REASONS TO HIRE A CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY IN ALLENTOWN, PA
If you are charged with a crime in the Lehigh Valley, then you need to get a criminal defense attorney. The first question you face is where to seek an attorney. You can ask family and friends, look online, do some research. The most important thing, however, is to hire a criminal defense attorney who practices law in the area where your case is pending. If you make the mistake of hiring an attorney from elsewhere, you will end up regretting it.
WHY HIRE A LOCAL ATTORNEY
When someone calls me regarding a case outside the Lehigh Valley, I don’t take the case (unless it is a federal case in Philadelphia). Instead, I give them the name of a lawyer from that county that I would trust. But I don’t take the case. Even though it means I’m losing business by doing that, I don’t feel that I can be effective and helpful in advising someone who has a case outside Lehigh or Northampton County. The main reason for that is that the police, district attorneys, and judges would not know me. They wouldn’t know my reputation.
They wouldn’t feel anything towards my involvement as I would be an unknown entity. Meanwhile, I also wouldn’t know those people, which means I cannot accurately predict for my client what the possible outcomes will be. On some occasions I have seen attorneys from Philadelphia, the Poconos or elsewhere, walk into a courtroom in Lehigh or Northampton County and it’s like watching a fish out of water.
The attorney is clueless in helping his client because he’s unfamiliar with procedures in that county, how magistrates and Common Pleas judges view particular cases, and the District Attorneys and police officers don’t know the attorney either.
POLICE AND PROSECUTORS HANDLE CASES DIFFERENTLY IN DIFFERENT COUNTIES
If you are charged with a crime in Pennsylvania, then you are being prosecuted for violating state law. The state criminal laws apply to the whole state of Pennsylvania, so in theory, it shouldn’t matter where your attorney comes from, as long as he or she is licensed in the state of Pennsylvania. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
Almost everything varies from county to county. For example, if you are charged with simple assault in some rural counties of Pennsylvania, the case might be withdrawn by prosecutors at the preliminary hearing if you complete an anger management program. In contrast, in some suburban counties, simple assault cases—especially domestic violence cases—are prosecuted aggressively and to the fullest extent. District Attorneys in some of those counties are under a mandate to NEVER drop or dismiss domestic violence charges. However, an attorney coming from some other area might know this.
Another example is with DUI cases. The state laws on DUI mean that, in theory, a sentence for a 2nd offense DUI should be relatively the same in every county in Pennsylvania. However, there is a huge variation in the way 2nd offense DUI cases are handled from county to county. So again, a local attorney who spends all his or her time in the courthouse where your case is pending will make all the difference for you. I cannot predict for you accurately how a 2nd offense DUI will be treated in Pittsburgh but I can predict for you VERY accurately how a 2nd offense DUI will be treated in Lehigh County or Northampton County.
Another example of variation is among judges. For example, over the years I have had a few clients who were “career” shoplifters and had been convicted many dozens of times for retail theft. I recently had a client in one county enter a guilty plea to his 32nd retail theft and the judge sentenced him to 2 years in state prison. The amount of the retail theft was $14.00.
In stark contrast, six months earlier I had a client in the next county over found guilty of his 26th retail theft—which consisted of deodorant and a toothbrush—and he was sentenced to one month in jail. In that case, the prosecutor complained that the man had “graduated” to state prison time, but the judge replied “I don’t care how many retail thefts he’s committed—I’m not sending him to state prison for deodorant and a toothbrush!”
This demonstrated for me the stark difference in viewpoints of judges to the same type of case. And ultimately, it demonstrates that only a local attorney who has dealt many times with that judge would be able to accurately predict for a client the possible outcome, since judges do have a lot of discretion in sentencing.
IF YOU HAVE A CASE IN LEHIGH COUNTY OR NORTHAMPTON COUNTY, WHO SHOULD YOU HIRE?
I handle only criminal defense and overlapping PFA cases. The group of attorneys in the Lehigh Valley who are like me and do not practice family law or any other type of law except criminal is a very small circle of attorneys. I don’t handle tax law, car accidents, employment law, medical malpractice or the many other areas of law.
So if you have a criminal case going on in Lehigh County or Northampton County, then I can help you. I am one of the very few criminal defense attorneys who does criminal defense full time and can truly help you because I have spent my entire career in the Lehigh Valley. Equally, if your case is pending elsewhere, I should not take the case. I will give you a name of an attorney I trust from that county if I can.
WHAT CRITERIA SHOULD I BE LOOKING AT WHEN CHOOSING AN ATTORNEY?
Look carefully to make sure the attorney you’ve chosen regularly spends the majority of his or her time in the courthouse where your case is pending. If you ask “Do you practice in Allentown?” or “Do you practice in Easton?” the response you will get is “yes, sure.” But you should look more closely. Even if he or she says they practice in that area, check to see that they have an office near the courthouse because criminal defense attorneys usually maintain an office very close to the courthouse where then spend all their time. Also look online to see if there are cases reported in the news that the attorney handled in that county.
All criminal defense attorneys that have practiced for a length of time will have a record of news articles about cases that they handled that were in the news. So if you’re researching attorneys for your case in Lehigh County, and you identify an attorney that you like but you find that the news articles mentioning that attorney are all from Montgomery County, then be assured that that attorney doesn’t spend much time in Allentown at all. If you research my name, you will find numerous news articles that I’ve handled in federal court in Philadelphia, as well as cases in Lehigh County and Northampton County.
About the Author kathryn Roberts
