The case that brought me to near tears in court this year didn’t involve DUI or children. Rather, it was a fraud case where my client wrote several unauthorized checks for small amounts. She found her ex-boyfriend’s checkbook in a box; they separated months earlier after living together for two years. It was a simple case. The State had photos of her at the bank and copies of the checks. She was charged with several counts of forgery and, shockingly, a class 2 felony count of control of a criminal enterprise.

Unfortunately for my client, she pled to two minor drug charges a month before committing the bad check offenses. She hadn’t had time to get started on probation and kick her drug habit. We had evidence that she was being strongly influenced by a couple of shady individuals who received the bulk of the money but managed to avoid prosecution. We didn’t think we could have won at trial on a duress defense. She was a thirty-year-old mom and had no prior felonies a few months before writing those bad checks. So what is a reasonable absolute minimum should she lose at trial?

How about 15 years on the class two and 10 years if she lost on any of the class 4 felony fraud charges? Yep, good ol’ tough mandatory sentencing Arizona style. Because she was on probation, she could receive no less than the presumptive sentence. Her petty drug charges, which I’m guessing in most States would never have been felonies, maxed her out on the repetitive offender sentencing guidelines.

Fortunately, a safety valve exists on ridiculous mandatory minimums: reasonable plea offers. Unfortunately for my client, she resides in Maricopa County. I was appalled to find myself fighting tooth and nail for plea that would get my client less than half a decade. Why? Policy. Before I was assigned the case, my client rejected her initial offer of between 4.5 and 7 years. We had evidence she didn’t understand the plea when it was offered. However, without getting the previous attorney to admit to misinforming the client (yeah, right), we had to fight for a stipulated sentence far above anything remotely resembling justice.

I found myself fighting back tears when speaking to her family. Explaining to mom that her daughter was going to serve four-plus years over some checks totaling less than the value of a Yugo had me fighting frustration that felt near primitive. I felt like a failure. Ego is a fact of life for all trial attorneys, but especially for criminal defense attorneys. We all feel the prick of defeat even when deep down we know that that particular client didn’t get a raw deal. This case felt more like a sword thrust than a prick.

I worked her case hard. I think I’m usually pretty darn good at getting good plea offers. By the numbers, I got her a quarter of her potential minimum sentence if she lost at trial. It didn’t remotely feel good. This time, I felt I got put through the wringer by Arizona law and ridiculous policy guidelines, and nothing I did made it close to just. I told her more than once that she was the poster child for unfair law and policy.

I’m fond of the term “Perfect Storm.” I don’t use it here because it implies a rare convergence of events. Here, it’s just policy. I hope policy changes in Maricopa County. I’m not dumb enough to hope legislators start repealing absurd laws.

Inside, a probation officer was interviewing a defendant for a presentence report. He pled guilty, and she was getting information for the judge who was going to sentence him. She wasn’t very good at keeping the volume of her voice at a reasonable level and kept saying “okidokie” to the guy’s responses. She was probably in her late twenties, and she was overweight. She had a social worker look about her. Her straight red hair was pulled back in a very tight ponytail. She was wearing black capri pants (“shpants,” as my sister calls them) and a lime green tee shirt.

When she asked the defendant about his past drug use, it was apparent that she didn’t have the slightest idea about recreational drugs. She asked him if he’d ever smoked crack, and he said yes. Then, she asked him if he’d ever used cocaine. His response of “uh…yeah…I said I smoked crack” might as well have been “c’mon you moron, crack is a form of cocaine you smoke.” He was irritated at her for not knowing.

He was going to prison for a burglary charge, and he had a significant criminal history. He had an explanation for why he did what he did. He had a sad life story. She responded with lots of okidokies and very little sympathy.

At the end of the interview, she asked him a series of questions to which he was only allowed to answer yes, no, or maybe. Here are some of the ones I recall:

Would most people commit crimes if they thought they could get away with it?
Is society to blame for most crime?
Do you agree that a person should do whatever it takes to make money?
Do you feel you’ve been treated fairly?

She also asked him these two questions:

True or false: schoolteachers just like having power over students?
True of false: police officers just like having power over people?

I would have failed her test. Whatever she was seeking, I doubt I could’ve given it to her. My presentence report would’ve said I had a bad attitude, no respect for authority, or maybe something worse.

I believe most people would commit crimes if they thought they could get away with it. Look at speeding. There are laws against speeding, yet almost every single person on the freeway speeds. The government tells us speeding is dangerous. People all seem to agree that speeding puts others in jeopardy, yet everyone complains about speeding tickets when they’re caught. People think they can get away with speeding, so they do it. Believing it’s a safety issue, they put safety second to convenience. Their convenience. Other people’s safety. If people thought they could get away with more, I think they’d give it a try.

I also believe society is to blame for most crime. A lot of people have it bad. They never had a chance. It’s largely society’s fault. Most of my clients have had bad home lives, traumatic life events, and terrible mental or physical difficulties. All of my clients have at some point been mistreated, marginalized, or ignored altogether by society.

As for the third question, if money is the only thing that can assure that someone survives, whatever-it-takes might be exactly what’s in order. The guy being interviewed may have burglarized a home to feed his family. He also may have done it because he has no respect for other people and their property. Yes, no, and maybe can’t possibly answer such a complex question. The question isn’t fair.

The last yes, no, or maybe question might have been the worst. Nobody’s treated fairly in our system. The state indicts in secret. Prosecutors overcharge. Laws are too broad, and mandatory minimums are too common and too harsh. Priors long past follow people to their graves. Defendants are pushed through the system like cattle. There’s nothing fair about it.

Finally, there are a lot of schoolteachers who just like having power over students. There are a lot of police officers who just like having power over people in general. True or false can’t possibly answer either of those questions.

After the probation officer finished, she shuffled past me with a faint smile on her face. I caught a glimpse of the defendant in the visitation room. He was grizzled, with a glass eye and scars everywhere. He was rail thin and had a head of curly black hair. I looked back at the probation officer. She waited impatiently to get buzzed out of the jail hallway while fiddling with her ponytail.

The stupid questions and the stark contrast between the probation officer and the defendant made a strong impression. She shouldn’t be in a position to report on him. He’s experienced things that she can’t even fathom. I’d guarantee it.

I imagine the probation officer sitting in her office, surrounded by bric-a-brac as she types up a report about that man’s antisocial personality and escalating drug use. A judge will read what she writes and commit a fellow human being to state custody for a term of years. The judge may have struggled less in his or her life than the probation officer.

What kind of sick, twisted system do we have where the coddled get to judge those among us who’ve had real life experiences?

My first hearing was a change of plea. The client is already serving a prison sentence, and he has a couple of years left to go. There’s a decent constitutional issue, so I convinced the prosecutor to make him an offer to concurrent time. He’s already maxed out on felonies, so another conviction won’t enhance his sentencing range in the future. For all practical purposes, the plea is as good as a dismissal or a not guilty verdict at trial.

My only way of discussing a plea offer with a client in prison is by setting up a legal visit or legal call through the client’s “CO3,” a corrections officer assigned to him. In his case, I tried numerous times to set something up through his CO3. At first, I couldn’t get in touch with her. Then, she set up a meeting for a time she wasn’t there and forgot to tell her replacement about the visit. My file is full of entries where I tried to get in touch with her. It took forever to finally set something up.

When I spoke with my client and confirmed that he wanted the plea, it was too late to file a motion to get him transported. My prisoner clients generally hate being pulled away from their daily routine to be hauled to jail and then to court, and it’s a waste of the county’s time and money to file a motion for transport and get an order, make the sheriff go across the state to get someone, haul them back, and house them for a hearing where nothing happens. As a general rule, I don’t automatically file for transport. By the time I knew I should in that client’s case, there wasn’t enough time for the sheriff to actually carry out the order.

When I called the case in court yesterday, I had no clue that, as I had been doing my best to contact my client, he had gotten upset and written the judge a letter saying I wasn’t doing anything on his case. He complained that I didn’t care about him.

On the record, the judge told me about the letter then showed it to me. It was the first I heard of it. Suddenly, I understood why the client seemed embarrassed when I finally talked with him and explained what I had done. As of yesterday’s hearing, the client was exceedingly happy with the representation. Unfortunately, no one else in court knew that. No one knew I’d actually done my job.

In my second hearing, I had filed a motion for transport for a client. That client was being held in a different county’s jail. Although everyone told me a transport order wasn’t necessary for that type of transport, I filed it anyway because the sheriff failed to transport him to the last several hearings. Getting my client to court had been an absolute ordeal every time.

The client wanted to enter a plea, but he was initially set for a hearing on Monday in front of a judge who wouldn’t hear pleas. I filed a motion to vacate the Monday hearing and set the matter for a change of plea yesterday in front of a judge who would actually hear it. The clerk and the judges’ assistants both told me my client would be transported on Wednesday and that the judge would just vacate the Monday hearing.

When I got to the hearing yesterday, I found out that the sheriff had miraculously transported my client for Monday’s hearing then brought him back to the other county’s jail. Despite the signed transport order issued by the court, they brought my client to the wrong hearing, the one that should have been vacated. To make matters worse, someone left the motion to vacate, which supposedly had been granted, out of the court file. With the client there, me gone, and nothing in the file, the judge on Monday apparently got upset with me on the record. The minute entry from Monday ordered me personally to appear on a future date.

No one thought to tell me what had happened, so I didn’t find out about any of this until the last minute. I walked into the courthouse yesterday thinking everything was going to proceed smoothly. I’d done everything that could’ve been expected of me, everything I could have done. Anyone else, however, would look at the situations and assume I’d somehow made mistakes. Luckily, I didn’t have any other hearings that could go wrong.

Instead, I next went to visit a client. We previously had a change of release hearing, and the judge took my motion under advisement. After my irritating morning hearings, I found out the judge had issued an order reducing my client’s bond from the price of a house to the price of a motorcycle. The judge even modified his conditions to let him travel out of state for work. I walked over to the jail looking forward to being the bearer of good news.

Sadly, I didn’t get so much as a thank you. I probably would’ve gotten a happier reaction from the client had I told him it was taco salad day at the jail. He’s probably bonded out by now, but I doubt he’s even considered that I might have helped him out. Do something bad, or even something that looks bad, and you get hammered. Do some good, and you get nothing.

Strangely, I’m not bitter about yesterday. Maybe it seems like I’m complaining by talking about my morning, but that isn’t my intention. Yesterday wasn’t atypical. It looks like it won’t even be my most thankless day this week. I’m moved to write about it not because I need to whine, but because some other superficially unrelated things made me think about it in a different light.

I recently hired some clerks who are either new lawyers or law school graduates pending bar passage. Some of them request input after sending me their work. I can’t blame them, as I would probably feel the same way in their situation. I send them my finished product, the pleadings and other substantial documents based in part on their work, but they also seem to want critique. I get the feeling they want compliments mostly. They appear to want me to tell them they did a good job, not just what they should improve. I keep wondering if I ever felt the same way. I’m sure I did. How much did I seek positive feedback a few years ago? How hurt would I have been then if I had to experience a day like yesterday?

In this job, I often feel like I’m the only person who knows exactly what I’ve done. I bet I often am, and I think it’s the same for most criminals defense lawyers. As a result, I think most of us learn to derive satisfaction not from other people appreciating our work, but from knowing we did our best. It’s the best and maybe the only way to be happy and feel a sense of accomplishment in a profession where your defeats feel public and your victories feel private.

I compliment my clerks in the areas where they deserve it, but it feels strange. It feels like something that doesn’t match the nature of the profession. Am I coddling? Why should I give them something they will likely never get when they handle their own caseload? Am I giving them unrealistic expectations about how the practice of law is going to be?

The nature of the profession doesn’t seem to change much when lawyers go online.  Blogging lawyers, the ones I read at least, tend to call each other out a lot more than they pat each other on the back.  Like Mark Bennett said yesterday, “This is Not the Happysphere.” Scott Greenfield agreed. Norm Pattis might agree too, but he doesn’t seem to like it.

The online debate among lawyers can be fierce. It’s a stark contrast to me diplomatically telling someone I’m paying what I liked about their memo. Plenty of blogging lawyers rip each other to shreds for even the tiniest little tidbits of stupidity. Like in the profession itself, the defeats, not the victories, tend to dominate a lawyer’s online presence. A hundred thought-provoking posts might not get half the traffic of one badly-thought-out one. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It certainly helps to prepare online lawyers for the thankless, critical environment of the legal profession.

All of this led me to think about a friend who recently got a cushy job playing with a symphony orchestra. He mentioned to me how different it felt going from the music school environment, where every concert is followed by celebration where beer and compliments flow freely, to the professional environment, where you sometimes have to quietly drive home after a concert without hearing so much as a “nice job!” The disconnect is even more notable between law school and the legal profession.

I saw more people desperately seeking validation in law school than I’ve ever seen in my life. Hands flew up in the air to answer questions first, each student making sure his or her answer showed the professor his or her stupendous intellect. People made the most ridiculous self-serving statements I’ve ever heard. For the most part, if a student fished long enough for a compliment, he or she would get one.

I have no clue whether the constant desire for input I saw in my classmates, the same thing I see in some of the people I hire, is a generational thing or not. I also have no clue whether it’s good or bad to give people the affirmation they seek. What I do know, however, is that those aren’t desires that are going to be satisfied easily in the world of criminal defense, whether online or in practice.

This isn’t the first trial I’ve lost. It pains me to say it, but it’s also unlikely to be the last. No matter how hard I try, I’ll probably again have to experience the feeling of knowing someone trusted me with their life and made a gamble that didn’t pay off. It’s a twisting, sinking, hopeless malaise that consumes you. You’re in a nightmare. You know you can wake up, but the person who trusted you can’t. Someone had faith in you. You did your absolute best, and it wasn’t good enough.

The word “guilty” overflowed with significance. My client testified, so “guilty” meant the jurors did not believe him. Twelve people must have unanimously agreed he was lying when he looked them in the eyes and said he did not do the charged acts. “Guilty” meant that my client would never again go for a hike, drink a beer, or even order a meal from a menu.

My client sat next to me crying, and I was incapable of comforting him. I had nothing to offer. There will be a motion for a new trial. He’ll have appeals. From now on, however, the deck is even more stacked against him. This was his best chance to fight for his freedom. I can’t tell him everything is okay because everything is not okay. He heard a word that signified the end of life as he’s known it since the day he was born. I can’t dull the pain or fear for him.

Strange memories of my client popped into my head. I thought about when I visited him the day before Thanksgiving and he said to me, “I hope you have a great turkey day, Matt.” I thought about one witness describing him as being obsessed with Xbox and football. I thought about how on a weekday roughly one year ago he went to the auto parts warehouse where he’d worked for years and began a day just like any other. Instead of working a full day and going home, though, he was arrested before his shift ended and held without bond. He couldn’t have known it at the time, but that was his last day of freedom. He will die in prison.

I know the terrible feeling in my gut will go away eventually. At some point, it will probably be entirely replaced by a desire to make sure this never happens again.

When the jury left to deliberate, I felt good about how the trial went. Now, I agonize over every little thing I could have done better. Details of trial that would’ve escaped my memory forever had I won now pop into my head one after another. After losing, I get the overwhelming feeling that every case can be won with the right defense.

This was a tough case. The state had two recorded confessions from my client, but he insisted he was innocent. Two attorneys before me had heavily pressured him to take the plea. He went through with two settlement conferences, never once even considering the offers the state put on the table. Should I have pressured him more? Would it have made any difference? If I had done something different, could I have won the trial?

The guilty verdict was followed by the aggravation phase. As my client sat there weeping, I felt callous getting back to work. It was work on his behalf, but it didn’t matter. A life sentence is a life sentence. What middle-aged man cares if it’s seventy years or eighty? Aggravation took away an important time for him to come to terms with what was happening. It thrust him back in front of twelve people who just judged him, twelve people who without knowing took away everything he ever knew.

Criminal defense is not an easy job, and it’s never tougher than when you’ve just lost a trial. The only benefit is that a loss leads to reflection. It’s no consolation for my client, but I am never more acutely aware of the lives of the people I represent or the importance of what I’m doing. A loss does more to make me a better lawyer than any win could ever hope to do.

Being able to speak in public, knowing the facts of the case, and understanding the rules of evidence are rarely enough to effectively try a case. There are countless variables in almost any trial, and anything can happen. Every trial I’ve done has taught me that one of the most important skills a trial lawyer can have is the ability to predict problems that might arise and prepare accordingly.

My background is in music. In music, you do your best to gain technical mastery of your instrument. You learn the piece of music you’re going to perform, then you go out in public and do more or less what you’ve been doing in the practice room. For the most part, the audience is mostly what distinguishes practice from performance.

My first trial was a complete shock to me. I received a lot of guidance from established attorneys I respected, but no matter how much I wish it wasn’t the case, that just wasn’t a substitute for personal experience.

Opening argument felt familiar. I knew what I was going to say, and I said it. There’s a certain amount of improvisation even to opening, as the prosecutor’s opening or the jury you’ve picked may affect what you say, but that stuff is fairly predictable. You can prepare for it. Just learn the case, practice, and do your best.

What happens between opening and closing argument is a different story. Prosecutors do crazy things trying to get information out of witnesses. Witnesses do even crazier things, and judges may be the most unpredictable of all. Put enough pressure on people, and it’s almost impossible to know what they’re going to do.

As I’ve gained more trial experience, I’ve found myself devoting more and more of my preparation time to figuring out how I’m going to deal with situations I never would’ve thought of a year or two ago.

When you know what types of things have certain effects on witnesses, you prepare your questions accordingly. The content of my cross may be similar to what it would’ve been before, but I definitely ask things differently.

The same is true of objections. When you know the kinds of mistakes the prosecutor is likely to make, you’re able to make your objections infinitely more effective. Few things feel better than being able to give the court citations for the rule a prosecutor’s broken and the case interpreting it in your favor.

Being able to anticipate what’s going to happen is an incredibly powerful tool to have at your disposal. Unfortunately, it’s something you can’t rush. It’s something you build one trial at a time, and there’s no substitute for experience. I envy lawyers with decades of trials under their belts.

Trying a case is never going to be like playing a concert. I’ve come to grips with the lack of certainty, and I know there are always going to be things I can’t practice. With enough time, though, I imagine the feel of trial will more closely mirror the feel of a music performance.

Strangely, that almost makes me sad. The unknown is one of those things that makes trial so exciting.

Downtown RCC is in the basement of the central court building. When you get out of the elevator, you walk down a hallway and go to an area that looks a little bit like an airport terminal. There’s a line to check in, a help desk, and seating for defendants. I often see a private attorney or two waiting in line with the criminal defendants. I once asked the lady at the desk if I was supposed to wait in line and she couldn’t give me an answer. I never check in, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m supposed to. Awkwardly standing around not feeling entirely sure about what to do is a recurring theme at the Downtown RCC. I think they cultivate that.

If you want to talk with the prosecutor, you have to go to the negotiation room. To get there, private attorneys have to go stand by a locked door and wait for someone with access to open it. It’s usually a public defender who lets you in. Sometimes, it’s a sheriff’s deputy, but that will only get you through the first door. You’ll just end up stuck between two locked doors, waiting for a public defender to let you through the second. Nothing says professionalism quite like looking like a poor puppy dog stuck outside, patiently waiting for someone to let you in.

After you get past those doors, you’re in the public defender’s office. To get to the negotiation room, you need to walk past cubicles, a copying machine, and a conference table. Three right turns and you’re there. Of course, then you have to get in touch with the prosecutor. There’s a dry erase board that usually lists the prosecutors and their extensions. You have to figure out who’s assigned then give him or her a call using a phone in the negotiation room. After using the county attorney hot-line, you get to wait again.

Getting to the phone in the negotiation room is reminiscent of the opening sequence of Get Smart. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but it’s definitely more complex than it needs to be. Plus, I think the negotiation room is actually directly adjacent to where where you have to wait for a public defender at the beginning. Would an extra door have been that difficult? Also, the prosecutor’s office has a little window next to where you first wait. Couldn’t they just put someone there and have them get the assigned prosecutor if you need to talk? Never mind, that makes too much sense.

In the negotiation room, you’ll probably find the police reports and a plea. The prosecutor you’ve summoned on the bat-phone is usually going to be one of a generally pleasant group of lawyers. The problem is that they have basically no discretion to do anything. Except in the rarest of circumstances, they can’t change the plea, approve that extra continuance, or dismiss a guaranteed loser of a case for the State. They’ll tell you with a smile that they can’t do a damn thing to help you. At least you’ll know who does have authority to approve your deviation request when you write it.

After accomplishing a whole bunch of nothing, you’ll probably want to communicate what’s happened to your client. If your client is in custody, the fun has just started. You get to backtrack through the cubicles and enter a hallway with little visitation booths. That’s where you get to wait looking helpless until a sheriff’s deputy gets your client for you. You’d better be patient. There’s a good chance you’ll get to wait quite a while before you can contact a deputy to get your client, and a great chance you’ll have another significant chunk of time to wait before seeing your client.

If your client only speaks Spanish and you want an interpreter, you’d better clear your schedule for a day. Okay, okay. Not really. But it seems like that. Downtown RCC experts tell me a defense lawyer’s best bet for an interpreter is waiting outside of those first two locked doors. Instead of looking like a house pet that’s been locked out, you now get to look like a zombie. For best results, approach every professional-looking person who walks by and desperately asking them if they’re an interpreter. If you get one, you begin the process described in the preceding paragraph.

I wouldn’t shed a tear if I never had another Downtown RCC case. I might like it if I was a public defender or a prosecutor (or someone who liked watching private attorneys look dumb, for that matter), but even public defenders and prosecutors seem to hate it.

Every RCC experience I have leaves me wondering who thought it would be a good idea to set it up the way it is. Anyone know? More importantly, if any of you know, do you know if they still like their idea?

That puts a lot of criminal defendants in a very difficult situation. Many defendants have no desire to go to trial. Some want to avoid trial at all costs. A big problem arises when a client doesn’t want to go to trial, has a weak case and a lot of risk, and feels they have a right to a plea they’re willing to accept.

The problem is sentencing. Some Arizona crimes carry extreme sentences. If the state is alleging you committed a “dangerous offense” or have a prior conviction or two, you are probably looking at years of mandatory prison if convicted. The state’s offer will likely reflect your exposure should you lose at trial more than it reflects the actual seriousness of the alleged crime.

Let’s say the victim claims you swerved in his direction with your car, scaring him. You didn’t even hit him, but he thought he was going to die. You claim you were driving fine and he was drunk and stumbled in front of your car. It’s your word against his, and the authorities decided to believe him. You’re probably going to be charged with aggravated assault, and the state is probably going to allege it’s a dangerous crime because you used a car, a dangerous instrument, to intentionally place him in eminent fear of serious physical injury.

If you lose at trial, the judge can give you no less than five years of prison. The presumptive sentence is seven and a half years, and the judge could send you away for as long as fifteen years. Probation isn’t available. That’s what you’d be facing if you have no criminal history whatsoever.

The jury isn’t going to know how much time you’re facing. If they did know, your chances at trial would be a lot better. They’re probably going to hear the facts and think it’s no big deal. You’ll just get a slap on the wrist. They’ll have no clue what they’re doing to you by finding you guilty.

A jury might convict you. You may appear nervous on the stand. The victim may present really well. There is always risk at trial. There is no such thing as a guaranteed winner (or a guaranteed loser, for that matter).

I’ve seen a few cases with facts like what I’ve described, and the initial plea offer is typically going to stipulate to prison. The prosecutor sees a range of five to fifteen and decides anything less than five years is a good deal. The prosecutor probably thinks the charge is way too serious for a probation deal.

If the deal doesn’t change, what do you do? The state doesn’t have to give you a reasonable offer. You have no right to an offer at all. Sometimes, prosecutors won’t listen to reason. You may have to choose between a 50% chance of a lot of prison or a 100% chance of a little bit of prison.

That’s one of the worst situations defendants regularly encounter. Plenty of defendants fire their lawyers hoping a new face will get them a better deal. That rarely works. Typically, they just go to trial with a lawyer who’s less familiar with the case.

Absurd sentencing laws lead to absurd plea agreements. It seems obvious that every defendant can take a plea or go to trial, but mandatory minimums make that a tough reality to accept.

I recently lost Dakota, my five-year-old German Shepherd, to chronic renal failure. I took her to the vet a few weeks ago because she was limping and seemed in pain. They asked if they could do blood tests, and I got a call a day later saying she needed to be hospitalized immediately. I took her in right away, and she stayed at the vet for a full week.

Vets aren’t open outside of my normal work hours. Taking her in took time away from my work schedule. Visiting her took time away from my work schedule. I didn’t sleep very well. She had issues with elevated creatinine levels in the past, but her other blood values suggested her kidneys were fine. Had I done something wrong? Was it somehow my fault? Should I have done something earlier? I spent an enormous amount of time worrying about her. I felt a lot of guilt.

After a week at the vet, her levels got a little better, but the prognosis was bad. She didn’t have long; likely just a few months, a year at best. She began removing her catheter, which she hadn’t done before, and the vet took that as a sign that she didn’t want to be there anymore. I was excited by the prospect of having her home, though I knew her time was limited.

A month ago, I had a happy, healthy, middle-aged dog. The dog I took home from the vet was neither happy nor healthy. She stumbled instead of walking, and the sad face she used to give me to get treats or attention revealed genuine pain.

I let the pendulum of work-life balance swing heavily in favor of life for the better part of a week. I worked from home while I monitored the dog. I fed her a special diet by hand and gave her numerous medications throughout the day. She required daily fluid therapy, which the vet taught me how to administer. I didn’t give up work altogether, but I wasn’t as productive as I ordinarily would have been. I definitely wasn’t operating at one hundred percent.

Being able to move around my schedule to be home was priceless. I didn’t have to ask anyone if I could take time off. I didn’t have to use any sick days or vacation time. Anyone who knows me in even the slightest personal capacity knows how much I love that dog. Personally caring for her in the comfort of her own home for the last days of her life was incredibly important to me. I don’t know if any firm would have given me that much flexibility to care for a pet.

Work decreased, but it never stopped altogether. I had filings to draft, interviews to conduct, and a jury trial the following week. The only things I more or less abandoned altogether were blogging and Twitter. For the first time in over a year, I had to cut my own hours on cases I billed hourly. I know how much time I usually spend drafting different types of motions, and I was consistently coming in too high for me to be comfortable charging my regular hourly rate. It was good stuff, maybe some of the best writing of my career, but my efficiency was way down.

My efforts with Dakota, unfortunately, were in vain. She quit eating, and her body stopped responding to the fluid therapy. No matter how much I did, she just didn’t get better. The plan shifted from trying to make her better to ensuring her final days were comfortable. Those days were heartbreaking, but I got in a lot of quality time with her.

After she passed, I had very little time to deal with the feelings I was experiencing. I had to jump head-first into a fourteen-hour day of hearings and client meetings, then I began a jury trial the following day. The client was facing a mandatory minimum of 75.5 years if convicted at trial of all counts, and the judge could have given him as much as 240 years.

When the trial ended, I was pleased with the verdict, to say the least, but that was overshadowed by sadness. The reality of losing Dakota finally sunk in last Thursday, the day after trial. Putting all of myself into work only suppressed my feelings. It didn’t eliminate them.

I swung the pendulum of work-life balance all the way to the life side, then it reacted by going all the way to the work side. I expect it’ll still take a few more small swings to each side before it finally settles down. I’m going to be coping with the loss for a while, but my workload is back to normal. I have more time to spend with people who matter to me.

These past few weeks made me appreciate the fact I’m self-employed. They also made me appreciate the fact I’m in a line of work where I don’t have to be someplace in particular from 9 to 5 every single day. Those facts enabled me to do something I felt was very important, but they didn’t absolve me of the duty I owe to my clients. I never expected they would.

When people talk about work-life balance, it always comes across to me as if they’re claiming you can have all you want out of both if you follow their advice. I don’t think that’s possible.

You can always take from one to favor the other, but you’re going to have to pay it back sooner or later. That’s a bitter pill to swallow if you’ve been convinced you can have it both ways, but if you accept that reality, it’s very comforting just knowing you have the choice. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I hear many people say they want a new lawyer because their lawyer does not return their calls. I usually take that statement with a grain of salt. A lot of lawyers don’t return calls as they should, but some clients have unreasonable expectations regarding their lawyer’s time. Failing to return one out of the fifty calls a clients makes each day is probably not going to make me think badly of another lawyer.

Many people also tell me their lawyer has done nothing. I’ve had clients come in where that appears to be true. I’ve reviewed plenty of cases with great grand jury issues meriting remand, only to look at the case histories and see nothing was filed before the 25-day deadline in the rules. On the other hand, I’ve also reviewed cases for prospective clients where, although I’d like to handle the case, I tell them their lawyer is doing an excellent job. Most commonly, I see that happen in cases where public defenders were involved. No matter how good a job they do, some clients will never be satisfied with a free lawyer.

The most common situation I encounter in initial consultations, however, involves a client who comes to me primarily because they are dissatisfied with the plea they’ve been offered. It happens all the time.

I am pretty familiar with the plea bargaining guidelines for a lot of Arizona jurisdictions. I’m also pretty familiar with how much wiggle room the assigned prosecutor has in deviating from the guidelines. If I see a plea that’s above the guideline range or that appears highly likely to be made more lenient based on my experience with deviations, there is a decent chance the client’s attorney either did something wrong or didn’t do anything at all. The client may benefit from a new lawyer.

Things get more complicated when a client comes to me with a decent plea and claims his lawyer should have gotten him something better. The problem is that the mere act of switching lawyers sometimes result in a better plea. It almost seems like criminal defense attorney sacrilege to say it, but it’s true. It may not happen often, but it happens.

I’ve had clients whose previous lawyers did everything I would’ve done. They filed every motion, made every argument, and submitted a strong request for the state to deviate from the applicable plea bargaining guidelines. The deal, however, didn’t change. I suspect the state probably thought, “as trial comes closer and the plea deadline is about to expire, this defendant is going to cave in and take the plea when he realizes it isn’t going to get any better.” Unfortunately for the state, the client didn’t realize that was the only offer, and instead of caving in and taking the deal, he started blaming his lawyer for everything.

Switching lawyers drags out the process and, at the very least, results in a little more work for everyone. For all but the laziest of prosecutors, it means more time and effort. It means there will be yet another case lingering in his or her already-excessive caseload, and because of that, the prosecutor may come back with something closer to the deal the client wanted all along. The prosecutor also may change the deal because he feels sorry for the new lawyer, whom he may perceive as having just gotten stuck with a difficult client.

The client thinks it’s because the new attorney is amazing, or maybe it just confirms the client’s suspicion that every defendant gets three pleas, the last of which is the best. That criminal defense urban legend was all the rage among inmates in the Pinal County jail about this time last year. Regardless, switching attorneys worked for that client.

It all comes down to one thing: the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Sometimes. Sure, sometimes it squeaks until the plea expires, then ends up taking a worse plea on the day of trial. It also occasionally squeaks all the way through trial and ends up serving an aggravated prison term. But every once in a while, it squeaks at just the right time to just the right prosecutor and ends up with the plea it wanted all along.

None of that really sets him apart from a lot of other lawyers though. What really separates him from the rest is his “PDA.” It’s a stack of note cards. To be more specific, it’s a mismatched stack of a half dozen, slightly discolored, dog-eared, 5×8″ ruled white index cards which he stores in his breast pocket.

A little while ago, I sat next to him and struck up a conversation. We talked about typical court stuff, like how the judge yells at defense attorneys if they’re five minutes late but always starts his 8:30 a.m. docket at 9:15 a.m. It was a normal lawyer-to-lawyer chat, but during a lull, he said “oops, I better check my PDA to make sure I’m supposed to be here” and pulled out his index cards. He thumbed through a few cards and said “yep, looks like I was right.” I was proud of myself for suppressing a laugh. He really called it his “PDA.” I swear.

Perhaps even more humorous is the fact his “PDA” isn’t just his calendar. It seems to replace his court files altogether. He doesn’t take anything else into court. I’ve never seen him with a briefcase. I spotted him carrying a copy of a pre-sentence report once, but I’m fairly certain he quickly transcribed its contents onto an index card and disposed of it.

Before he calls his cases in court, he pulls out his “PDA” and holds it in both hands. As the judge stares him down, waiting for him to say something, he holds the stack of cards a fraction of an inch from his nose and reads the case number off of it. Apparently, everything he needs to a know about his cases is on those cards. If he needs to take note of something, I’m pretty sure he writes it down on his “PDA” with one of those short pencils people use for mini-golf.

I enjoy talking to him. I also enjoy seeing him in court, for obvious reasons. He seems like a smart guy, and he’s extremely friendly. Unfortunately, every time I stand next to him wearing a dark, conservative suit and holding my dark, conservative briefcase, I start to think I take myself too seriously. I probably do.