This is the final instalment in how to best choose a criminal lawyer, particularly in Perth, Western Australia. Barrister Marc Saupin sums up the questions that will help you choose a great legal defence team to have on your side.
Now my comments really because I’m a defence lawyer, and Criminal Lawyers Perth are predominantly defence lawyers. We do very few pleas in mitigation. At the low end of the scale, we often refer them to Legal Aid, the Duty Lawyer Service because those lawyers down there, they’re doing this every day, day in, day out like I used to, 2,020 appearances in a year. Highly experienced, highly capable individuals. So all my comments are really from the defence side of things and taking things to trial.
Now, one of the last points I want to make in terms of how do you choose a criminal lawyer in Perth is, after everything’s said and done, I said to you earlier that the relationship between the solicitor and the client is the most important relationship amongst a range of relationships that individuals have in society. The reason for that is that there’s a high rate of dependency of the client on the solicitor. If monies are involved, legal fees that are in trust, there’s a fiduciary relationship, and a myriad of relationships, I perhaps might do in a vlog later.
At the end of the day, once establishing competency, once establishing experience, once establishing qualifications, obviously, at the end of the day, how well do you get on with that practitioner? Because these days from the time of the arrest to the time of, say your trial, could be upwards of 18 months. And in that time you’re going to have dealings with the solicitor, and that solicitor will have dealings on behalf of you with the charging authorities, the prosecuting authorities, and the courts.
So the most important question in my mind is, how well are you able to get on with that lawyer? And this is at a personal level as well, we’ve all got different bedside manners. Definitely, we all have different bedside manners. And part of that question is making sure or understanding how that law firm communicates with its clients. Some law firms don’t do it very well. They’re like the old medical doctors where they’ll call you once a month, once every three months, or hardly ever speak to you. Law firms today are much savvier in terms of the need for communication with clients, particularly those going through very horrendous allegations and that it’s very stressful for them, as I said, at the outset. So your communication with the law firm and their communication with you is critical and that helps to build that relationship.
At this stage, there’s not much more I can say about how you choose a criminal lawyer in Perth. Qualifications, experience, whether you get on with them are fundamental to this task. I’m going to sign off now and if you’ve got any questions, you can phone a lawyer and speak to them, how do they run their law practice? How do they look after clients? That’s the most important thing because the only important person here is you, the client. Thank you for listening.
