Firm Philosophy
Here is the MANDATORY philosophy of the Barone Defense Firm:
RULE 1: We are here to give the client the best chance to win – to fight as hard as possible, and TO TRY CASES. Not to quit, and not to convince our clients to plead guilty and go to jail or give up their licenses. While we don’t win every case, we certainly don’t lose for not trying. We understand that our clients come to us and pay us fees that are sometimes much larger than other lawyer’s fees because they believe that we have a better ability to win than the rest. They pay us to go out there and fight hard. They believe that we can and do go to trial with breath tests and blood tests, and that we have the skill and knowledge necessary to do so and WIN. Like a cancer doctor, we are our client’s last best hope of saving them from going to jail or saving their license, their jobs and their marriages.
We know that not every case can be won, but consider the following: Our clients are like patients who go to a group of cancer doctors with an excellent reputation for curing cancer. Like a top specialist in medicine, we will honestly access your case, and like the cancer doctor, we may tell you that the chances of a successful surgery are 1/100, but if you want a trial, we will also tell you that we will do whatever is necessary to fight and if possible to WIN. Now, there are of course other doctors who will, with the same odds, simply convince their patients to have no surgery at all, thus guaranteeing that they will die. If you faced a life-threatening disease, which doctor would you chose?
At the Barone Defense Firm we believe that patients who go to the doctor who tells them their disease has no POSSIBLE cure, and that nothing can be done but to just wait and die should go to a different clinic, and that those doctors who recommend no treatment, to act responsibly, should simply refer the patient to someone who will fight to find a cure, and if necessary, to do the surgery. The Barone Defense Firm is in fact the place such “patients” should be referred.
We understand that when a client looks to us with a hope and a prayer that we will save him jail time and/or his license, the client really only wants (and deserves) the best effort that any lawyer can give, and we try our absolute best to live up to this very reasonable expectation of our clients – win or lose.
To learn more about this topic, and the role of the Barone Defense Firm see the post “Role of the DUI Defense Lawyer.”
RULE 2: Not knowing how is no excuse. Because we are here to do the best that can be done, we know that no lawyer in this firm has an excuse for not knowing how to pick a jury, how to hire an expert, how to interview a client, what a breathalyzer does, how the state lab tests blood, how to win motions and so forth. In our opinion, not knowing means that the lawyer better get his or her butt out there and learn!! Our motto is to always keep LEARNING, ASKING AND IMITATING. We believe in being pro-active! If there are seminars that can teach us something, then we sign-up!!
If there are no seminars or if the seminars don’t address our client’s problems, then we go to the other top resources. There are several books kept in the library at The Barone Defense Firm, and all of the Firm’s lawyers are expected to read them completely and to understand what is written. This of course includes both of Mr. Barone’s books (“Defending Drinking Drivers” and “The DUI Book“), but also such seminal works as Larry Taylor’s “Drunk Driving Defense“, Fitzgerald’s multi-volume “Intoxication Test Evidence“, and well as many others.
RULE 3: We are TRIAL ATTORNEYS. This is the philosophy of The Barone Defense Firm and it is not subject to dispute. We are here to try cases: win OR lose. Understand however that this does not mean that every one of our clients wants or needs a trial. If there is a way to win without a trial, or some other way to resolve a case that is satisfactory, then we ALWAYS explore these non-trial resolutions FIRST. Our goal is not to go to trial; our goal is to obtain results for our clients. If trial is the only way to obtain those results, then we will NEVER hesitate to go to trial, and if we go to trial it will be with the mindset that we will win.
RULE 4: We will ALWAYS engage in complete discovery. The first thing we do once we’re retained is send out very lengthy and complete “discovery” demands. Except under the most extraordinary of circumstances the lawyers at The Barone Defense Firm will not advise a client without first requesting, obtaining and REVIEWING all police reports, videotapes and chemical test records. This is a law firm, not a loosely-associated group of independent contractors. We all work together toward a common goal, and that goal is to obtain results for our clients.
