Touching that place that opens others to your criminal defense lawyer- Fairfax criminal lawyer on persuading by being real, genuine and fully caring

Touching others, situations, and ourselves can yield great benefits, but not always without the pain, discomfort and roller coaster rides that can come with fully discovering and knowing ourselves and others. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I know that my clients do not come to and hire me for a point of curiosity nor entertainment, but because so many of them feel in dire straits — or at least enough discomfort — to reach out to me to find a way to get them out of their mess, no matter how innocent or not they are, and no matter how unjust or not is the applicable state of the substantive and procedural law, and unwritten approach of the judges. Perhaps one of the greatest initial barriers for me to fully persussively engaging others was seeing the roles of police and prosecutors, rather than starting with knowing and engaging with their souls. They were not born police nor prosecutors — as much as when I was in preschool all the boys, when asked what work they wanted to do when they grew up, said either a fireman or policeman — but there they are, and I persuade people in the place that they are.

Touching the at-first recalcitrant witness who eventually would not stop talking to me as a Fairfax criminal lawyer

When my client was accused of unconsensually touching the breast of a woman in broad daylight, his neighbor who claimed to have seen their interaction at first clammed up, resisting talking to the very lawyer who (pershaps in his mind) would endeavor to tear him apart during cross examination on the witness stand. When I was about to let this witness be with his refusal to talk about the incident, I veered into a just folks approach: “I am taken by the gentleness with which you talk.” That did it. He would no longer stop talking to me, starting with “My grandmother was the same way.” He would not stop asking me what I wanted to know about the incident, and simply talking with me. He didnt’t really provide me any weaknesses in his story, but did give me insights into his persona to apply to cross examining him had we proceeded, but we settled the case for something more benign than non-consensual sexual assault.

A Virginia criminal defense lawyer must not put judges and jurors through unnecessary mental torture

The great cross examination teacher Larry Pozner — who has been a guest on my Beat the Prosecution podcast — makes a vital point that we criminal defense lawyers do not want to put jurors through unnecessary stress to sort out and resolve competing evidence, arguments and stories, when it is possible to help them organize their thoughts and memories in a way that helps our criminal defense clients. Similarly, during those many trials where so many prosecutors  and their witnesses and evidence drone on and on to the point that they make the judges and jurors’ eyes glaze over at best, I can reverse that when they hear from me and my witnesses by having sifted, organized and synthesized the defense-essential ideas, challenges, images, and feelings to a point of keeping them interested, not wasting their time, and caring about them not only because they hold my clients’ lives and liberty in their decisionmaking hands, but first and foremost because they are fellow humans, and the more we care about our fellow humans, the more that successfully persuading them becomes a fringe benefit of all that. Touching decisionmakers’ humanity is vitally important.

What happens when a Virginia criminal lawyer visits a judge in chambers to talk about nothing involving the case?

One day, I appeared for my first time before trial judge Martin Welch, arguing to overturn my client’s felony conviction from when he had another lawyer, and for which this judge did grant that relief. Obtaining that relief strikes me first. What strikes me next is his very humanity when the proseuctor and I approached the bench, and he reached out his hand, introducing himself to me as “Marty Welch”, just one human to another, at that soul level that I felt. Judges are humans. Like all humans, they want human interaction, of course of the desireable kind. Sometimes I have visited judges in chambers after court, and the human connection has really been something sometimes. In a courthouse with a low population, as I concluded a short talk with the county’s sole circuit court judge, he invited me to return to see him the next time, to have a cup of coffee together. When I learned that another trial judge and I had the commonality of speaking French as our second language, I told his courtroom clerk I wanted to visit him during the court break, and she warned me that he would talk my ear off, which he did, in French. Toucing that place beyond one’s work is what can lead people to let down their hair and reveal themselves.

Manipulation will not work. Engage and persuade.

When your Virginia criminal defense lawyer knows their own humanity and proceeds in touching, engaging and persuading others at the human and sould lever, that is not about manipulation — and must not be — but becomes a natural byproduct of being a human, knowing their own humanity, knowing how to reach and engage with others at the soul level, and fulling wanting to help their criminal defense clients, and succeeding at that.

Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz relentlessly pursues your best defense against Virginia felony, misdemeanor and DUI prosecutions. Your first step to a great defense is to meet with Jon Katz for a free in-person confidential consultation about your court-pending case. Usually Jon can meet with you within a business day of your calling his staff at 703-383-1100, Info@KatzJustice.com, and (text) 571-406-726.