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Do I need a lawyer at my arraignment?

When you find yourself charged with a crime, you may wonder what your options are for securing an attorney. You may wonder if you need to get an attorney before arraignment, or if you can wait until after your arraignment in order to secure counsel. In the vast majority of cases, it’s important to have a lawyer at your arraignment.

What happens at the arraignment?

An arraignment is your first appearance in front of the judge. It’s the time that you formally learn the charges against you. It’s when the judge sets an amount for bond and determines the conditions for bond. You also enter a plea.

Your plea

At the arraignment, you have the option to plead guilty or not guilty. You may also stand mute. In the vast majority of cases, you should plead not guilty.

In some cases, you may receive a plea offer that’s valid at your arraignment. It’s important to work with your attorney in order to determine if this is a good choice for you. In addition, it’s critical to work with an attorney at the arraignment, because you want to be careful to avoid any admissions that the state’s attorney may use against you.

Bond amount

At the arraignment, the court sets an amount of bond. An attorney can help you argue for an appropriate amount that allows you to post bond and secure your release until future proceedings. Your attorney’s skill and experience can help fashion the appropriate arguments. Common considerations are your criminal history, employment and ties to the community.

Bond conditions

Conditions of bond are equally important. These are the things that you have to do in order to remain free while you’re out on bond. Usually, these conditions require you to refrain from violating the law, contacting a victim or even avoid using alcohol and illegal substances.

You may have special considerations that an attorney can help you with as you evaluate potential bond conditions. You may need a provision that allows you to work in a place that serves alcohol. It might be appropriate to monitor alcohol testing to allow you to get to work on time. You may need a special consideration for out of state travel.

Questions with the charging documents

An attorney is important to have at arraignment because they can help you evaluate the charging documents. Cosmetic errors aren’t fatal to a complaint, but if there are substantive errors, the entire complaint may be invalid. A law enforcement officer must swear to a complaint, so if there are mistakes, the case may be dismissed with the state having the option to refile with changes.

Creating a lasting impression

An arraignment is your first chance to make an impression on the judge. This is the judge that might oversee your trial or even decide your guilt or innocence. If you’re convicted, this is the person that determines your sentence.

It’s important to make a good first impression at your arraignment. You don’t want to be hostile or argumentative. An attorney can help you tactfully advance your position in a way that leaves a positive impression on the court.

The reality is you don’t have to be poor to not be able to afford an attorney. Hourly rates for service usually run into several hundred dollars per hour, and while common procedures like divorce or bankruptcy are often performed at a flat rate, expect to have to come up with a thousand or more dollars just to get started. Many people find themselves in the unfortunate position of making too much money to qualify for legal aid but not enough to afford full price. What do you do then? Consider some of the creative and lower cost options below.

Criminal Proceedings

You might not realize it, but if you are charged with a crime the court will appoint a attorney for your defense even if you can’t afford it. It has been a longheld philosophy of the American (and other) judicial systems that a person should not be found guilty of a crime without competent legal representation. You don’t even have to ask for it. The judge is sure to offer. Unless you’re a secret law genius, it would be a good idea to accept. For legal proceedings that aren’t criminal in nature – such as the aforementioned divorce, bankruptcy, or if you want to sue someone – you’re going to need to get creative in finding legal help on a budget.

Law School

The nearest law school might be an excellent place to locate a third-year student and pick his or her brain about the topic at hand. With most schools, a law student is able to give advice under the direction of a qualified faculty member who currently practices. By the time a student reaches their third year, they have a lot of knowledge already packed into their heads and, in many cases, would be more than willing to help someone out and gain real world experience at the same time. While they can’t accompany you to court and speak for you, the advice you receive could be invaluable about which direction to take.

Small Claims

Small claims is available in all states, and is meant to serve as a forum to resolve lower level disputes between people without the necessity of an attorney getting involved. The drawback is that the value of the amount in question is capped at different levels depending on the state you live in. Some states let you utilize the small claims process for anything up to $15,000 (greetings, Delaware). The bad news is some cap the limit as $1,500 (Hello, Arkansas).. The playing field is level in small claims because lawyers are not allowed to officially participate. If you arm yourself with good legal advice from a law student and can present yourself reasonably well in front of the judge, you have a good chance of prevailing.

Pro Bono Jackpot

As a professional responsibility, all practicing attorneys are required to provide a certain number of pro bono hours to clients each year. That means free. As you might imagine, this kind of representation is in high demand. Try contacting your county or state bar association and ask for any current programs that offer pro bono or reduced-fee legal advice and representation. You never know what might available until you ask. How eager the bar is to help you out with this varies from state to state, but it is a real thing.

The Bottom Line

Don’t be afraid to shop around for legal services. We do it for everything else. Most lawyers offer an initial free consultation. Take advantage of it! Not all of them will price everything equally. There is also the chance they will cap fees at a certain level or even accept a payment plan. You won’t know unless you ask. Good luck out there.

The short answer to this question is yes, but having an attorney appointed is not always as easy as requesting an assignment. Courts often evaluate the defendant’s income and financial resources in determining if they can afford an attorney, and many times the defendant is required to pay a “reasonable” fee for services rendered. The question always comes down to what is reasonable, which is the most overused word in the legal vocabulary. Financial obligations are rarely a component of the court decision concerning assigning a public defender, so there can surely be some extenuating circumstances that does not interest the court. However, it rarely bodes well for a defendant when a public advocate is assigned who actually works for the state because their priorities may be focused on their employment instead of the client’s interest.

Why you need an attorney

The United States Supreme Court ruled in the mid 1960s that any defendant who is potentially facing jail time is required to have adequate and effective representation who is supposed to ensure observance of all legal rights of the defendant. The problem is that public defenders are rarely aggressive when it comes time to evaluate the articles of evidence for admissibility and proper search and seizure protocol. They often are essentially representatives of the prosecutor’s office, as they work with the prosecutors on a daily basis if the state has an established public defender system. Retained personal attorneys are focused on results for their client instead of results for the state, especially regarding a case dismissal or acquittal, as public defenders rarely are willing to take a case to trial. The consensus within the court house is often that the state is entitled to a conviction merely because the defendant was charged, including the opinion of the public defender. If it is a requirement to have counsel, then it is always important to have aggressive counsel because the court protocol is often a stacked deck in favor of the prosecution.

What a paid attorney can do

The first thing a personal attorney will do is conduct a separate investigation of all events that led to charges, with each article of evidence being evaluated individually. Public defenders rarely motion the court for evidence suppression, but this is one of the primary functions of a truly professional criminal defense attorney. Even when the state has a good case, evidence can be dismissed and not allowed for consideration in determining guilt. Defendants are still guilty until proven innocent, even though the system does not always appear that way. A personal criminal defense attorney can also move to take a case to trial, which prosecutors usually do not want. All they want is a conviction to pad their record. Your paid criminal defense attorney will work diligently using all avenues to ensure you legal rights are enforced to the fullest extent of the law.

It is important to remember that hiring an aggressive criminal defense attorney is not only an investment in your personal freedom, but is also an investment in your future. The defendant always fares better when they have retained counsel focused on lessening punishment or a case dismissal instead of negotiating a plea bargain.

The lawyer you might be looking for may not be the same person who helped buy a house, who handled your will, or whom your uncle used when he was involved in a car accident. All these are civil lawyers. For your case, you are looking for someone with great specialties in the criminal law. However, you may have a choice to get someone who has specialized in both areas.

Civil vs. Criminal Lawyers
The private criminal defense attorneys tend to practice in small partnerships on their own in a small geographic area. On the contrary, lawyers handling civil cases congregate in large firms with many offices in numerous cities. While personality differences between criminal and civil lawyers account for this variation, the main difference is the nature of work.
• Big-firm civil lawyers represent companies who have business in many parts of the country. Criminal defense attorneys represent defendants whose problems are local.
• Companies represented by many big-firm civil attorneys are often contacted for continual legal representation and advice. Individual criminal defendants tend to act many roles and specialties on many legal needs that are often nonrecurring.

The private defense lawyer has many years of experience working for the country before working as a private legal practitioner as a public defender or as a prosecutor.

The Local Advantage
A defendant i advised to hire the services of a lawyer with enough legal experience in the courthouses when the case of the defendant is pending. Though the same laws may be effected all over the state, procedures can vary from one court to another. For instance, certain offenses can have a no-plea policy for bargaining with a D.A in another county. On the other hand, such policy is not effected in the nearby county. Defenders should prefer lawyers who have experience with the local personnel and procedures.

Experience with the Charged Crime
A defendant should get the services of a lawyer who has represented defendants facing similar charges in court. The modern criminal law is so complex that many attorneys specialize in some aspects. For instance, one attorney can specialize in white collar crimes, and another specializing in embezzlement and tax cases.

It is, therefore, appropriate for the defendant to inquire about the the lawyer’s experience during the initial consultation session. Never hire an attorney who refuses to speak about his specialty and experience or the one who gives unrevealing or vague answers.

Personal Factor
A defendant’s attorney should always speak for the defendant. It doesn’t matter how the attorney can be recommended. The most important thing to do is to be comfortable with the attorney. The lawyer-client relationships are those where the clients partner fully with the attorney to make decisions. Defendants should choose the lawyers who work as partners and not as case files.

As yourself the following questions when hiring an attorney:
• Does the lawyer’s concern point to your situation?
• Does the lawyer’s concern show personal or genuine desire?
• Does the attorney seem to be ready to work?
• Does the lawyer explain things in a manner that makes you understand?