Get a Lawyer Before Your Arraignment: 3 Reasons

The bottom line is that you want to hire a defense lawyer as fast as you can after your arrest. If you do, they can accompany you to your arraignment. Having a lawyer by your side, even at your first pre-trial hearing, can go a long way toward securing your best outcome, or at least making the criminal process a less-terrible experience. Three of the biggest helps they can provide are 1) explaining everything that happens, 2) ensuring procedural fairness, and 3) negotiating (bail, plea deals, etc.).

A Personal Interpreter 

Unless you yourself are a trial lawyer, going through the criminal process can be like trying to find your way home from a different, hostile planet. Everyone but you knows the language and territory and it seems like they all want to trap and hurt you.

Going through the process with a lawyer by your side is like traveling with a personal interpreter who can read the relevant documents, communicate with everyone for you, and explain the meaning of whatever happens. Needless to say, understanding what’s going on and what’s needed is critical to ensuring you get the best outcome that you’re entitled to. 

Procedural Fairness

Relatedly, it’s human nature to use whatever advantages we have in a given situation–including a criminal situation that may get someone put away for years of their life. Thus, it’s only prudent to assume that the prosecution will use every trick it can to make you look guilty or even downright evil–and therefore to have you treated as severely as possible. 

Your defense lawyer–in addition to arguing for your acquittal in an eventual trial–can object to procedural irregularities that you don’t have the knowledge to recognize. In the best of times, this can lead to permanent dismissal of your charges. But absent that, they can also advocate to show that at least for now, while you’re still officially presumed innocent, there is no need to subject you to such severe treatment. 

Negotiation

A prime example is negotiating your bail. If lawyer fees are intimidating, remember to consider the many thousands of dollars they could save you on bail. A good defense lawyer can show the court during your arraignment that you’re not a flight risk and that you can be expected to “behave yourself” while awaiting trial outside custody–and thereby secure a lower number for your bail.

Also, if pleading guilty is your best option, your lawyer can use a vast store of knowledge including legal precedent to secure the best plea deal available to you. 

Conclusion

Obviously there are more than the above three reasons to retain a lawyer early and have them at your side every step of the way. But for the purpose of a quick primer to help you make the right choices for your case, these three stand out. 

If you’ve been arrested for a crime in the state of Washington and you’re looking to hire the best defense you can, make sure to get a free case review from Verity Criminal Defense. If nothing else, we can provide some clarity on your case–and maybe we can even make this whole situation go away completely.