<p>I barely started to get some interest in the law field and I lack a lot of knowledge. From what I have read, most people in CC want to become some type of lawyer after going to law school. But, I want to be a district attorney or prosecutor attorney (?). Sorry, I'm really unfamiliar with the terminology. One thing for sure, I want to go to law school, but I don't want to become a lawyer. If I become a lawyer, I might have to take cases for bad (?) people and this is not what I want. People say that "why don't you just take the good cases?" But I think this is a bit too naive and I don't think there is a distinct line. Therefore, instead of being a lawyer, I'm looking for a profession who prosecutes criminals. (Like those in Law and Order). Could someone help me?</p>
<p>I think prosecutor, public prosecutor, or prosecuting attorney (not sure which) is the right term that I want to use, not district attorney.</p>
<p>No, it is the district attorney. You wouldn't actually be the DA, but you would be an assistant DA. Why is it that you seem to think the District Attorney is not a lawyer?</p>
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If I become a lawyer, I might have to take cases for bad (?) people and this is not what I want.
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Er. . . </p>
<p>Well, see, the thing is being a lawyer isn't just 'oh I'm an attorney send me WHATEVER case you want'. That'd be impossible to maintain, because there are things like business attorneys and patent lawyers whose jobs are EXTREMELY specific, and require further knowledge. There's different types of attorneys, which means that you WOULDN'T have to argue for the "bad" people [but remember--innocent until proven guilty, and they are after all human, and deserve representation as well] if you're a prosecuting attorney, ie if you work for the gov't.</p>
<p>It's completely untrue to think that going to law school means that you'll get cases of all varieties. It...doesn't work that way. There are prosecuting attorneys, and there are defense attorneys. And don't forget, there's not just criminal law; there's civil law as well, and in those cases the defense attorneys are usually dealing with things like person A suing person B. In that case, the defense would be on the side of person B.</p>
<p>So as you can see, your worries are kind of...not relevant.</p>
<p>Oh--if you don't want to be arguing cases at all, you can be a court clerk/research attorney. That's [to others--correct me if I'm wrong] basically the person who does the research for judges on cases, so that they know what the case is about before the go into the hearing.</p>
<p>Nobody clerks for more than a year or two. If you don't want to handle criminal cases, don't go into criminal law. Most lawyers don't.</p>
<p>Some courts employ a few long-term staff attorneys in addition to clerks, but it's not a common career path. </p>
<p>In big cities, I'd estimate that 95% percent of attorneys work on civil matters exclusively. The remaining 5% probably handle criminal matters more or less exclusively. </p>
<p>I handled a few criminal cases at the beginning of my career, and saw no moral dilemma in doing so. After all, when Jesus said, "He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone," wasn't he acting as his society's equivalent of a criminal defense attorney?</p>
<p>Even people who are accused of crimes have legitimate legal interests. Have they been charged with the appropriate crime? If convicted, what is the appropriate punishment?</p>
<p>Here's an example: I once represented an old man who was a recent immigrant from a country with an oppressive regime that had persecuted people of his ethnicity. After a lifetime living in small village, he was now living in a big city. One day he met a little girl at the bus stop who spoke his language, and they became friends. One day he asked her if he could kiss her; after she said he could, he did so.</p>
<p>The next day, when he returned to the bus stop, the little girl was there with her mother. The girl identified my client to his mother as the man who had kissed her, and the mother started screaming at my client, telling him to stay away from her daughter. A patrolman heard the commotion, came to investigate, and arrested my client. </p>
<p>My client was charged with violation of a statute prohibiting "lewd and lacivious behavior". He spent a few days in jail before his daughter raised the money for bail. The DA was offering to release him on probation (conditioned upon counseling with someone who counsels sex offenders if he pleaded guilty to the charge. That probably would have resulted in his deportation; if he managed to avoid that, he would have had to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>I negotiated a plea instead for simple assault, with probation, and the same counseling he would have had under the original plea. Simple assault is not a "crime of moral turpitude," so it did not subject him to deportation. He did not have to register as a sex offender.</p>
<p>Was the old man a pedophile, or someone trying to find his way in a new society with different ideas about what is appropriate behavior? I don't know, frankly. Neither the judge nor the DA knew, for that matter. (This is an example of what people mean when they say practicing law requires a tolerance for ambiguity.) </p>
<p>In any event, even a person who is accused of a heinous act deserves to have someone involved in the system whose job it is to ask whether he is being treated fairly. That's an indispensible role in what was created to be a moral system of justice.</p>
<p>If nothing else, my client heard a series of stern admonitions (from the DA, his own lawyer, the judge, and no doubt the counselor) that he was living in a land where it is not generally considered appropriate to kiss little girls. Go and sin no more.</p>
<p>The prosecutors of the type in Law and Order are all lawyers. They simply work for the government and prosecute crimes. They all went to law school and passed the bar, the same as the defense attorneys and civil attorneys (contract, patent, employment, civil litigation, and such). You don't have to go into private practice to be a "lawyer".</p>
<p>Before you think about law school, you have a lot more research to do on what being a lawyer means.</p>
<p>I agree with Chedva</p>
<p>There’s a lot more to being a Lawyer than simply “thinking you want to become one” whether because of various reasons, Money, want to Help People, Med School didn’t workout wasn’t for me, T.V.’s shows make it seem awesome, etc. etc.</p>
<p>The Law is a very extremely hard profession. From what I’ve been seeing, is that you got to prepare yourself, physically as well as mentally, to really consider spending a huge part of your life (@ least 10-20 yrs), to a life of law</p>