Everyone knows what crime is, and everyone has an opinion: politicians, journalists, the man on the Clapham Omnibus, and especially lawyers. Unfortunately in the case of lawyers, an understanding of crime gets translated with worrying frequency into a misplaced expertise on criminal law.
Ruthie is constantly perplexed as to why civil litigators and conveyancers instantly become criminal law specialists when their corporate client gets arrested for drink driving, or worse large scale fraud, when they would never dream of attempting to set up a trust or writing a will. Cos criminal law is easy, right? And better still if you get it wrong, there’s no money involved so you cant get sued when you get it wrong.
Er, well not exactly. There has been more new legislation in the field of criminal law than any other field in the last five years. And in Ruthie’s humble opinion the evidential rules are complex. Confiscation rules mean that your client may not only get put away, but may have all his money taken as well. Oh, and before you rush down to the police station, imagine yourself in front of a jury 18 months later, being cross examined as to why you failed to prevent your client making a full and frank confession which he is now seeking to exclude.
There will be no more corporate instructions if your client is broke and doing time. He’ll just be thinking of imaginative ways to sue your negligent ass.
Oh…and when you get to court, proper criminal lawyers will eat you.
Ruthie lurves being against civil specialists. Yum yum.
I think it depends upon your definition of “easy”. The consensus does seem to be that criminal law is less intellectually challenging than some other areas of law, and that probably is true. The evidential rules, whilst complex, can be learned by rote. Again, there is nothing conceptually demanding about them. (That said, it would be a odd if a civil litigator could hold their own against a criminal specialist.)
But criminal law is difficult for other reasons. Any decent student of the law could get to grips with PACE 1984, for example. Or OAPA 1861. Or what constitutes a virtual certainty. What separates criminal experts from the rest of us is how those rules really work in practice - societal impact, if you like. Many people could quote the law on murder, but few could write sufficiently compelling arguments for a trial that will seek to persuade a jury, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the accused did kill that person intentionally. Similarly, few could stand up and deliver that argument. It is in that translation of blackletter law to real-world application that the criminal lawyer stands on their own.
This is a particular challenge for people in mixed common law/criminal sets as you’re expected to be expert in two lots of procedural and evidential rules.
To Martin: I’m inclined to agree that criminal law is at least superficially easier than civil law in that the concept of a criminal offence is universally understood. Everyone knows what hitting other people is and that it is wrong.
I think criminal law starts to get conceptually difficult when the mens rea falls to be defined: motive, intention, reasonableness; subjective and objective viewpoints. Explaining these issues to a jury requires a particular skill. Add in the theatricals, politicing, diplomacy and sheer physical stamina required to conduct a jury trial and the number of lawyers able to cut it long term goes down.
Im not saying its more difficult than civil law, just different. But I do get upset when civil lawyers seem to think crime is for morons then wonder why they get into difficulties.
I chose to do crime because I find other people’s liberty rather more exciting than their money (unless I’m spending it), which is what the proverbial 9/10th of the remainder of the law is about. I do also have some quaint ideas about justice (Ruthie’s first law firm called her an “idealist”, presumably this was code to say I didnt bill enough).