It's not just that my clients lie to me a lot, which will only hurt them — it's that they’re really, really bad at it.

My job as a public defender puts me in a weird place. I am my clients’ zealous advocate, but I’m not their marionette. I don’t just roll into court to parrot whatever my clients tell me — I make sure I’m not re-shoveling bullshit. So for my sake and theirs, I do my homework. I corroborate. I investigate.

A significant portion of my job ironically mirrors that of a police detective. Every case I get requires me to deploy a microscope and retrace the cops’ steps to see if they fucked up somehow (spoiler: they haven’t). Sometimes I go beyond what the cops did to collect my own evidence and track down my own witnesses.

All this puts some of my clients of the [...]

The original text contained 6 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
March 5th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/h99tRkpQGxwtb9Dpv/my-clients-the-liars

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“My Clients, The Liars” by ymeskhout

LessWrong (30+ Karma)