A couple of months ago a woman was convicted of a serious driving offense in Lake County. She was from Will County and hired a very well known and prestigious Will County attorney for this high profile case. Given that Joliet is about 90 minutes or more away from Waukegan, we are guessing that this very good attorney has very little experience before the Lake County prosecutors and Judges that are in those court rooms every single day.
This woman lost her case and it probably had nothing to do with her choice of lawyers and more to do with how high-profile her case was. That said, we certainly don’t believe it helped. A local attorney who is friendly with the prosecutor may have been able to negotiate a good plea bargain and at the least would have had a better chance of it.
In basketball, every court is the same size and the rules are the same. Yet every year, almost all 30 teams have way better home records than road records. In the 2002-2003 season the Bulls we 27-14 at home and 3-38 on the road. The rules may be the same, but home court advantage clearly matters.
Home court advantage matters in Illinois law too, especially in criminal and traffic cases. Many defense attorneys are former prosecutors and have what they consider their “home court.” One lawyer we know that goes to the Daley Center for traffic cases put it to us this way:
I have so many cases there that everyone knows me and I know everyone. I can simply get things done there in a way that I can’t at other courts.
Now just like the best teams don’t win every home game, lawyers don’t win every case on their home court. If you are charged with murder, armed robbery, reckless homicide, etc. you aren’t going to just hire the connected local guy and walk away as if nothing happened. But guilty people win their cases every single day in Illinois, often because they hired the attorney with home court advantage. Prosecutors often have hundreds of cases to deal with every week. They can’t take them all to trial so they are willing to negotiate on most of them. The people with the best shot in negotiations are the ones that they deal with every day and know that they will have to deal with in the future. Fair or not, these attorneys tend to get better results. It simply makes a difference if you have relationships.
It works the same in actual hearings before a Judge. If you know the Judge’s tendencies it is an advantage. If the Judge likes your lawyer it is an advantage. If the Judge has cases with your lawyer every day, unless they hate them it is an advantage. If your attorney can joke around with the Judge or sees him/her socially it’s an advantage. It’s why most lawyers suck up to the Judges. Those relationships make a difference.
Hiring the right attorney is about giving yourself the best chance of success. The Bulls won three out of 41 games in that forgetable 2002-2003 season. If you knew you were going to go to jail that year if they lost their next game, wouldn’t you have chosen for them to play that game at the United Center? We would have too.
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