Have you ever gotten a full body sensual massage or gone to one of those Asian massage parlors?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534533)

No

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534548)

What’s your annual income?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534552)

$250-300K.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534569)

I have the same professional duties to my clients like any other lawyer, criminal or not, would. I interpret that to mean that I have to keep them informed and answer basic questions in writing. Nothing in the rules that I have to answer their phone calls and listen to them blab incoherently, or that I have to write lengthy letters in response to their annoying letters. I limit client interaction to the extent necessary to satisfy my professional duties and make 95% of them not so mad at me that they file a bar complaint.

I'm former biglaw. I did some criminal appellate stuff in biglaw, and realized that criminal is so much more interesting than the typical "complex commercial litigation" boring as fuck cases.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534601)

Any work needs to billed to one of 24 different categories of tasks -- client comms, reading the record, opening brief, reply brief, reading the gov's brief, etc. And each category has guidelines. And you have to write an explanation if you go above the guidelines. There's a 100 page "claims manual" setting forth all this crap.

They nickel and dime you like crazy, but after a while you learn how to justify your time and say the right things to get all or most of your claimed time approved.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534679)

Padding is funny because the standard is how long a reasonably experienced attorney would spend. Would a reasonably experienced attorney be able to do shit in a fraction of the time of the guidelines? That's the beancounter's job to figure out, not mine.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534738)

The beancounters really scrutinize your claims because they themselves get scrutinized, but they want you to get paid for your time so you just have to know how to say the right things and explain yourself well. But they still end up screwing you over sometimes. Any padding you can do might get eliminated by getting dinged on some other line-item that they're strict about.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534875)

I ALWAYS disclose borrowed briefing because it's so fucking easy to catch someone who filed a brief with the same issue 6 months ago that he C&P'd.

But even if you disclose the borrowed briefing, the beancounters have a lot of leeway in terms of helping you get paid for the "new work." You wouldn't want to claim 8 hours as if you wrote it ab initio, but you're gonna get more than 0.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534946)

when i clerked i'd see straight up copy+pasted shit from both sides all the fucking time. although i was at trial level so perhaps the beancounters are less mindful there. i did encounter a few instances of TTTT grad really savoring a sweet treat of scholarship too.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534959)

There's also a limit on how much the government wants to pay for true sweet treat of scholarship. A "very complex" issue in the opening brief is considered 13.5 hours, so if you go above 13.5 hours for any given issue, you have to have really good justification and then still in most cases the government just isn't going to pay more than 15-20 hours for the sweetest of scholarly sweets even if you write 50 pages of original scholarship citing sources from the magna carta and blackstone and marbury. so you run a huge risk of getting a severe cut if you engage in true scholarship.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49536538)

How do you think I'd be able to use AI in that respect? I'm not really sure.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534767)

I'm an S-Corp so I don't pay SE tax. But the income I stated is gross. I can pay myself a reasonable salary, and also have a pension plan and profit sharing plan that my accountant set up, and I take various expenses that my accountant says I can.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49535460)

I'd say 80% of my time is scholarship -- reading records, thinking about arguments, writing, etc. Though I'm not often raising the most complex scholarly issues of first impression. A lot of the issues I raise are routine ones I can kind of C&P, or fact-based issues that don't involve complex legal concepts and are purely judgment calls based on well known law. So it's not like I'm dealing with intense scholarship all the time.

The other 20% of the time is various administrative bullshit. Dealing with the claims process to get paid (see above) is a huge hassle. Then there's keeping track of deadlines, saving filings, filling out routine forms like extension requests and oral argument requests, etc. -- I don't have a secretary so I've got to do all this myself. And then there's client commns which as I said above I really try to keep to a minimum because they're annoying.

And then there is a plenty of annoying "business" time from running my own firm that wastes time and you need to be careful about bc the consequences are bad if you fuck up -- annual registration w the state for the S corp, renewing the CA law corp registration, paying myself on the payroll, keeping track of the books, etc.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534722)

I constantly see both sides just file these shitbriefs with 3 pages boilerplate C&P law, and then 2 sentence "argument" on the facts of their case that has nothing to do with any of the boilerplate C&P shit they just pasted in. The law section is totally useless, and your entire brief boils down to a 2 sentence conclusory argument.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49535127)

new trials?

outright reversals with dismissal?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534750)

New trials, if we're talking about on every count in the case or on the most significant counts in the case, I think it's happened to me 2-3 times in 10+ years. Again, I get new trials here and there on insignificant counts -- that the prosecution probably won't even bother retrying.

I win resentencings for my clients quite a bit. The sentencing laws are very technical and the judges are idiots and often botch sentencing by not dotting their i's and crossing their t's correctly, and those are good issues from an appellate perspective since they're purely legal issues.

Though, in most cases, the guys probably go back for resentencing and end up with the same sentence.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534790)

Ever gotten someone off due to a jury violation?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534770)

They care more about scholarship than W's and L's.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534822)

You're watching too much TV/movies. Murderous Darnells aren't going free on technicalities.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534832)

most criminal appeals are about legal errors, for example whether evidence should have been suppressed. if OP wins on that, that doesn't necessarily mean the whole case goes back for retrial. it could mean that some minor counts that the evidence was absolutely necessary for do, which the prosbro probably won't bother prosecuting since it'd be pointless if the suppressed evidence was essential. or there might be enough evidence to sustain the verdict even if it was suppressed, so OP might "win" the appeal, but it has no material impact on his client.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534949)

your problem is that you think if it's not dispositive or involving grand issues that it's meaningless. but the fact is that 99.9% of lawyers are not going to be clarence darrow, just like 99.9% of cops aren't going to bust a serial killer and 99.9% of soldiers are going to shoot hitler. most people are cogs in a larger system that ultimately have very few major individual impacts. but to eliminate all those people means eliminating the system entirely. most PDs will never rep some sympathetic, factually innocent person. most will only ever clients that are vile and 100% factually guilty. but what would things be like if we eliminated public defenders entirely?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49535216)

The reason my colleagues and I -- who for the most part are very seasoned, quality appellate lawyers -- lose 99.9% of our cases is because the trial judges and the prosecutors know that the state has a robust appellate process where the defendant is going to be represented by a good lawyer who will catch mistakes and make them look bad if they play blatantly unfairly.

Trial judges often err in favor of the defendants on close evidentiary and procedural issues because they don't want to create an appellate issue and risk a retrial.

My job seems totally pointless on a day to day basis and it's frustrating to lose 99.9% of the time, but if I step back, I realize I'm part of making the system a little bit better.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49535409)

I don't want to give specifics because reversals of convictions are rare enough that some doobs could find it on westlaw if I say too much.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534916)

I go back and forth on this one. Could go either way. What's suspicious though besides the fact that Carter beat the shit out of one of his female lawyers is that the judge offered no detailed explanation of why the case was tossed. He just said a racism was performed, this is bunk. No retrial either they just let him out.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534835)

It's VERY hard to get away with murder nowadays, and the cops don't need to coerce witnesses and beat confessions out of people.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49534928)

The other side of what I do is the State AG's office. It seems incredibly easy and boring to do that side. You win 99% of the time. All you have to do is say for every issue: 1) the issue is forfeited because defendant didn't object or didn't properly object, 2) the judge didn't act outside the bounds of his vast discretion, and 3) any error isn't prejudicial because there was overwhelming evidence. AI could write their briefs in 10 minutes. It would be a chill easy job, but you still have a boss, politics, etc.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49535148)

How many days a week are you actually in court / meeting with clients?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49535656)

I've literally had no success on evidentiary errors. I rarely raise them. Almost any evidentiary error is going to be harmless. Unless you're talking about a confession (I wouldn't call a Miranda error an evidentiary error), almost any one piece of evidence is going to be relatively harmless.

Jury instruction errors are known to be the trial errors that have the best chance of success. In most cases, an erroneous jury instruction is a fairly clean legal issue. And then there's prejudice, which is always difficult -- but in some cases, prejudice may be easy to show or may be presumed.

There are just so many obstacles to winning on appeal, between forfeiture, error and prejudice. It's really a tough standard.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49535449)

Some of it is media hype / exaggeration. You just hear the worst stories.

Most of this is happening in the 2-3 most shitlib counties in the state. SF and LA had Soros DAs (Gascon). CA has 50-60 counties, and many are red/purple, and this stuff isn't happening in most places.

And even in shitlib places, they'll still go hard on the most serious crimes -- chomos and brutal murders.

What you're hearing about is light sentences for low-ish level felonies, often through plea deals because the government doesn't want to be bothered to take every such crime you mention to trial.

There are so many such cases you mention and the DA will just plea them out and the guy will be back on the street in no time, and these relatively low level felons just go in and out of the system. It's only when they murder someone that they'll get put away for a long time.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49535739)

I've had exactly 0 cases where the cops literally got the wrong guy and my client dindu nuffin. With DNA, fingerprints, surveillance, cell towers, etc., it's very hard to get the wrong guy these days.

I have appeals here and there that are he said / he/she said cases, where I firmly believe my client didn't do what he was accused and convicted of.

A few such cases are rape / sexual assault cases where the defense was consent (i.e., date rape shit) and I firmly believe the girl was lying. I had one where it was two teens who had an on/off relship and the girl thought she was pregnant because he came inside her and then freaked out.

Another few such cases are self-defense cases where I firmly believe that defendant was justified or partially justified when he stabbed/shot the "victim" who was really the one who instigated or escalated or provoked some altercation. In these cases, the jury often splits the baby and convicts on a lesser charge just because something bad happened and they don't want to let the guy on trial totally walk.

The problem with all these cases is that factual innocence is a he said / he/she said thing and it's the jury's call. It's almost impossible to overturn the jury's verdict on appeal given the appellate standard. I essentially have to prove no reasonable jury could have found as they did, which is impossible in these types of cases. I can't just say that the jury weighed the evidence wrong and they should have reached a different outcome. I rarely even challenge the verdicts themselves for lack of evidence, so I have to find other issues to raise.

One other type of "factually innocent" cases I have are cases that are clear overcharges by the DA. DAs are often scummy and like to charge shit that doesn't fit the crime so they have more counts. There are also homicide cases where it's pretty questionable that there's premeditation/deliberation (e.g., because shit got out of hand really quickly), and the DA goes for murder 1. You could consider this type of shit factual innocence.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49536504)

Best parts are the WFH / freedom / independence, general lack of time pressure / deadlines / stress, relatively interesting cases from a factual perspective, relatively interesting legal issues, and the scholarship of reading-research-writing.

Though, it does get monotonous at times. Reading the record of even a juicy murder trial is still fairly boring. Plenty of boring testimony you've gotta barrel through like the DNA expert explaining how DNA works. Plenty of issues I raise are fairly routine and boring as well.

I'm not always engaging in true scholarship and it's often a total grind doing one case after another that is generally the same shit as the next one. It's easy to get burnt out fairly quickly.

The worst parts are dealing with the super bureaucratic claims process to get paid, plus all the administrative / clerical bullshit I have to do myself because I don't have any support staff including lots of physical paper and letters because clients are in jail.

In balance, I can't complain.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49539723)

You're basically reading the entire record looking at every time the judge is making a ruling on anything (motions, objections etc).

There are certain parts of the record that are obvious fodder for potential issues:

- any Miranda / motion to suppress issue

- motions in limine. evidentiary issues generally are losers, but there's still lots there to explore

- jury instructions, particularly any defense-requested instruction denied. i also carefully check the lesser included offenses for each crime to make sure they were given

- any kind of irregularity during the trial, like the judge's response to a jury question, or a sustained objection during the defense closing or denied objection during the DA's closing, or any kind of jury funny-business.

Then there's sentencing. Basically everything at sentencing is a legal ruling and could give rise to issues.

The issue spotting is relatively easy. The harder part is figuring out which issues are worth wasting your time looking into further and which issues are dead on arrival. Experience helps you figure that out.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49539768)

do you ever go after a verdict where you are fairly sure the person committed the crime but you're taking advantage of a fuckup by the state?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49539774)

"By outright reversal with dismissal, I assume you mean EVERY count in the case. I've been doing this for 10+ years, and it's literally NEVER happened to me. I've got counts thrown out here and there that either make no or minimal impact on the sentence.

New trials, if we're talking about on every count in the case or on the most significant counts in the case, I think it's happened to me 2-3 times in 10+ years. Again, I get new trials here and there on insignificant counts -- that the prosecution probably won't even bother retrying.

I win resentencings for my clients quite a bit. The sentencing laws are very technical and the judges are idiots and often botch sentencing by not dotting their i's and crossing their t's correctly, and those are good issues from an appellate perspective since they're purely legal issues."

As for your 2nd Q, I don't know what you mean by "go after the verdict." Are you meaning to ask if I'm generally raising potential appellate issues, or specifically arguing that the verdict is based on legally insufficient evidence?

In almost every case, I'm fairly sure the person committed the crime. It's my job to make sure they got a fair trial and that the judge followed the law correctly. I'm not taking advantage of fuckups, and fuckups could be by either the judge or the DA or both. If the defendant did it but was convicted by a jury without getting a fair trial, I don't think that's taking advantage of a fuckup. I'm no shitlib, but I think the judges and prosecutors should have to follow the law to put someone in jail.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49539794)

BTW, one of the instructors, Cliff Gardener, is a fellow panel attorney. The funny thing is that he was retained on appeal by Danny Masterson. Masterson could have easily claimed indigency and got an equally competent appointed attorney.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49541198)

I know the obvious answer is "bill 2,000 hours," but it seems like the general view where I'm from is that doing purely CJA--which pays $175 (or $223 on capital cases, thanks TRUMP!)--is a $150-200K gig, maybe like $220K if you're an actually hard worker.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49540828)

How does the billing / claims process works with CJA cases? Can you describe in detail? Do people get their time cut?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49541187)

I do CJA work, but it's a relatively minor part of my overall revenue--I like it because it bumps my jury trial totals up to 3-6/year (that's a generality; I'm closing this year with 8) and I've found it helps with recruiting smart/hardworking lawyers, which is the #1 hardest thing / biggest bottleneck for my business. (How many other 3rd years can say they first-chaired a federal jury trial?)

Like probably everyone in my position, I've thought about what I could make if I just said fuck it and did exclusively CJA work (you could cut out *massive* expenses that way, as I'm very sure you've noticed). But it really seems like The Answer in my community is $150K (I'm only giving the $150-200K range because I personally have billed $200K in a year, when working a capital case). Some of this, I guess, is predicated on the reality that if you are actually limiting your practice to CJA, you are probably a Lazy Little Fucker who is not in fact billing 2K hours. If you're a lower-tier lawyer (the "CJA Panel" in most places is divided up among subpanels where some people get the best cases and others get routine FIPs/drug-mule cases), there may also be concerns about running out of work. But that doesn't apply to me, or to the few people (women) I know who've tried to make it a full-time practice. I'm excluding capital (learned counsel) work, which is its own thing and its own community (and the rate difference is material when all you're doing is capital).

It's weird that I can't account for this disconnect, since... this is my practice too. But you're the first person I've ever heard say they can make a ~2K-hour equivalent on court-appointed cases.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49541241)

You're totally right that that there's self selection in the people who decide to limit their practice to appellate panel work. In my realm, the panel is overwhelmingly boomers -- and a lot of women. There's people who don't need a lot of money, don't want or need to work hard, etc. They're just probably doing it by now to keep their brains from rotting.

If someone who is former biglaw decided to do what I do with a biglaw grind mentality, they could make a lot.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49541255)

The codes, like every set of billing codes I've ever worked with (including the ABA ones), are poorly designed in that, of a dozen total codes, there'll be one code that covers 35-40% of your work, and then 7 other codes that collectively cover 3%. There are no formal or informal caps on each code, and I know there are some folks who do shit like travel out to the jail every week to meet with their clients, and no one seems to mind. There are gay little rules of thumb like that you get 1 minute per page of discovery/filing review unless you write a little explanation in the box (same with video: took 4 hours to review 3-hr-10-minute video because I had to continue stopping and starting to rehear things and/or take notes), but it's not that hard to game.

These are the non-capital codes (capital codes are largely the same shit, just administratively different for some reason); they all pay the same (you can additionally bill your travel expenses), and the 15s are in-court and the 16s are out-of-court:

15a. Arraignment and/or Plea

15b. Bail and Detention Hearings

15c. Motion Hearings

15d. Trial

15e. Sentencing Hearings

15f. Revocation Hearings

15g. Appeals Court

16a. Interviews and Conferences

16b. Obtaining and reviewing records

16c. Legal research and brief writing

16d. Travel Time

16e. Investigative and other work

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49541287)

Obviously early on you open up MS Calculator and do $175 * 2,100 (although when I started the rates were much lower), but it's just Understood Implicitly that you're never going to actually make that sticking with CJA.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49541257)

They want people doing this full time because dedicated appellate people are going to be better at it. They don't want some DUI shitlawyer who can't write worth shit taking on criminal appeals here and there b/c he needs to pay his child support.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49541268)

Basically every CJA plan provides that a minimum of 25% of new cases go to the panel rather than the FPD--in some districts, it's more like 50-50--and then on top of that you have the conflicts. (Clarification point 1: The reason federal practice relies so heavily on much-more-expensive CJA attorneys vs. FPDs is that there are so many multi-defendant cases, where the FPD can only take one. Point 2: Virtually no one charged federally is told that they are too rich to qualify for FPD/CJA, because the costs are so massive. A small minority of ppl opt to hire their own attorneys after getting an FPD/CJA attorney, but this is a mistake for probably 60% of those and a roughly lateral move for another 39%.) We ask all panelists to be willing to take 7 cases/year, and that is also kind of presented as the maximum you should plan for / feel *entitled* to. The truth is that no one is paying enough attention to the size of the panel (which will, of course, determine how many cases per capita are available), and fluctuations in # of cases the USAO brings tend to swamp such considerations anyway (Trump USAs have been directed to bring drug-interdiction cases, and, you may have heard, crimmigration cases).

The real question is what *kind* of cases you're getting. I'm one of my district's only learned counsel (although there'll be more after the Trump admin is done), which gives me first dibs on DP cases that come through (LC is special in that you're supposed to travel and take cases in other districts, but I am not a fan of actually doing that... I like to only have one DP case at a time, and I sure as hell want it to be somewhere I don't need to be flying to every other month). That takes some luck to get (you have to have been on a capital case, as non-LC, that went to trial), whereas you can get on the top normal panel by just being good at your job--and that should get you a minimum of 2-3 good complex cases per year, where you should be able to bill, say, $40-80K.

So I guess case quantity is a theoretical concern, but it's more cyclical than anything (Biden brought fewer cases, and brought essentially zero capital prosecutions).

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813512&forum_id=2!#49541336)