A friend — a civil law attorney — contacted me the other day to tell me that she was referring someone over. A more-than-worthy cause, if it checked out, she said. If and when she reads this post, I suspect she’s not going to like it (which is why I’m not going to identify her, or provide any identifying information on the case), but I hope she will not dislike it.

I don’t know what the world of civil law is like: so far, I practice only criminal defense. I have resisted repeated encouragement — you could even class some of the encouragement as entreaties – to give in and practice some form of civil law, because I think if you want to be expert at something, you have to focus on doing that thing. Thus, I have been fairly fanatical about the defense of adults and juveniles accused of having committed crimes. I read enough civil law to ensure that I’m not missing something which would make me a better criminal defense lawyer, but I have no wish to practice it.¹

What I do know is that the world of criminal defense does not — neither in my own experience nor in stories I hear from other criminal defense lawyers — function as my friend believes it does.

The world of criminal law has much to do with criminals — both those enrobed and those accused — and not so much to do with law.

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1. Maybe this will change one day. It’s becoming harder and harder to make a living in this economy based on doing only criminal defense. Potential clients have less money and, unlike the world of civil law, they have the option of going with a public defender. [↩]