Criminal lawyers are a branch of a lawyer’s jobs. Lawyers do not necessaritily take care of every type of case that people have to face in a court. Just like there are a lot of types of law case, there are also different types of lawyer taking care of their client’s cases. This one, criminal lawyer, is just like the name suggests. Criminal lawyer specializes in taking care of their client’s right in criminal cases. It can be considered as the hardest division in all law cases. Let us see deeper into a criminal lawyer’s job.

Job Description

Being a criminal lawyer, he/she is siding with a defendant against a charged put on the defendant for his/her doing. It is a hard job both mentally and physically. The main job of criminal lawyers is of course finding laws and proofs to help their clients in the court so that the charges put on them could be reduced (if not lifted off).

Working with a suspect means that the police have already had witness and proof that are not in the benefit of the suspected criminal. For the lawyer, that means he/ she takes a side with the losing side from the start. There are several cases though, where the suspect is actually innocent. In those cases, though it is hard, the lawyer could help his/ her client in proofing the suspect’s innocence in the case.

Being the target, roughly speaking, the job description of criminal lawyers is as follow:

Taking a deep understanding on the case they handle. This includes investigating the case and getting input from witnesses’ testimony.

Preparing for crime codes and laws to defend the client. This is done by a long research on past law cases, crime codes, status, and procedural law. The useful one would be taken and used as weapon or shield to proof his/ her client’s innocence or reducing the charges put on him/ her.

Criminal lawyers also have to build a good defense and make a case strategy by brainstorming a simulation of how the court would go and how they will counter every suspicion launched to the suspect.

The lawyers also have to have an ability to negotiate with the prosecutor to lessen the charges. And it has to be backed up by logic and reason, properly taken from the current law and crime codes.

And of course, the lawyers have to defend their client, a criminal, in court.

That is just a small part of the job description of a lawyer. There are other paper works that have to be done with pressing deadlines. Criminal lawyers also have to have the heart to side with the losing from the start.

The Must-Have Skills

Having that many jobs have to be done by a lawyer, what are the must-have skills for criminal defence lawyers? First one is of course a good memory. It is very important to remember at least the content of existing laws and criminal codes so that he/ she could look more into a benefiting codes for his/ her client. Next is problem solving skill to find the crack in the country law that would put on his/ her client to the benefit side. A lawyer needs to be sly and opportunist too. He/ she should be able to take chances even the smallest of it. The next one is negotiating skill. It is very important for a lawyer to have his/ her way with words. Those are several skills of criminal lawyers.