"Project of the American Bar Association, Criminal Justice Standards Committee, Criminal Justice Section"--T.p. verso.

This book presents new research and thinking about the role of the defense counsel in the American criminal justice system. The right to counsel is guaranteed, but can an overworked public defender who is paid for the number of cases taken on really be compared with expensive private attorneys? Original essays explore such issues as performance measurement to ensure proper counsel, the differences between public and private defenders, and the dwindling number of private defense counsels.

Are you accused of a crime? Are you incarcerated? Are you close to someone who is? Are you a law student? (You won't find this information in law school!) Are you a practicing attorney who wants to be certain to excel in the arena of criminal defense? The secrets in this book serve as a guiding light to achieving Total Victory in the courtroom. An excellent criminal defense attorney's goal is Total Victory which means dismissal of all charges prior to trial, acquittal at trial, or reversal on appeal with directions to dismiss. A plea bargain is not Total Victory, nor can any form of win-win negotiating be Total Victory. Why should the prosecutor get anything? Every criminal case presents potential opportunities for Total Victory. An excellent criminal defense attorney knows how to transform these opportunities into actual dismissal or acquittal. When a lawyer is 100% for the client and stands up for the client to the nth degree, each secret of criminal defense is crucial. Just as a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, an excellent criminal defense attorney knows how to maximize representation in every case, never allowing a weak link. Those criminal defense attorneys who deserve the word excellent work to Win! They do everything they can think of within the law and the rules to win, and they win because they are knowledgeable and experienced with the tools and techniques and state of mind set forth in this book. Written in a clean, clear style, its also a most enjoyable read!

How the attorney-client relationship favors the privileged in criminal court—and denies justice to the poor and to working-class people of color The number of Americans arrested, brought to court, and incarcerated has skyrocketed in recent decades. Criminal defendants come from all races and economic walks of life, but they experience punishment in vastly different ways. Privilege and Punishment examines how racial and class inequalities are embedded in the attorney-client relationship, providing a devastating portrait of inequality and injustice within and beyond the criminal courts. Matthew Clair conducted extensive fieldwork in the Boston court system, attending criminal hearings and interviewing defendants, lawyers, judges, police officers, and probation officers. In this eye-opening book, he uncovers how privilege and inequality play out in criminal court interactions. When disadvantaged defendants try to learn their legal rights and advocate for themselves, lawyers and judges often silence, coerce, and punish them. Privileged defendants, who are more likely to trust their defense attorneys, delegate authority to their lawyers, defer to judges, and are rewarded for their compliance. Clair shows how attempts to exercise legal rights often backfire on the poor and on working-class people of color, and how effective legal representation alone is no guarantee of justice. Superbly written and powerfully argued, Privilege and Punishment draws needed attention to the injustices that are perpetuated by the attorney-client relationship in today’s criminal courts, and describes the reforms needed to correct them.

In recent years the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in the area of juvenile law and the growing public awareness of the delinquency problem have brought about drastic changes in American juvenile courts. This book represents a major research effort to determine the effect of defense counsel's performance on the conduct and outcome of delinquency cases. After a brief historical analysis of the factors leading to changes in juvenile law, the authors explore in detail the impact of the lawyer's presence and performance on the outcomes of cases in two juvenile courts. The analysis further explores the various factors influencing a lawyer's defense posture and develops the thesis that the effectiveness of counsel is determined largely by the structure of the delinquency hearing and the willingness and ability of court personnel and procedures to adapt to the introduction of an adversarial role of defense counsel. What makes this study unique is the large-scale effort to combine legal analysis and sociological methodology to the study of an action-oriented program. The use of the classical experimental design, the selection of control and experimental groups by random assignment, and the extent to which the use of this methodology increases the validity of the results, will be of interest to both lawyers and social scientists. The book is a major contribution to the growing literature in the field of the sociology of law.