My Shingle

From the category archives:

Criminal Law, Practice & Policy

The Defense for Starting A Criminal Law Practice Out of Law School

August 13, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

I’ll admit that I’ve always had mixed feelings on the question of whether to solo straight out of law school. As I explained in this early post, from my perspective, it made sense for new grads with no work history and with significant student loan debt to take a paying job if only for [...]

Read more Criminal Law, Practice & Policy View Comments

What a Niche Law Practice Is (Pot Law)…And What It Is Not

June 21, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

One of my solo-centric colleagues, Susan Cartier-Liebel of Solo Practice University is running a two-part series on niche practice over at her Build a Solo Practice blog, so I didn’t want to send you into niche-overload.  But I after seeing this article from the National Law Journal on “pot law practices,” I couldn’t resist.  Though [...]

Read more Criminal Law, Practice & Policy View Comments

Supreme Court Says Lawyers Must Advise Clients of Consequences of Guilty Plea

March 31, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

What sets us lawyers apart from computers or services like LegalZoom is our ability to counsel clients and help them make decisions.  Counseling clients is the very essence of what we do as lawyers — so much so that failure to advise clients on obvious consequences of a decision to plead guilty — such as [...]

Read more Criminal Law, Practice & Policy View Comments

Resources for Solos and Small Firms Practicing Criminal Law

July 3, 2008 by Carolyn Elefant

Russ Bensing of the Briefcase provides this quick but thorough recap
 of the Supreme Court’s thirteen criminal law related decisions of the past term, with links to each of the decision.  Bensing describes that his summary keeps with the original intention of his blog, which was to "create a resource for solo practitioners and small firm [...]

Read more Criminal Law, Practice & Policy View Comments

A Solo At the Supremes

November 5, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

Over at The WSJ Law Blog, there’s a nice profile of Richard Diaz, the Florida solo who represents Michael Williams, a defendant who is challenging the constitutionality of a federal child-pornography statute in United States v. Williams. Last week, Diaz argued the case before the Supreme Court.
But despite his moment of glory at WSJ [...]

Read more Criminal Law, Practice & Policy View Comments

Great Criminal Law Resource, and Why It Helps Solos

April 12, 2007 by Carolyn Elefant

At Illinois Trial Lawyer , Evan Schaeffer shares a wonderfully valuable resource, The Center for Criminal Justice Advocacy.  The Center was formed as a free, non-partisan training resource to assist new lawyers in becoming competent criminal practitioners.  And one of the Center’s missions is to provide newly licensed sole practitioners with materials to provide a [...]

Read more Criminal Law, Practice & Policy View Comments

Should you go with a judge or a jury?

June 28, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Over at Legal Blogwatch, I posted here  about a recent analysis by Volokh guest blogger Andy Leipold, who found that criminal defendants stand a
better chance of acquittal before a jury.  I thought that the study might help some of my readers who practice criminal law to make more informed decisions about a bench or [jury] [...]

Read more Criminal Law, Practice & Policy View Comments

Hey Biglaw – Where Were You When It Mattered?

May 12, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Apparently, competition for Supreme Court cases has now grown so intense that biglaw firms are trying to poach criminal cases from small fry defense lawyers.  That’s the distinct impression that I came away with after reading Will Defense Lawyers Accept Help on High Court Criminal Cases?
The article reports that this past term, the Supreme [...]

Read more Criminal Law, Practice & Policy View Comments

Wouldn’t It Be Great to Have Your Own Monday Morning Blogger-back?

February 2, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

As an energy regulatory attorney who knew of Enron when it was just another IPP (independent power producer) pushing for deregulation, I’ve followed the company’s rise and fall, up through this last chapter, the Lay and Skilling Enron trials.  My favorite source of news and commentary is from the Houston Chronicle’s Enron Legal Commentary Blog.  [...]

Read more Criminal Law, Practice & Policy View Comments

Court Appointed Work Is Not Supposed To Be A Full Time Job!

July 22, 2005 by Carolyn Elefant

Well after all of the controversy, looks like the Massachusetts legislature will raise rates for court appointed attorneys as reported here in State House OK’s Raises for Lawyers for the Poor, David Abel (July 22, 2005).  According to the article, lawmakers will increase court appointed rates to $100 an hour from $61.50 for homicide cases; [...]

Read more Criminal Law, Practice & Policy View Comments

← Previous Entries