My recent post “How Can you Defend Drunk Drivers?” received considerable response, most of it surprisingly positive.  I’d like to add a thought from DUI defense attorney Walter Fey of Reno, Nevada:

…you will become a target for those who have no voice other than the one they use to utter shrill insults and condemnations.  Goes with the suit.  

I have found that one argument that really shuts them down, or at least calms them and permits a more reasoned discussion of what I do, is this:  I am responsible for putting more abusers of drugs and alcohol into treatment programs than anyone they may know or be acquainted with. Win or lose, one of my first steps is to recommend or order rehabilitation as a condition of my representation.  Ask the attacker how many folks he got to go to AA this week–see if they have any answer.

Of course, things could always be worse, as evidenced by the following recent news article from the Los Angeles Times:

MOSCOW.  A Canadian lawyer for jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was expelled from Russia on Friday after a post-midnight visit to his hotel by plainclothes police….

Prosecutors also said Friday that they had moved to disbar at least eight of Khodorkovsky’s Russian lawyers for what they called foot-dragging in representing the 42-year-old businessman in his appeal….

Law enforcement officers descended on the luxury hotel room of Robert Amsterdam shortly after 1:00am and ordered him to leave the country within 24 hours.

Imagine if MADD had chapters in Russia….