Law360 Canada (July 21, 2026, 2:24 PM EDT) -- When facing a criminal charge, the person representing us as a lawyer is fundamentally important. For most of us, our lawyer is our guide to the arcane processes and rules of the justice system. She or he tells us what our choices are and has a huge influence on what we decide to do — which in most cases is to plead guilty. More than that, lawyers are often a main source of emotional support for those facing the overwhelming power of the criminal justice system and the huge anxiety that comes with the destruction of our life that being arrested represents.

At the same time, and just because they are so important, it’s hard for most clients not to retain some suspicion about our lawyers. For several reasons, we can’t help feeling that our lawyers may not be 100 per cent on our side. None of what follows is meant to suggest that defence lawyers are not doing their best for their clients; rather, these tensions are an inevitable part of how the system operates.

The choice of a lawyer — if indeed one does choose — is typically made hurriedly and with little information. Very few people already have a criminal defence lawyer when they are arrested.

There I was, in a police interrogation room, still reeling from being arrested and all that it implied, being asked if I had a lawyer. I picked one whose name I knew through a friend and who had a significant reputation. At that point all I wanted was someone on my side who could help me figure out what to do.

I was lucky in having some choice. Many defendants can’t afford to pay a lawyer, or have no idea who they might use. The day I was arrested, awaiting a bail hearing in a cell with half a dozen others, there was lots of discussion about potential lawyers and legal aid that filled me with dismay about how ignorant people were about this essential choice.

When I was first arrested, my lawyers gave me some very good advice. The first and perhaps most important was to decline to say anything when police questioned me. He made it clear that nothing I said would help me, but it could certainly hurt me. He also gave me important information about how the process would unfold — for example, that I likely would not get bail on the first occasion. There were many other occasions during the two years between arrest and my sentencing when my lawyer’s advice was important.

Yet there were other aspects of the process that made me wonder if my lawyer was 100 per cent on my side — and I know from many discussions with others that these concerns are common if not universal.

First, there was all the meetings that occurred between my lawyer and the Crown. Most of these meetings seemed to produce nothing more than an agreement to have another meeting. I do not know what was said about my case at such meetings. I do know that each one cost me a significant amount of money for what seemed to be no outcome.

The reality is that the cost of a criminal defence is prohibitive for almost all defendants. Many people I met spent all their retirement savings or remortgaged, or even sold, their houses to pay their lawyers. But the more work your lawyer does on your behalf, the more it costs you. It’s very hard not to feel that your inability to pay more might lead to a less effective defence, such as some angle of law left unexamined or some expert testimony not sought.

My lawyer did not have a lot of experience with cases like mine. This is not surprising; nobody can be familiar with every area of criminal law. Still, this meant, in effect, that I was paying him to learn more about the law related to my case. Since I spent many hours studying this area as well, I knew that the limits of his knowledge would affect my defence. Towards the end of the case, I came to believe that I knew more about the social science evidence in this area than did my lawyer. After all, I had only one case to focus on, and he had many. Could we have mounted a better defence had he known more? Perhaps.

At any given time, a criminal defence lawyer is negotiating many cases with Crown attorneys. It’s hard to imagine that there isn’t a certain amount of quid pro quo in these negotiations, in which lawyers push harder on some cases (perhaps those with more chance of success) and less hard on others. They have to balance what is best for the whole range of clients they might represent over time.

Eventually came the point of deciding whether to plead guilty or go to trial. Only a very small proportion of criminal cases in Canada go to trial — about three per cent of charges and about 10 per cent of the cases that are resolved through plea or trial, according to one recent estimate.

The decision on whether to plead always involves some cost-benefit analysis. I was told that I had a reasonably strong case, partly involving Charter violations, for being found not guilty. The reasons why I chose to plead guilty were discussed in a previous column, and I won’t repeat them all here. They were complicated. Was I willing to have another year or more of limbo, not just for me but for my family and friends, to pay a lot more money, to endure a very public trial with an uncertain outcome? I already knew that even being found not guilty would not undo the damage done to my career and reputation.

Many years later, I’m not at all sure I made the right decision, but I know that every person I met who faced a criminal charge had to make a similar calculus, and most came to the same conclusion — that pleading guilty was a better option than having a trial. Sadly, it is only this willingness to plead guilty that allows our system to function. If everyone went to trial, the entire system would collapse, as we can barely manage timely trials even for the small percentage of cases that have them.

There is no way to know if my outcome of a guilty plea and a substantial sentence was the best I could have done. In the end I was left feeling that I had paid an awful lot of money to get an outcome no better than I could have got for far less. Yet I am confident that my lawyer acted in good faith and represented me as he thought best for me. If I had it to do over again (God forbid!), I would try to choose a lawyer with more specialization in that area, and perhaps opt for someone a little newer to defence practice and a little hungrier. I would likely have felt better both about the cost and the advice. The outcome might well have been the same, though.

David Dorson is the pen name of someone who went through arrest, case disposition, imprisonment and parole in Ontario a few years ago. Law360 Canada has granted him anonymity because he offers a unique perspective on a subject that matters deeply to many readers, and revealing the author’s identity would make re-establishment in the community after serving his sentence much more difficult than it already is.

The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.

Interested in writing for us? To learn more about how you can add your voice to Law360 Canada, contact Analysis Editor Peter Carter at peter.carter@lexisnexis.ca or call 647-776-6740.