By Lauren Kirkwood
The Daily Record Newswire
BALTIMORE — For attorneys involved in cases that attract national media attention, where trials are measured in weeks rather than days, day-to-day life can turn into a balancing act in which other responsibilities — both personal and professional — have to take a back seat.
But even when a high-profile case dominates the calendar, the lawyers tasked with representing defendants such as the six police officers charged in connection with the death of Freddie Gray still have their own law practices to maintain and their other clients to attend to.
Particularly for solo practitioners and lawyers at small firms, it’s important to have plenty of support, put in the extra hours and be prepared to diffuse tension with other clients when handling a complex case under a greater-than-usual amount of scrutiny, lawyers and experts said.
“It really is, during trial, almost a 24-hour-a-day situation,” said Richard M. Karceski, a Towson-based criminal defense attorney. “Your clients — if you have others, and we all do — they seem to understand that situation and leave you alone, but there’s always new business, and there’s always the one client who’s got to call you every 10 or 15 minutes.”
Baltimore City Circuit Judge Barry Williams last week declared a mistrial on all four charges against Officer William Porter, the first defendant to be tried in connection with Gray’s death. Porter’s attorneys, Joseph Murtha and Gary Proctor, will now have to prepare for their client’s scheduled retrial next June. Murtha is with Murtha,
Psoras & Lanasa LLC in Lutherville and Proctor is a solo practitioner; the two lawyers combined also have more than 30 open, active cases in state court, according to online records.
In that respect, Karceski said, the Porter case is not necessarily an outlier, as unknown or unexpected circumstances are typical in the world of criminal defense.
“In the business we’re in, it’s not like a bus schedule where we know someone’s going to call at a certain time. People get arrested at all hours of the day and all days of the week, and they have to be able to get someone else to help them,” he said.
Still, it’s a different situation when one client’s case “consumes your life,” said Pat Yevics, director of law office management for the Maryland State Bar Association.
“If you can’t manage your practice efficiently, no matter how good you are, you’re going to be overwhelmed,” she said.
Showing your other clients that their cases have not fallen through the cracks even as a large portion of your time is necessarily devoted to another matter is important, said Gary S. Bernstein, a Baltimore solo practitioner and former city prosecutor.
“We’re talking about having no partners who can pick up the slack,” Bernstein said. “When clients call, I answer my own phone, and they know they can call me in the evenings or the mornings and I’m going to talk to them. They know that the work is getting done, and you explain that to them when they come in.”
But it’s equally important for attorneys to ensure that their support staff is ready to manage client expectations as well, Yevics said.
“You can’t do this unless you have a fabulous staff behind you,” she said. “To a large extent, it really depends on how you manage your practice, and the staff that you have that can back you up.”
Karceski said solo practitioners facing a high-profile case “get someone lined up” to stand in their place in case of emergency.
As for the hypothetical client who might take issue with an attorney’s prioritizing a high-profile case over his own, Karceski said most clients do not take that view, but instead feel reassured of their attorney’s competence.
“I think they really quite like it, because they might say, ‘Wow, I have a lawyer that’s representing Officer Porter, so I’m adoing alright for myself here.’” he said. “I think they get it.”
But regardless of whether your clients are primarily frustrated or understanding about the demands of your high profile, complex cases, preparing for these trials will nevertheless require you to put in longer hours, attorneys said.
“You put as much time in as you can,” Bernstein said. “You’ve got to work on this case and other cases, you’ve got to see new clients. The work doesn’t stop; you don’t say, ‘This is it — I’ve got no other cases.’ … You’ve got people’s lives in your hands. Even if it’s not a case where someone’s going to jail, their future still depends on it.”
That pressure can be hard on even experienced defense attorneys, Karceski added.
“Handling this kind of case is a very difficult and trying situation, because it seems like all the pressures of the world are on your shoulders, that everyone in the legal system sort of has you under the microscope and every decision that you make is one that someone is going to comment upon,” he said. “Not everyone is going to agree with you, so you have to be impervious to criticism. You have to be able to take a harpoon in the chest and keep going forward.”
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