Trial Preparation - You are part of the legal team - Give it your best!

Your lawyer is not the one on trial when you go to court; you are.

It is your fight.

You alone will face the consequences of a guilty verdict, and you alone will be exonerated by a not-guilty verdict. The lawyer is there to help you, but cannot take your place; your role is crucial to your success in court.

It is up to you to make sure that your funding for legal services is sorted; lawyers, even Human Rights lawyers, are not volunteer social workers. They are skilled professionals whose expertise comes at a cost. When they aren't paid, or when payment is indefinitely delayed, you jeopardise your own case, as the lawyer will inevitably de-prioritise his work with you in favour of paying clients who properly value their services.

Always remember that the case is your case, it is about you, and you alone are the driver of how well or how poorly things will proceed. You have to be active, attentive, diligent, and serious. You need to be sober, alert and prepared. And, by "sober" we mean that in both the literal sense, and in the colloquial sense of being "on the wagon", at least during your trial. You need to be mentally present at all times. You will always know the fact of your case better than your own lawyer, and better than the prosecution; you can better anticipate what arguments and questions you will face in court. You have to equip your lawyer with all the relevant information, full disclosure, immediately; not little by little over the course of the trial. And once you are in court, you have to maintain a polite, intelligent, professional decorum.

Going to court means going to battle; it is a fight for your freedom, for your reputation, for your career, indeed, for life as you know it...so you must never be passive or pessimistic, and you cannot sit back hoping that your lawyer will be able to perform legal miracles.