Piles Of Paperwork For The Criminal Lawyer

Having grown up with a father as a lawyer, and having worked for the police myself; I wouldn't consider myself a legal expert but I do have some knowledge and experience on the subject. Of course, law is a very wide area, Lawyers specialise in everything from family law and child custody, to real estate, or criminal law. In his earlier days my father did general conveyancing work, but for the most part he worked with a family of criminal lawyers as this was his true area of expertise and also the work he found most interesting. He was also one of the few criminal lawyers who actually worked on the defense and prosecution side of the business (he switched sides later on in his career).

Not unlike most other types of solicitors, a criminal lawyer requires an extensive knowledge of the law and also of legal jargon (in my days of working for the police I found the hardest thing to learn was a lawyers hand-writing but hey, mines not much better). My dad would regularly have to turn to one of his dozens of huge law books to find either a specific definition of law interpretation or of previous case examples he could use to benefit the case he was currently working on. The rouble is, no matter how much training you receive, a criminal lawyer is the type of job you are always learning in. Not only does each case bring something new, but criminal law changes all the time. There are frequently new laws coming in and old laws being revoked or superseded. The biggest issue however, is the way in which paperwork has to be maintained.

Aside from standing in court to address judge and jury, a criminal lawyers biggest job is paperwork. Government regulations on the way paperwork is dealt with and the types of forms that have to be submitted in triplicate to numerous departments can mean that a criminal lawyer spends almost as much time learning new tasks of this nature than being an actual lawyer. Even as a young child I remember my father bringing home a big trolley on wheels everyday, full of papers. Most of which was duplicated or set out in some complicated way simply to please the current legal system at the time. Some folders were color-coded; others had to be stamped by certain departments. He would get home late, go straight to the kitchen table (he didn't have an office at home) and spread his mountain of paperwork out into various separate piles. Until I realised that half of the stuff in there was duplicated or not really required except to please the law, I used to wonder how he could possibly get through it all in one night. He was often still working when I went to bed and was usually leaving for work when I work hope. I don't think he slept much.

In a way this is a poor state of affairs. The reason I say this is that it's no longer just criminal lawyers who are facing this kind of struggle. It is not uncommon now for Police officers to have to spend up to 75% of their just filling out paperwork. One simple case can turn into a filing cabinet worth of garbage. Most of which will never be looked at.