Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Criminal Defense Attorney Employment ? What You Need To Know

Criminal Defense Attorney Employment ? What You Need To Know

Are you looking for a career as a criminal defense attorney? This is definitely one field which you will never run short of work. With the crime rates rising everywhere in the world, criminal defense attorney employment will always offer a good deal. The criminal justice is a vast field of which criminal defense is only a very small part. Other aspects covered under this field are, criminal law, detectives, paralegals, investigators, criminal justice researchers and so on. There are many highly successful investigators and detectives who are the outcome of a stint with the justice department.

Criminal defense attorney ? the career


A criminal defense attorney is high on the wanted all over the world, not only in the USA. This is because there is no such place in this world where there are no crimes or criminals. In fact the criminal defense attorney is seen as special and highly demanding job both emotionally and psychologically and hence it is paid higher than any other branches of the law.

As a criminal defense attorney your job would be to defend people who are found accused by crimes and thereby prevent their conviction. Since almost always the cases are highly sensitive and involve the risk of extreme punishments the criminal defense attorney jobs are extremely demanding emotionally as it is challenging. This is because a criminal defense attorney is answerable not only to his/her client but also to his/ her peers and society at large.

It is the challenge of the criminal defense attorney employment that attracts some of the brightest minds into this field. Their job starts right after the arrest of the person accused of whatever crime he/ she is supposed to have committed. The criminal defense attorney would first try to release the person on bail while working out the best procedure to acquit his/ her if they would be brought for a trial. However, before the trial the criminal defense attorney would try their best to get the person discharged before a trial is called for. Once the trial starts, then the criminal defense attorney would really have to work hard for his or her salary as defending a person from any crime is quite difficult. The more difficult it is the sweeter is the taste of winning such a case.

Educational requirement for Criminal defense attorney

Any practicing attorney would need to first earn his or her license in order to practice any type of law in the USA and for this the Bar exam must be passed. This exam is also known as the Multi-State Bar Exam or in short MBE which differs from State to State. This means that if you ever move from one State to another and you want to practice in the new State, you would have to pass the MBE again to gain a license to practice there. This is because the law differs in certain aspects from State to State.

You would also need a bachelor?s or master?s degree and of course you would need to pass the law school as per the norms of the ABA (American Bar Association). You could also become a criminal defense attorney without attending the law school, if you are willing to undergo an apprenticeship under a leading criminal defense agency or criminal lawyer. However this option is open in a handful of States.


The subjects you would need to emphasize on to become a great criminal defense attorney would be sociology, composition and written communication in the justice environment, criminology and court procedure, general education requirements, psychology and/ or rehabilitation among others. Some other skills that you would need are police investigative work, security, juvenile delinquency, forensics, criminal investigations, and victim advocacy and so on.

Some of the leading law schools approved by the ABA where you can read about criminal defense are:

* University of Phoenix
* South University
* Kaplan University
* Everest College
* Capella University
* FMU Online
* Grand Canyon University

Compensation for Criminal defense attorney

The average salary that criminal defense attorney employment would entail started at US $45,000 upwards. These were the statistics in 2004. This figure is almost double today which show the extreme potential of the criminal defense attorney jobs. This comes with all the perquisites such as medical benefits, retirement benefits and so on.

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