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Attorneys without responsibility or accountability
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I live and practice law in the Phoenix metro area. The current Maricopa County Attorney, Andrew Thomas, is fighting for his job and his political career in an bid for reelection this November. I recently addressed on my DUI Attorney Blog the reasons why he is secretly liked by defense lawyers, so I won't go into that in detail in this article.
Since Mr. Thomas took office (this is the end of his first term), much of the preexisting talent in that office has fled. The most common reason I hear is that the attorneys are given no authority, and must abide by Mr. Thomas' policies in regards to just about everything that most lawyers are trusted by their superiors to handle.
Gone in that office are the days of judgment calls and doing the right thing on the fly. For criminal defense attorneys, this translates into a higher success rate. For the state though, it opens the door to the state losing a lot of petty cases that most prosecutors' offices would not pursue, and a lot of extremely serious cases as well.
All attorneys are sworn to follow the law and abide by a strict code of legal ethics. In many ways, the practice of law is already very restricting. With the addition of policies that are not based in law nor ethics, Mr. Thomas has created a situation for his attorneys that, I imagine, must be terribly difficult on morale. It will be interesting to see how many prosecutors from that office leave the job if Mr. Thomas is reelected.
Since I may be hiring around the time of the election, I'm all for it. If there is another Exodus from that office, there are a lot of good people and good legal talent that may be available and looking for work.
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