The role of having a well-qualified advocate or attorney in any case is immense and essential, as they work diligently to represent you in the court and fight for your rights in order to get justice. But before talking about the important role of advocates or attorneys in different cases, I want to give a little introduction about advocates in general: their duties and responsibilities.
Advocates are those people, who represent and defend a person or a group of people, who need support or help to prove their legal rights in the court. People may think that being an advocate is easy and fun, that all they do is to argue, speak and convince the judge and the audience in the truth of some situations or events. But it is not that simple and fun. Being a well-qualified advocate includes a long list of duties and responsibilities such as: being patient, organized, devoted and passionate, being able to listen and communicate with the client, work as diligently as possible and be ready to spend long and stressful hours in the court.
As I stated above, being an advocate is not so easy, they don’t merely come to the court and argue passionately in favor of the client. There are multiple of background work that has to be done by the advocates before
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Some clients don’t appreciate their advocates as much as they should; they think that advocates just represent them in the court and get paid for it. But as we live in the 21st century and there are more and more crimes happening every day, a lot of murders and robberies, in the result many people are being accused for different crimes and they all need an advocate who will become their voice and will speak for them in the court. In other words, if the case is serious, their life is in the hands of their
When working with a court appointed lawyer you need to research and follow up on guidelines that carry with your charge. You have to learn how the court system works. Lawyers that are hired by the court to represent the low and middle-income people are lazy in doing their job. There are many reasons why court appointed lawyers don't do their best for their clients involving the court cases.
Paralegals are continuing to assume new responsibilities in legal offices and perform many of the same duties as attorneys. Through formal education, training and experience, paralegals have knowledge and expertise regarding the legal system and law procedures, which qualify them to work under the supervision of an attorney. Along with preparing legal documents, contracts and other legal materials, a paralegal can also interview witnesses, and conducting legal research. The most important task a paralegal may have is helping an attorney prepare for hearings, trials, and meetings. Although a paralegal is trained to perform the same tasks as attorneys, they are explicitly prohibited from carrying out duties considered to be within the scope of the practice of law, such as setting legal fees, giving legal advice, submitting signed documents to court, and presenting cases in court. Paralegals are an essential part of today’s legal practice; furthermore, a competent paralegal can improve a law office’s profitability and the delivery of legal services. With these new responsibilities comes a higher level of demand and respect. In turn...
Now, this brings into question if public defenders are ethically competent to represent their client in court with such a workload. The Supreme Court states that if the criminal defense attorney does not review each lawsuit they receive with sufficient time and resources dedicated to each client “then both the system and the attorney are in breach of their ethical and constitutional obligations to that defendant” (Mosher). In other words, the lawyer assigned is not allowed to handle a case if they are forced to spend more time on one over the others
For many people, Legal Aid is the only option to defend their cases. In an Australia Institute report, ‘Justice for All,’ it is estimated that, out of 1.7 million Australians encountering legal problems each year, nearly a third will not receive legal advice due to financial reasons and lack of knowledge. Although Legal Aid is a valuable and useful resource, it is only available to the those on the lowest income, due to the lack of funding from the government. Also, Legal Aid lawyers often don’t have enough time to adequately talk to their clients about cases, making it difficult to present an in-depth case. This lack of funding forces people to take the case into their own hands, which is mostly unsuccessful due to the complicated mechanisms of the legal system. These faults in the system make the courts less effective in achieving
Paralegals also help conduct legal research. Upon completing such research, paralegals can create legal research memos. Besides legal research, paralegals also do factual research. This information can come from many different kinds of sources as long as it is relevant to the case. Before the trial begins, the paralegal is responsible for making sure that everything is in order. They also serve as the liaison between the trial team and witnesses, clients, experts and other members ofthe courtroom. During the trial the paralegal will assist the attorneys in any way that they may be needed. Their responsibilities include setting up exhibits, gathering documents, and prepping the
Paralegals have become an essential part of today's legal system, and as the profession becomes one of the leading and fastest growing occupations in the U.S. economy; these individuals perform delegated tasks under the supervision of attorneys. Education has played an important part on this matter; it has facilitated this development by allowing lawyers to use these skills professionals as agents to delegate specific tasks such as legal research, gathering of information and the drafting of specific legal documents under the supervision and final approval of their principals. This has been very significant because now; we can enjoy a speedy process in a cumbersome legal system. From en economic standpoint, it has also been beneficial by decreasing the substantial amount of the legal cost a firm could incur if only lawyers were allowed to perform this kind work.
For starters when it comes to lawyers it’s not always winning every case that you come across, but it’s the matter of representing your client in the best possible way that you can, it is keeping their confidentiality agreement, provide them with the best options as possible and keeping an open and honest
people in these 21st century society wonder, “When is Justice to be done?” For district attorneys,
The role of the defense attorney is just as important. Unlike prosecutors, the defense attorney works for the accused. It is their duty to prove that the defendant is innocent. If they cannot prove innocence, they should present mitigating factors to get a ...
After analyzing the discourse community of law and the detailed process lawyers take in order to write an effective appeals brief, one can see that lawyers have a very specific and unique way of communicating that includes certain jargon unfamiliar and possibly incomprehensible to the general public. Although writing an appeal brief is only one aspect of many that government prosecuting attorneys such as Kenny Elser face in their jobs on a daily basis, it is also a very necessary job because not only is it used by a single discourse community in the law profession but utilized by the discourse community of law as a whole.
The paralegal profession developed as legal secretaries assumed additional duties to help attorneys with their workload. The paralegal performs legal tasks under the supervision of an attorney that maximizes attorneys' productivity and cost efficiency in the delivery of legal services. Paralegals work in many different types of law firms, corporations or government agencies in many areas of law (Hollingshead). All duties performed by a paralegal are under the supervision of an attorney who is responsible for the paralegal’s conduct. In fact, the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Paralegals define paralegals or legal assistants [used synonymously] as a person qualified by education, training or work experiences, who is employed or retained by a lawyer, law office, corporation, government agency, or other entity who performs specific delegated legal substantive work for which a lawyer is responsible (ABA). In class, we learne...
Legal aid is the provision of support to those who cannot afford legal representation and is applicable to both criminal and civil cases. Legal Aid can be regarded to be a cornerstone of a civilized society due to the fact that it allows everyone to be represented and defended in the court of law and was first introduced in 1949 with the Legal Aid and Advice Act. Legal aid can also be seen to uphold article six of the Human Rights Act 1998 which states “everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing .” In recent years the application of Legal Aid has been reduced drastically with the introduction of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) which raises the question of, does legal aid offer justice for all? This
If a person has a problem, that needs to be addressed in a court venue, it is likely that person will bring the problem to an attorney. Competence comes with the ability, of an attorney, to know where to find the answers to their client’s problems. Legal research is the process of finding the key facts of the case, and applying them to the cause of action. Research good case law and match it to the elements in the case. The hope of an attorney is to create an argument in court that is indisputable.
Solicitors also represent their clients in court, mostly the lower courts; but some have advocac... ... middle of paper ... ...to prepare the case and follow it through to the end. Good work has often been done by solicitors, only to see the case badly argued by a barrister in court. This is because he is too remote from the issues and often does not come into the case until the last moment. NOTE:
Researching and Making the Court Papers: The Lawyers have to brief the court about the case well in advance about the issues to be discussed.