question about lawyers being paid by criminals

[TiramisuCheesecake]

Just random pondering...

Watching an episode of 24 hours in Police Custody featuring a story about a woman being done for fraud to buy drugs, and the gang which supplied the drugs. The alleged ringleader of the drugs gang has a very flash lawyer with a flash car and was discussing with the police buying another flash car for £75k.

Now when you are defending these people - who were found guilty - isn't it pretty clear that the defendants are funding their legal representation with dirty money? So how does that work? You are literally being paid with proceeds of crime?

Legal system in Scotland is very different. Solicitors needs to do a conversion course. Lots of crimes have different names, we don’t have perverting the course of justice we have defeating the ends of justice, no manslaughter it’s culpable homicide. (I think). 15 on a jury not 12, the not proven verdict, property law very different. Many modern laws are the same though,

Hopefully neither you nor any of your loved ones are victims or accused of a crime then. You might change your tune then.

I get that @blueshoes but if you are a top criminal lawyer earning £500 an hour or something and your client is a drug dealer with no legit job/income, you know where the cash is coming from to pay the invoices, right?

The issue is not that the lawyer is being paid with drug money, but more that the lawyer is probably lying to the court to defend the drug dealer. If that can be proven, the lawyer would most likely be struck off.

You said in a previous post that you know lawyers but "I don't know many criminal lawyers mind you". So not many means none in your language?
Sorry we aren't aware of this change in the meaning of English. Please note this everyone, esp those who are in danger of starting a fight in an empty room because they were using the old-fashioned interpretation of 'not many'

Unlike barristers (which have the cab rank rule), most respectable solicitors will not want to represent someone whom they suspect is a drug dealer just for reputational reasons alone. That would open a window to a whole world of pain.

Where are you getting this from?

Most criminal solicitors will take every piece of work they get. I know a very reputable solicitor who has represented multiple people accused of awful, awful crimes.

The job isn't to get them off, it's to represent them in court so they have a fair trial.

Crossed wires there. I don't mean criminal solicitors. I don't work in that world so don't know that sector.

I mean transactional solicitors generally won't touch a criminal with a barge pole. And for good reason.

@blueshoes again, not true.

You can't turn someone down because they have a criminal conviction in their past.

If you carry out AML and there are red flags, you make a mandated report.

They're self-employed so the NMW doesn't apply.

Are you talking about a barrister taking on criminal work or a solicitor?

A solicitor can turn anyone down and leave skid mark for any reason at all like they don't like the colour of their shirt. If the money laundering checks (who by the way you do not have to do for criminal work), suggests the prospective client is a criminal, a solicitor can most certainly turn down the work without giving any reason (to avoid tipping off) AND in addition file a suspicious activity report if the threshold for suspicion is reached.

Lawyers understand what their role is. It is not to decide guilt, that is the role of the jury. The adversarial system we have in the UK os based on the assumption justice is best served by each side putting forward their best case and having a jury decide, and it is innocen until proven guilty. If you accept this premise then represeting someone you believe to be guilty is not an ethical difficulty. It is not your role to decide that, and the prosecution will be trying their hardest to prove their case. You are there to explore the possible alternative explanation put forward by your client. If your cliemt admits guilt that is different abd yoi should excuse yourself.

Well not criminal defence solicitors surely

This is correct except for the last sentence.

A criminal defence lawyer can represent someone who confesses. I slightly hesitate at the word 'guilty' because a person can confess to their lawyer that they did the deed (e.g. kill someone) yet not be guilty of murder because it was an accident or they were insane. Alternatively the lawyer can attack the strength of the prosecution's case and argue it has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, there are ways that a lawyer can defend someone who is 'guilty', so long as they do not put advance a lie i.e. tell the court that their client did not do it.

Everyone has the right to be represented well. Lawyers are not cheap

Sure. Sounds like you might have an axe to grind so I will gladly leave you to it.

Criminal defence lawyers are (most of them anyway).

White collar criminal defence lawyers can probably charge more. Their clients can afford it.

Hello!

Former Criminal Barrister in England here..

Feel free to ask me anything.

In short for OP.. almost all criminal defence work is via legal aid. A privately paying client would have to go through the standard solicitor money laundering regs but Barristers aren't ever involved in the payment side directly that's all via solicitors (except in very specific situations).

For everyone else.. most criminal Barristers both prosecute and defend. If you didn't have us defend you wouldn't have any prosecutors to send the bad people to jail. We are also bound by the cab rank rule and are legally obligated to take any case you are competent to undertake and available to take. You cannot say I won't defend x offence or y person.

If a client tells you they are guilty you cannot represent them on a not guilty plea and at trial.

People always fall back on the "but you just know".. well obviously at times you know the evidence is strong and their account is unlikely. In these circumstances they will inevitably be convicted. However I have also appeared in many cases where my reaction was the client was guilty until 5 minutes after the first witness gave their evidence and it becomes abundantly clear they aren't truthful. In short you literally never know.

People make the mistake of thinking that criminal defence exists only for bad people. If the current age tells us anything its that allegations are easy to make. I once prosecuted a lady who ultimately admitted making false sexual allegations about a taxi driver..

Anyone can be the subject of a false allegation and if that's unlucky enough to be you you'll be grateful for a skilled and experienced criminal barrister.

No we would not happily let child murderers walk free for the money. Legal aid rates are pretty terrible for the reasons a precious poster set out. You get a fixed fee for the preparation and first day of a trial. You don't get paid at all for the second day of a trial. You don't get paid to meet you client in advance of court to take their instructions. If you prepare a case which then is adjourned for lack of court time and it is then resisted to a date you are unavailable you don't get paid a penny for your preparation no matter if it took you days.

The defence lawyer doesn't decide who is guilty or not. That's a jury or a judge's job.

And yes it is mighty embarrassing when you stand up to give a speech in an utterly hopeless case and the jury look at you like you're a prize tit.

I was a juror once and the defence said something in his closing arguments that was interesting - 'it's not mine or the defendant's job to prove his innocence, it's the prosecution's job to prove his guilt'. He went on to talk about reasonable doubt and that he doesn't need to sit there and 'defend' per se, more that his job is to make you question what the other side is saying as you can't deliver a guilty verdict if you kinda think they may have done it, you have to be absolutely sure

That’s an absolutely standard thing to say @TY78910 The problem is that people watch a TV show about lawyers and think it’s true. They don’t lie and punch the air when they ‘win.’ They don’t like murderers and rapists. They have a horrible job to do and they try to do it to the best of their ability. They have worked hard to qualify and have mortgages to pay. They aren’t going to risk all that lying in order to ‘win’ a case. Everybody who doesn’t realise this needs to grow up.

I was on a jury earlier this year - not drugs related - and when the prosecution laid out the case it seemed open and shut. There were photos of the injuries, the victim had made a 999 call and the police had attended, there was an independent third party witness. Appeared open and shut case.

Then the defence lawyer got up, and literally tore the whole thing apart - the main victim/witness had contradicted pretty much everything she'd told the police in her evidence to the jury, there was no proof a 999 call had ever been made, the witness couldn't back up a lot of what she said and contradicred a lot of it... it was a total mess. The procurator fiscal (prosecutor) after the first day of evidence withdrew the case and when we chatted in the jury room waiting to be discharged we all agreed that we'd have had to find not guilty as there was just not the evidence.

I don't think any civilised society should have a system whereby the police/CPS/PF decide whether someone should be charged and there is no right to a defence.

Of course there must be a robust defence of anyone defending a charge. It’s what a civilised society adheres to, or we might as well be Russia or China (at their worst).

I’m a lawyer - not a criminal one - but I have
massive respect for what they do.

What people don’t realise is that lawyers have professional and ethical duties first and foremost to the court. If they don’t adhere to these they can be struck off and never work again. That’s not to say there are no lawyers who break those rules, but there are bad apples in every single profession and they are very much in the minority.

I think a lot of ordinary, law abiding people think that the whole process is nothing to do with them, because they know, or think, that they would never commit a crime. But it is very easy to be falsely accused (or indeed to be a victim).

A good friend of mine was wrongly accused of rape because it was committed near his house by a man matching his (fairly precise) description, on a night when he was at home by himself. Fortunately they caught the perpetrator with DNA evidence before it got to trial but if he hadn’t had a good lawyer there is a chance he would have been imprisoned for something he didn’t do. Any one of us could be in that position.

I just wanted to add: Barristers are usually paid by the day. They are self employed unless working for CPS or the government. Their Chambers take, typically, 20% of earnings to run the Chambers. They are like a collective and their 20% pays for clerks, IT, buildings etc. So even if you think a criminal barrister is well paid (they truly are not) they are self employed and pay all their own expenses. The criminal bar is on its knees because the returns are so poor. Young people really have to want to do this work and probably be subsidised by parents.