AADC Pro Bono Committee Spotlight

The Arizona Association of Defense Counsel’s Pro Bono Committee coordinates a program providing free, confidential, initial consultations for attorneys facing disciplinary charges through the State Bar of Arizona. The committee has established relationships with a panel of experienced attorneys to provide this free consultation to members of the State Bar of Arizona. If a member faces disciplinary charges and desires a free initial consultation, he or she may contact the AADC committee members listed below, Dan Coumides and Parker C. Bunch, who serve as the program coordinators. When a request is received, the coordinators will contact one or more panel members to determine their ability to provide the free initial consultation. The panel member will directly contact the attorney requesting the initial consultation. The entire process is strictly confidential. The AADC’s Pro Bono program has been active for many years and has helped numerous attorneys obtain counsel to navigate the difficult process of disciplinary complaints. The AADC and the Pro Bono Committee look forward to several more years of assisting Arizona attorneys through this program.

Don’t fill your summary judgment motion with the irrelevant minutia of how your opponent delayed discovery (but you eventually obtained the information). Don’t describe how opposing counsel was late to two depositions a year ago or made a mistake serving a subpoena three months ago It doesn’t matter It doesn’t tell your summary judgment story It only confuses your reader or distracts from more important information

The same goes for trial Time and juror attention spans are precious. Don’t use your case to introduce the equivalent of mean Tweets. Those might give you or your client some internal satisfaction, but they don’t help the jury do their job Imagine them deliberating: “The defense lawyer kept asking questions about ‘disclosure’ and ‘26 1’ I don’t see that in our final instructions Do you?”

Lawyers don’t write or speak without guardrails, of course We must tell our stories with admissible evidence We can’t create facts to plug a hole like a fiction writer. We have ethical obligations. We have page and time limits. The elements of claims or defenses drive what our stories will include. All true. But those realities don’t mean we aren’t telling stories They only mean we must tell our stories more carefully