Courts

Showing Up Is Half The Battle -- And A Bunch Of Philly Lawyers Are Losing

Bad things really do happen in Philly.

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deadline clockIn a metaphorical sense, lawyers show up for clients in their time of need. You’d think that was also the case in a literal sense, but the data shows otherwise. Friends usually grant each other some wiggle room when it comes to showing up on time, but lawyers from the city of brotherly love have taken too many liberties with tardiness. From the ABA Journal:

Some lawyers are less reliable than defendants when it comes to showing up in court, according to a study of criminal cases in Philadelphia courts during a 10-year span.

Privately retained or court-appointed private lawyers failed to appear in court at least once in 36% of their cases, according to an article on the study, Systemic Failure to Appear in Court, in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

While I’d still be shocked, I’d be a little more understanding if public defenders were the ones with a subpar attendance rate — they literally don’t have enough time to handle their workloads. But to call up Saul and have him not show up isn’t good, man. All that work to end up being pro se? It might be nice to know retroactively that the court will probably be handing out sanctions for the no-show, but getting abandoned during your time of need can’t be good for the psyche.

For what it’s worth, private lawyers aren’t the only key figures running truant:

“[A]n essential police officer, civilian witness or lawyer failed to appear for at least one hearing in 53% of all cases. While defendants missed their court dates in only 19% of cases, police officers failed to appear in 31% of cases for which they were subpoenaed.”

The numbers are worse for victims and other witnesses. Victims failed to appear at least once in 47% of victim-involved cases, while other civilian witnesses failed to appear in 46% of cases. In domestic violence cases, the failure-to-appear rate was 70%.

Failure to appear by police officers or civilian witnesses may have led to dropped charges in 32,000 cases in Philadelphia during the decade, according to the authors’ calculations.

One small way to address the bad things happening in Philly? Punctuality!

Private Criminal Defense Lawyers Failed To Show Up For Their Cases More Often Than Defendants, Philly Study Finds [ABA Journal]

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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