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Never Confess to a crime you didn’t commit
I was shocked at the hounding of taxi driver Ryan Barney who did his public duty by racing to ferry people away from the scene of a London terrorist attack. Yes – he went through a red light. So what? It was an emergency.
But it’s too easy to feel pressured into pleading guilty to a bad prosecution when you should fight to clear your name. Yes there are risks in contesting. It is expensive and you may get a heavier sentence if you are convicted after a trial. But pleading guilty is never the easy way out – whatever your lawyer tells you. You’re still saddled with the conviction and no-way of appealing it.
From the Tiniest Snippets
It is from the tiniest snippets information that the greatest works are born. The sentence in the newspaper which gave rise to the book. What trial-reports generated Mario Puzo’s masterpiece ‘The Godfather’? What real-life tales of hardship gave rise to Dickens’ ‘Oliver Twist’?
What makes a lawyer?
Every State has its own laws. But the human attributes of a great lawyer are universal. Here are a couple:
- Integrity. Because so much of the law rests on trust. Witnesses may lie, but judges and juries have to be able to trust the word of the advocate who stands in front of them.
- Being a people person. Like ex-president Obama, you may exude an old-world charm to which the world warms. For the rest of us there’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Yes – it’s true. Human relationships are something which can be learned and the greatest teacher was Dale Carnegie.
When Neighbours Go to Law
More than 90% of contested cases settle before they get to trial. But the impossible cases to settle are the neighbour disputes where the parties hate each other so much that they can’t even speak. In 2012 John Edwards and Mary Kendrick had to pay out tens of thousands of pounds to cover the costs of neighbours Stephen and Barbara Evans after they wrongly took down the Evans’ new fence, which they said was sited in the wrong place. But the prize goes to Belgravia residents Hameed and Imran Faidi whom in 2009 incurred a £140,000 legal bill after pursuing to the Court of Appeal their complaint that they were disturbed by the sound of high heels tap tap tapping on the £100,000 oak floor of the upstairs flat …..
Extracted from Legal Profession Is it for you? (V. Charles Ward)
BRUCE AND HOLLY 