LEGAL REPRESENTATION – YOUR FIRST DECISION - Asking Questions

White-Collar Defense: The FBI Has Targeted You - Now What Do You Do?

LEGAL REPRESENTATION – YOUR FIRST DECISION - Asking Questions

CHOOSING THE RIGHT ATTORNEY, and one who,

1) Practices federal criminal defense in a federal court and

2) Has experience in cases like yours. It sounds like common sense, right?

· … at this moment, you may not be making the best decisions for yourself, so consider bringing along someone you trust to get their feedback as you meet and interview different attorneys.

3) A case in point is a client I had who, unfortunately, didn’t ask any questions, only to learn his

· attorney years later, didn’t specialize in Federal Criminal defense, and had a

· disciplinary problem with his state bar.

INTERVIEWING ATTORNEYS is your opportunity to find someone with a proven track record of,

4) Handling cases like yours is important. They should be willing to provide

5) Several current or past clients for you to speak with to ease some of your concerns and provide several

6) Sentencing memorandums (it should be about You – not just quoting legal stuff that the Judge already knows, like Booker) for cases like yours for you to read.

· If they mention HIPPA, agree, but Adobe allows for redacting all personal information and works better than a black marker – If you notice that the memorandums appear similar, keep interviewing other lawyers.

· Feeling comfortable with your chosen attorney is just one more step in the right direction as you develop a successful defense team.

· During the interview, try and

7) Ask why they wanted to practice law and what was their best federal case sentence result, as these are both good conversation ‘ice breaker’ questions and

8) Ask them when they recommend to start preparing for the Presentence Interview and Sentencing Hearing. [THE RIGHT ANSWER IS, TODAY]

CONTINUING,

9) Ask whether they charge hourly or flat fees and if they have a payment schedule option.

· If you want to go to trial (just feeling your right is insufficient), I give you FTX Sam Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth Holmes. Remember that the DOJ has a 90+% conviction rate.

· Therefore, additional strategic questions would be:

10) How many trials and appeals (or what “%”) have they won, out of how many cases, over the past 3-7 years?

11) Don’t anger the court – before they ever meet you. That’s playing Russian Roulette with your life.

12) What is their current caseload, or how busy are they – too busy?

· Consider that a single attorney with a small staff could support 2 or 3 criminal trials per year, working full time.

· A Federal Defender may be as good if not better than private counsel.

#PPRSUS #FederalPrisons

240.888.7778

PPRSUS.com

Dr. Blatstein (Marc)

Physician Presentence Report Service

• Sentence Mitigation

• Humanizing Yourself To The Court

• The Narrative, Release Plan, Allocution

• Expectations of Daily Life in Prison, The Do's and Don'ts