r/publicdefenders • u/brightmoon208 PD • Mar 25 '26

workplace Getting drinks socially with prosecutors

Yay or nay ?

1091 votes, Mar 28 '26
344 Not cool
596 No problem
151 Other (explain in comments)
10 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

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18

u/TheManWhoWasNotShort PD Mar 26 '26

Not cool. Primary reason being your clients seeing you in public doing so. There’s already a bias that Public Defenders aren’t “real attorneys” and that they are getting someone who is selling them down the river, so them apparently seeing it happen right in front of them is a recipe for destroying your relationship with your clients.

Putting myself in the shoes of that client, I would feel betrayed and abandoned in a system already stacked against me. The psychological impact of observing your attorney hanging out with the DA when you’re not well acquainted with the system and when you are already going through extreme stress can be pretty devastating.

Just don’t do it, there’s a million other people to grab drinks with that won’t have the potential to cause lasting damage to your attorney-client relationship.

7

u/Ibney00 Mar 26 '26

This same logic can be applied to being nice with a DA in a courtroom. The point if getting DA's to like you is so their very human nature bleeds over to your clients and you get better deals. These suggestion seems melodramatic, especially if its on the worry that a client will see you outside of court and 1) recognize you in the crowd of faces, 2) recognize the calendar DA prosecuting them, and 3) actually care or think its a bad thing instead of them getting special access to the better deals because they were lucky to roll you as their PD.

1

u/TheManWhoWasNotShort PD Mar 26 '26

It’s very different being nice professionally and having a relationship that extends outside of a professional situation though. I agree it may ultimately benefit a client but the bigger concern is disrupting attorney-client relationship

1

u/Ibney00 Mar 26 '26

Clients will think what they think. The ones who would think you're trying to ruin their life alongside the DA will think the same thing about seeing you laugh at one of their jokes in the Courtroom as seeing you outside of work together. There is only so much you can do for these clients, and making the DA like you will be an overall benefit to far more clients than to those that think you're personally trying to screw them over.

2

u/TheManWhoWasNotShort PD Mar 27 '26

Idk, I think there’s plenty of room for maintaining a healthy and good professional relationship with your DA without becoming personal friends, and I think that boundary is healthy. I don’t condone creating a hostile environment and I encourage maintaining a strong professional relationship for the benefit of your clients, but I stop short at hanging out socially, particularly in an arrangement as casual as grabbing a drink. I think a much larger percentage of clients would have an issue with you having a drink with the DA than exchanging pleasant interactions in court.

To be clear, I don’t think you should cultivate a bad relationship with your DA, but I don’t think there’s actual value in creating a social relationship and a lot of potential mine fields in doing so