Getting Out of DIVERT?
Back in July, before the Harris County DA’s DWI DIVERT program went into effect, I noted: There will be lots of high-volume lawyers who see this as the best thing since deferred adjudication for resolving cases without actually, y’know, trying, but I don’t see myself encouraging clients to sign it unless the State has them dead to rights and they want to be at the mercy of the Harris County DA’s Office for another two years. So what does a defendant do whose lawyer has encouraged him to sign for the DIVERT program? Tyler Flood

Avvo Answhores
Avvo has this “Avvo Answers” thingumbob, in which “consumers” (that’s potential clients to you and me) can “Ask legal questions and get free advice from lawyers” (that’s from the header text). Avvo is pushing the “free advice” thing pretty hard—the URL of the page is http://www.avvo.com/free-legal-advice. That’s not how the people answering the questions see it, though. Here’s Austin criminal defense lawyer Paul Walcutt’s disclaimer: This answer is provided as a public service and as a general response to a general question, it is n

Outsource Your Marketing, 3000 Words Edition
Houston’s own Lindeman, Alvarado, and Frye has made ATL with four of its website pictures tastelessly illustrating “Child Sexual Assault & Internet Solicitiation [sic] of a Minor” (shown below), “Rape & Sexual Assault,” and “Family Violence.” (H/T Gideon, whose post is entitled “Why people think criminal defense lawyers are scum.”)

The Potential Value of Naming Names
In “An embarrassment to Texas justice,” Houston criminal defense lawyer Tom Moran writes about the case of his client Robert Thompson, executed the night before last after Texas Governor Rick Perry refused to commute his sentence despite the recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, for a capital murder in which he was not the shooter, and in which the shooter was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. The difference  between Thompson and his codefendant, writes Tom: their lawyers. Butler was represented by Rocket Rosen

Jurisprudential Retardation: Rodriguez-Parra
In August the Fifth Circuit decided U.S. v. Rodriguez-Parra, an illegal-reentry case in which Mr. Rodriguez argued that his fully-probated five-year sentence for marijuana trafficking should not have been used under section 2L1.2(b)(1)(B) to increase his offense level for illegal reentry by 12 points. The court found that Mr. Rodriguez should indeed not have suffered the increased offense level, but then—since Mr. Rodriguez’s lawyer had not objected to the 12-level enhancement in the trial court—continued with an analysis of the plainness of that error: We conclude, as stated above,