Should I instruct a lawyer or, better still, a specialist lawyer for criminal law to defend me in court?
The following circumstances should facilitate the decision-making process:
A lawyer in the Federal Republic of Germany may use the title of specialist lawyer in accordance with § 2 of the Specialist Lawyers Ordinance (FAO) if he or she demonstrates special theoretical knowledge and special practical experience in a field of law in a formal procedure.
Special theoretical knowledge and special practical experience is voted on by a specialist lawyer committee consisting of 5 lawyers practicing in the legal field if this knowledge and experience in the specialist field significantly exceeds the level of knowledge and experience normally acquired through professional training and practical experience in the profession.
Furthermore, the theoretical knowledge and special experience of the specialist lawyer for criminal law must be related to constitutional, European and human rights law.
Similar to a specialist doctor, the specialist lawyer must therefore be an expert in his or her field of law and prove this by means of a case list of at least 40 trial days at higher German courts (courts of lay assessors, large and small criminal chambers, jury courts, etc.) and have handled 60 criminal cases independently and without instructions within the last three years.
If the number of 60 cases is spread over 3 years, the average number of cases processed per year is 20.
At 52 weeks per year, this means that the specialist lawyer in criminal law has dedicated almost half of his financial year to the criminal defense of his clients and has fought for this in court.
With such an amount of work, you automatically learn a lot about your cases, the German criminal courts, their staffing, the weak points in the system and incorporate this into the handling of each unique case in order to achieve the best result for the client in the end.
Furthermore, the specialist lawyer must provide evidence of 15 hours or more of further training from the Bar Association every year in order to be able to keep his title.
The College and/or the Bar Association are also pleased to see that the specialist lawyer in criminal law makes academic contributions through lectures or specialist articles in which he passes on his expertise.
The specialist lawyer for criminal law must have proven the special qualification before the locally competent bar association (§ 22 para. 1 and 2 in conjunction with § 6 FAO), which awards the lawyer the title of specialist lawyer.
The above-mentioned special knowledge is therefore tested in practice and in theory (see § 13 FAO) and the specialist lawyer for criminal law thus possesses it in the following areas:
- Methodology and law of criminal defense and the relevant auxiliary sciences
- Substantive criminal law including juvenile, narcotics, traffic, commercial and tax criminal law
- Criminal procedural law including juvenile criminal and misdemeanor proceedings as well as criminal execution and penal law.
The lawyer acquires this special theoretical knowledge as part of a specialist lawyer course, which the lawyer must complete by passing three exams.
The exams in the course for specialist lawyers in criminal law are proofread and assessed by senior judges and public prosecutors, and the lectures are also given by judges at the Federal Supreme Court and federal public prosecutors, among others, as well as other renowned lecturers.
Conclusion
All in all, it can be said that a specialist lawyer in criminal law stands for quality assurance in the highly competitive legal market and that his specialist expertise clearly sets him apart from a generalist, i.e. a lawyer without a specialization.
This is expressed in the approach to the work and is noticeable in the form of the result, but is also reflected in the fee, as good performance has its price.