What is the most common question you get?

The most common question that I get as a criminal defense attorney is something along the lines of what are my chances? What's the worst thing that's going to happen? Am I going to go to jail? What are the chances of us winning? That's the gist of what I get asked a lot. I think that question is asked a lot is because when someone gets charged with a criminal offense, they're usually scared about,, losing their freedom, having a criminal record, losing their job, immigration consequences,, the financial impact a criminal charge is going to have on them. So naturally they want to know the outcome of the case as soon as possible. My answer is always the same, and it's the true attorney answer of it depends. It depends on the evidence. It depends on the prosecutor. It depends on the judge, on your criminal history. It depends on whether or not you want to take your case to trial or you want to negotiate a plea settlement. Criminal cases are very rarely predictable at the beginning. So that is the question that I get asked the most, but I think the biggest takeaway from that is if you hire an attorney early on, you get help early on, then you are increasing your chances of having a more favorable outcome.

Another day on the road heading to the office, some more time for me to answer questions. Also sorry for the very poor sun placement, can't do anything about that. A question I get from a lot of potential clients or clients is how much do you think my case is worth? The honest answer, and in my opinion the right answer, is I don't know. Particularly when it's in the first stages of the case, whether it's just getting signed up or just starting treatment, I have no idea what your case is worth. There's so many variables that number depends on, and I have no idea what that is until we get a decent way into the treatment and into the case. So it's very fact specific based on any pre-existing conditions, based on what your treatment is, how long it takes, what is necessary, based on the facts of the accident, the insurance coverage available. So there are just too many unknowns, particularly in the beginning of a case, to give somebody an answer that. We most certainly don't want to run to the courthouse before somebody has completed treatment, or at least we have some idea what their treatment's going to be, because that's short-changing them. Whether it's they're not going to get fully better, or the verdict or settlement is usually loosely based on the medical bills available, and if we don't have all of those medical bills because they haven't finished treating, then we also don't have a good idea. So unfortunately there is no easy answer to that, but typically it's I am not sure until we get some of the answers to those variables that I stated cause the hurdle in being able to determine the proper valuation of the case.