Can a Wife Hire a Criminal Defense Lawyer for her Husband in State College, PA?

Hearing that your husband has been arrested for a crime can come as a shock and could disrupt many aspects of your life.  Especially if your husband is currently in jail, you might need to be the one to research attorneys and hire a criminal defense lawyer in State College to get your husband out of jail, fight the charges, and get the case behind you.  Criminal defense lawyer Andrew Shubin explains how wives can hire criminal defense lawyers to represent their husbands and how our attorney can help with your case.

Are Wives Allowed to Hire Criminal Lawyers for their Husbands in State College?

If your husband has been arrested and called you as his “one phone call,” you two might decide that you should be the one to find him a lawyer and call to set up an appointment, since it’s easier for you to do that from outside jail.  This is perfectly legal, and most people in jail end up getting a lawyer after they’ve been released or because a loved one on the outside sets the lawyer up for them.

If your husband has been arrested for a crime in State College or anywhere else in the surrounding areas, you can call our law office and set up a legal consultation for him.  You might know some of the facts about his arrest and what happened, but there is always a chance that you might have mistaken or incorrect information, too.  Either way, we will have to confirm the facts with your husband directly, which we can do in a meeting with him.  We will also need to get his permission to represent him.

Hiring a Lawyer for Someone Else in State College, PA

When you hire an attorney for someone else, there are some legal ethics rules and responsibilities that our attorneys have that you must be aware of.

When you hire a lawyer for someone else’s criminal case, the defendant is the client.  While you might be the one paying for the lawyer and making calls to set things up, our first responsibility will be to your husband, since he is the defendant in the case.  From that comes a few other rules and responsibilities.

Since your husband is the client, not you, that means that your husband has to be okay with our services.  You can call and set up our representation and get the ball rolling on the case, but we have to actually get confirmation from your husband that we can represent him.  From there, we can start helping with the case.

Because the defendant is the client, we might not be able to share information about the case with you.  Even though you might be husband and wife, our lawyer-client confidentiality deals with your husband.  That means that we actually can’t tell you anything about the case unless we get explicit permission from your husband that we can share information about the case with you.  This has nothing to do with keeping secrets from each other, but is instead an important legal rule that helps protect your husband’s confidentiality; if we let third parties listen in on our conversations, they might not be protected by lawyer-client confidentiality.  We want to do our best to protect that, so we will have to get explicit permission to share information about the case.

Helping Your Husband’s Criminal Case by Hiring a Lawyer for Him in State College

Hiring an attorney for your husband is one of the strongest ways you can help his case.  If you are not a lawyer yourself, you are not legally able to act as a lawyer for someone else and do things like petition the court for bail or make arguments to the judge.  Instead, you will need to get a licensed attorney to do that on his behalf.

When you hire a lawyer for your husband’s criminal case, it can help set his case up for success.  An experienced criminal defense attorney can fight to have bail set or work on a bail reduction hearing to help get your husband out of jail ahead of the case.  On the outside, it is much easier to meet with your lawyer to share information about the case, discuss constitutional rights violations, build your strategy, and discuss options such as pleas and community service agreements.

Once your husband is out of jail, we will be able to start working on the case itself.  As the spouse of the defendant, you might be an important character witness in certain cases.  We can work with you as needed to help with those aspects of the trial.  If phone records, texts, journals, financial records, or other information you have in your possession are important for your husband’s case, we can also work with you to gather this information and help build a defense.

In many cases, your communications with your husband will be privileged just like our conversations with your husband will be.  These privileges do not overlap though, so there are certain bits of information we might not want to hear that could jeopardize the case if you were to divulge them.  Because of this, the interactions between the defendant’s wife and attorney might be limited – but you still have every opportunity to call us and set up a free legal consultation at the beginning of the case.

Call Our State College Criminal Defense Attorney to Help with Your Husband’s Arrest

If your husband was arrested and charged with a crime in the State College area, contact The Law Office of Andrew Shubin today.  Our State College criminal defense lawyer fights bail cases and criminal charges to help get our clients out of jail, fight the charges against them, and reduce the penalties they might face.  For help with your husband’s case, call us today at (814) 826-3586 to set up a free case consultation.