The Paradox of Steven Avery: How Making a Murderer Challenges White America's Faith In The Police

Well it was actually 240K and while that is still by no means chump change for a murder trial, it is not anywhere close to the average in big cities depending of course on the kind of defense, the lawyer wants to use. If you were building a planting defense, with all the defense experts you would have to retain (most experts would charge upwards of 10k for a report, time spent in prepping for trial, days they have to take off to prep and attend the trial to testify etc) if you have 10 experts, that is already 100k conservatively speaking. Then not to talk of the kind of disbursements that these lawyers probably had to incur and that's another 50K conservatively. I believe Strang and Buting when they say they did not get much (in their pocket) at the end. While some people say 240k was a lot, I honestly don't believe Strang and Buting did this for the money because they could have charged way more.

I work in one of the largest cities in Canada for a pretty big diverse firm. The partners of the criminal division who are retained to defend a murder case all the way to trial will normally take ~500k when it is all said and done. They have to take into account when they "close shop". What some people don't get is that most criminal lawyers are not doing a murder trial and simultaneously doing something else. For months to even a few years, for however long it takes, they are going to be sleeping, eating, breathing the case. This is why many public defenders like Len are parasitic to the justice system because a lot of them do not give a shit because they are being paid peanuts compared to private practice. And I hate to be that person because I am sure a few public defenders do it because they love it and want to and feel like they are making society at large a better place, but many do it simply because for whatever reason, they are not competitively valuable enough to get hired by private firms (as in they are literally too stupid, poor marks etc). There are a lot of good defenders, but unfortunately many of them are toned down version of Len and don't care about their "clients" at all. They want to find the easiest way to resolve the case and unfortunately will take the easiest route even if it means convincing their clients to take a plea. It is pretty sad actually but I see people like Len all the time. I can't imagine what our resident village idiot public defender would do if he found himself like Len suddenly in the spot light. Prosecutors obviously love people like Len, how can they not, they literally give the prosecutors whatever they want on a platter with a blue ribbon wrapped around it.

/r/MakingaMurderer Thread Parent Link - pastemagazine.com