the potential sentence and that can only be done if both parties know they’re on the same page, both parties have the same goal and both parties trust each other to be working toward that goal.