I'm a Civilian in this Battle. . ..

I'm blathering here -- feel free to skip this post altogether.

I helped a dear friend both surrender himself to the Connecticut State Police and hire a decent criminal defense attorney. Now I find myself in the middle an attorney-client battle I don't want anything to do with.

My friend found the attorney to be a bit obnoxious in that he seemed to think my friend is guilty. I explained that most clients of a criminal defense attorney are guilty, so try to excuse him. Plus, my friend isn't exactly innocent, he's just not quite guilty of the charges.

Having my free ear, my friend calls me to find out what to expect in his case. Je ne practice criminal law pas, baby. My answer is usually, "I dunno. Probably X. In civil matters X would be next." I guess he thought I would call his attorney to find out what happens next and report back. Nope.

So today was supposed to be some pretrial hearing or other. My friend is told that he had to be there (probably because he owed the criminal lawyer some $$, not because the procedure required his presence). My friend and I show up at court around 9. Criminal court opens at 10:00 and the criminal defense lawyer isn't there. By 10:30, I get concerned and call his office and learn that he had a conflict in the morning and won't be in court until around 11:30.

Now, trial lawyers have conflicts like this all the time -- it is no big deal -- but his office should have called my friend right after they called the court to say they'd be late. Instead, the lawyer (either stupidly or absent-mindedly) expected my friend to sit around for 2 1/2 hours. My friend is hoppin' mad and tells off the attorney's secretary. Then, he stops in the prosecutor's office and explains that he cannot stay (for medical reasons). My friend wants to fire the attorney for rudeness (My friend calls the behavior "unconscionable". Polka dot and plaid is unconscionable. This was just fucking rude.)

Now I'm getting voicemails from the criminal defense attorney presumably to try to straighten this out. I don't want to get involved. I'm a civilian. The criminal defense attorney is highly regarded, but committed an act of rudeness. My friend is horribly affronted, doesn't trust the attorney, and isn't going to forgive him. I may be willing to accompany my friend to court because I have nothing better to do, but I'm a civilian in this battle. If you want me to mediate, pay my regular hourly rate.

In other news, I accepted the job with the Law Firm I Heart and I start on Monday, April 10. Woo hooo! It will be good to be back in the game again. Plus, I understand that this firm has a "professional" support staff, that is "managed" by actual, qu'est-ce qu'il dit, "managers". I'm thinking that means my 2 paragraph letters will be transcribed in fewer than 6 days. . .