Attorneys: What goes into your decision to become either Defense or Prosecution?

Money.

Grades

Been interested to know what percent go into private practice vs to the prosecutors office. 95-5 in favor of private practice? Couldn’t be all that much turnover at the prosecutors office year to year.

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t pains me to say this, but she’ll be out of prison in 10 years.

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I know several prosecutors, that made a career of it, one is still at it after 30 years. Most of them went to law school so they could become a prosecutor, and would not have been a defense attorney for any amount of money. Really no different that people that go to law school with the goal of being a FBI agent.

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Well in America, it’s rigged through the legislature so that all you need to do is convince generally uninjured and healthy people to undergo constant bogus treatments and surgeries to drive up the total medical costs and then you get paid a percentage of all the damage you made someone do to themselves. It’s quite the racket

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FIFY. In America, find a lawyer who has a go to quack doctor and you profit.

Some people of the world are just born Christine Sullivans, and some people are born Dan Fieldings.

The ol money vs morals debate. You out to change the world for the better or are you trying to get as rich as possible in law.

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Also, many lawyers end up in non-legal roles. Some of the brightest from my law class aren’t doing legal anymore. Not sure what that says about me, but I love what I do.

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Just means you love what you do, mate. No need to psychoanalyze yourself beyond that point

Depends on what type of defense work you mean.

On the Civil end it is probably because the company ( usually) is paying you to be their counsel " win" or lose. Usually your job is to affect a settlement that is agreeable for your client meaning : Plaintiff sues for 100K and you affect a settlement for 40K in which case your client loves you. Get the plaintiff zeroed out and your client really loves you.

Plaintiff guys are contingency based. Higher risk but also higher reward. You could go broke being one though.

On the criminal side depending on your preference, there are a few routes. Especially for prosecution. US Attorney office .... usually your top of class types who want job security and decent pay and local prosecutors , DA types, which is also how some lower level US Attorneys get started. The prosecutor types are either crusader types or people like myself who did not necessarily want to get into civil litigation like plaintiff/ defense stuff locally and did not want to necessarily chase down half indigent types in criminal defense .

Folks who go into criminal defense... some who start off are crusader types. They want to fight the good fight go up against the state and fight . Most good ones though, start in prosecutor offices. Guys like Chick Foret in NOLA used to work in the US Attorney's office and he handled criminal defense on higher end cases.

Lots start in one field and end up in another. I knew guys that started out as Plaintiff Attorneys and ended up later as criminal defense on the appellate end. I knew assistant DAs that went on to corporate law like being counsel at major corporations. I had a friend who was a very good Securities lawyer who dumped it all and got into real estate law....title company stuff. Made a shite ton and did not have to constantly take his work home.

Go into debt with law school, and then go be a public defender/city prosecutor for 65k a year… makes sense.