Yes, No, or Maybe: The Importance of Developing a Philosophy of Lawyering in an Era of Immigration Upheaval
By K. Craig Dobson*
A few years ago, a friend asked me to represent her on a DUI charge. I had never handled a criminal case, and I really didn’t know where to begin. I asked some experienced colleagues for help, and they emphatically recommended a book by Bubba Head, one of the best DUI attorneys in the state of Georgia and possibly the United States. I bought the book and read it, and then asked follow-up questions of my colleagues. I asked one lawyer about the procedure that he used to test the equipment at the police station that measures blood alcohol content. The colleague laughed and said that nobody really did everything that Bubba recommended in his book. In what seemed to be his way of justifying the fact that he had never tested the electrical systems, etc. at the police station, he said that this would likely just make some people mad, namely the judge and the prosecutor, and ultimately hurt not only this client, but also my reputation and thus future clients. And further, local lawyers could not charge the fees that Bubba was rumored to have charged so it was not economical to put in this level of time and effort. Though the book was universally recommended by colleagues, they apparently did not intend for me to follow Bubba’s advice that closely. This raises a number of issues that are also applicable in the immigration context, particularly in immigration court. In this era of immigration upheaval, lawyers need to know how far they can go and how far they should go in representing their clients. In this writing, I will argue that the answer lies not only in the applicable ethics rules and laws, but also resides within each individual lawyer.
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