Lawyer or Public Relations Specialist

In a crazy country such as ours where everything is a struggle, the demand for legal services is always on the rise. Last week another batch of fresh graduates was ordained, and they joined 34 thousand lawyers in the legal bureau. The quantity of lawyers in Israel does not match the country’s total population.

Yesterday, on your way to an urgent board meeting, you were too preoccupied with the decisions about to be made at the meeting to notice what was happening on the road and you drove through a red light. An alert policeman caught you, gave you a harsh ticket, and revoked your license until a court decision was made.

Your friend, who was suffering from financial difficulty, accepted a tempting offer to smuggle drugs from Mexico into Israel. An investigative team from the Drug Division of the National Unit was waiting for him as he got off the plane with the “package”. The smuggler was interrogated at the unit offices, and brought to a court in order to extend his arrest.

 It is clear to you that both you and your friend are in need of urgent legal services. It is not advisable that you should represent yourselves in the cases you face. After all, what do know about legal representation?  You don’t have the necessary knowledge or experience. This is your first experience with investigation teams, arrests, interrogation rooms, or waiting for courts to come to legal decisions regarding your case.

Your friend, shocked by the situation that he found himself in, chose to use the right to remain silent. “I want to talk to a lawyer,” he asks the investigator as he starts to use his basic rights, but the investigator answers him by saying “first answer my questions and then you can talk to a lawyer”. Your friend will continue in this power struggle (because he has no choice) and will respond to the investigator, “I’m not saying a word without a lawyer.”

You’re in a relatively good situation, compared to your friend. You don’t have to endure the pressures of arrest and interrogation. You have time to search for a lawyer who specializes in traffic violations. The worst thing you have to deal with is the expense of hiring a chauffer - an expense you can probably handle. Your comfortable financial situation enables you the temporary convenience of having to hire a chauffer.

 The “ping pong” interaction between the investigator and the investigated comes to an end. “You have two minutes to talk with a lawyer”, the investigator informs your arrested friend. The friend is moved by the allegedly kind gesture on the part of the investigator. He doesn’t even know that it is his basic right to consult an attorney.

Just as he is about to use the office telephone, his dialing fingers stop - “Wait a second, who am I actually calling? I don’t know any attorneys”.  And then, in a moment of embarrassment and helplessness, he remembers that whenever there is a news report on TV about a juicy criminal case, the report is filmed in the court room where attorneys are seen whispering advice into their client’s ears and preparing them for the legal discussions.

“What’s the name of the lawyer who’s always seen on TV whispering into his client’s ear?”  your friend asks the investigator. “Oh, you mean Maroz Moshe”, the investigator replies. “I think so”, your friend hesitates, and then asks the investigator to get the lawyer’s telephone number. The investigator does him the only favor performed since he was arrested, and gets him the telephone number of that famous lawyer on TV.

 These two scenarios are not fictitious. They are an inseparable part of the reality of our eventful lives. Criminal chronicles are routinely covered in the electronic and written media. Attorneys, like all professionals, conduct their business on the communications platform. Court rooms have turned into a secondary arena for events.  The main performances are given in studios and through newspapers.

Lawyers such as Moshe Maroz, David Iftach, Sasi Gaz, Karen Nahari, Eli Cohen, and others understood long ago that publicity is what brings in the clients.

Clients will not select a lawyer to represent them in publicized case based on a scholarly article that they wrote and published in a legal journal. You’d think that with all their preoccupation with marketing and publicity, they would have already forgotten what litigation is, and what it means to provide professional consultation and direct the evidence proceedings in a trial.

They don’t even get to those stages at all. They’re not equipped to handle a case from beginning to end, according to all the classical trial management steps. The thing they know how to do best is make a plea bargain. They are experts at this. Plea bargains do not require them to exercise the classic skills expected of every lawyer.

They break into our lives when they have a client who interests the media. They send text messages and beeper messages to criminal reporters, notifying them of arrest extensions. They receive the exposure that they so desperately need in order to boost their own self-marketing.

Their ratings are always on the rise. Reporters feed off these kinds of lawyers, and cooperate with them with pleasure. That’s just how it is. One hand washes the other. The reporters will not bother these lawyers with bothersome questions about the necessity or quality of a plea bargain. Publicized lawyers are the media’s treasures. They serve as a source of information for the criminal sections.

 It is interesting to note that this phenomenon is especially prevalent in criminal law. This is the subject most coveted by the media - it has all the elements of a newspaper - selling dramatic story. This fact has long been internalized by lawyers who serve as their own public relations specialists and lobbyists. Rozenstein, Amir Mulner, mafia, organized crime, car explosions and bodyguards - these are concepts that the public can digest, and even enjoy.

Attorneys who consult public trading companies, or who work long hours on drafting impressive complex contracts in the field of copyright protection and who represent venture capital funds, do not have the time or personalities to play the media game in the manner of criminal lawyers.  Their clients prefer that they stay out of the spotlight.

They want lawyers who can work hard and provide legal and contractual results, not television stars or well-connected public relations specialists.  Successful contracts do not make newspaper headlines (that are used the next day to wrap you-know-what).

This is not an exposé published in the weekend edition, initiated by a lawyer who convinced his client to do a striptease for the public in order to influence the court’s decision. And this is not, of course, a photogenic picture in the halls of the court building.  All these things have very short life spans that evaporate at high speeds.  They don’t leave marks that set precedents for future generations.

The next generation of publicized lawyers has chosen, unfortunately, a method outlined by the parent generation. The next generation didn’t have to court after leading attorney firms in order to be accepted for an internship. The familial firm was merely waiting for its heir to pass the bar exams. These young inheritors, who stepped into the criminal law shoes of their parents, did not carry with them the fresh air of pure legal training.

It would seem as though they learned more about marketing and publicity than about law. That they took more courses about how to perform in front of cameras than courses about contracts. The “son of” and “daughter of” gradually replace their parents, who invented the sophisticated and manipulative means of using the media for their own personal benefit (and not always for the benefit of their client, as it would seem).

I would not advise the smuggler waiting for the discussion regarding the extension of his arrest and  the director whose driver’s license was revoked to call those public relations specialists (who also, coincidentally, studied law) to represent them. We are in daily communication with a wide selection of truly professional lawyers who modestly and honestly do their work and elicit the best possible results for their clients.  Without using the glamour of the media.

A professional lawyer deals with jurisprudence, trials, editing pleas, and representing his client in legal proceedings. A lawyer who is truly professional does not have to befriend journalists and other people in the media. It is important to understand that lawyers specializing in public relations are not necessarily lawyers who specialize in legal representation.

We invite you to visit our Investigation Forum in order to consult with (among others) expert attorneys who will gladly assist you with any relevant legal problem.

Yanir Levin Intelligence Advising – A Private Investigation Agency ensures you investigations and information services on a different level!