In today’s Daily News, Clem Richardson writes about a criminal defense case in his column called City Beat.
Although usually I don’t talk about criminal defense (Sidebar covers only civil cases), there’s a penetrating point in this article.
Denise Dowling, the mother of a man arrested for a crime he didn’t commit, hired a New York criminal defense lawyer named Jay Schwitzman to defend her son:
Over the next seven months, [Dowling] peppered Schwitzman with phone calls and office visits, offering suggestions and any leads, no matter how far-fetched, she thought could help free her son.
“I would call him at the office, on his cell phone,” Dowling said. “… But he always took my calls.”
“She was a mother trying to save her son,” Schwitzman said. “Of course, I took her calls. Sometimes I had to tell her what she thought was evidence really was not. But she never gave up.”
“Of course, I took her calls.” That should be every lawyer’s credo.