Less Is More | What to Tell Your Criminal Defense Attorney
By Dan Noll on November 5th, 2015 in Articles, General
When you come in to see one of our criminal defense attorneys in Springfield, IL assuming you’re going to retain our office, we will have you do certain things. First of all, generally, and this may surprise a lot of people, we don’t ask the person if they’re innocent or guilty. That’s not our job. That’s not our position. That’s not our duty. That’s the requirement of the jury.
Generally, we try to find out the facts and in finding out the facts, what we want to know is information from you, and only provide us what information we ask for. Don’t go volunteering a lot of things unless you have some sense that we may need it eventually for any type of proceedings. Generally, we ask you to prepare, once you’ve retained our office, ask you to prepare a written statement. On that, we put at the top of the page, ask you to put Noll Law Office Attorney-Client Privilege.
The reason we want a written statement from you is that because it forces you, the client, to sit down and think about what happened. You’d be amazed … people think they’re going to give us one paragraph. They end up providing 12 pages, and that’s fantastic. That really helps our expert witnesses, our investigators, and our own office in terms of preparation of the case, in looking at potential witnesses, looking at potential exhibits, and looking at possible defenses.
It’s really important what you tell the attorney but once again, we don’t ask the person to say you’re innocent or guilty. Whether they are or not, to us is irrelevant. The jury has to make that decision, so what we want to do is start preparing the defense when we first meet with you. Those are the kind of ideas, things you need to be thinking about as you prepare for your case with the attorney.
The lawyers at the Noll Law Office are skilled criminal defense attorneys who emphasize communication and honesty. Our lawyers utilize their training, knowledge and skills to defend our client’s Constitutional rights. If you have been charged with a criminal offense, don’t talk to anyone until you talk to Noll.