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| David S. Shankman |
Former President Donald Trump is struggling to find an attorney for the classified-documents case against him in Miami. Trump's best hope, according to an editorial opinion today at DonaldWatkins.com, is a Tampa-based lawyer named David S. Shankman.
Watkins, a longtime Alabama attorney and leading authority on criminal defense, writes under the headline "Trump is Having a Hard Time Finding a Capable Criminal Defense Attorney":
Yesterday, Donald Trump attended his arraignment in a Miami federal courthouse without a lead trial attorney. Trump spent the day before the arraignment interviewing criminal-defense attorneys.
Donald Trump is having a hard time finding a qualified and capable Miami-based criminal-defense attorney to lead his defense team because lawyers in this specialty area rarely try cases anymore. They typically encourage their clients to plead "guilty," something that Trump will never do. This "guilty plea" trend has gotten much worse in the past 20 years.
As a result, very few criminal-defense attorneys in Miami and/or America have significant trial experience. None of them has a substantial or impressive win-loss record in trials that resulted in "Not Guilty" verdicts.
For the most part, their professional reputations are built on PR hype, not real courtroom performance.
But that does not mean they would be capable of handling a complex criminal matter like the one Trump faces -- even if they had the time, and the inclination, to take such a case, Watkins says:
Just because a lawyer is a talking-head on a TV news show does not mean he/she has substantial trial experience. In fact, I do not know of any of the TV lawyers/commentators who has an impressive win-loss record in trials.
Because they have no trial experience, the overwhelming majority of criminal-defense attorneys simply surrender their clients, rather than fight for them in the “gladiator pit.” This is why federal prosecutors win 99% of their criminal cases.
Today, I only know of one lawyer in America who is capable of winning Donald Trump’s case and his name is David S. Shankman. I featured Shankman in an article I published on June 10, 2023.
Shankman, a Tampa-based lawyer, is the only attorney I know who possesses the knowledge, courtroom skills, litigation abilities, and trial experience needed to win Trump’s criminal case – a case where losing is not an acceptable option.
We explained in a recent post here at Legal Schnauzer why Watkins thinks so highly of Shankman:
A longtime Alabama attorney, who is one of the nation's foremost authorities on criminal defense, says the No. 1 trial lawyer in the United States is David S. Shankman, of Tampa, Florida.
Donald Watkins, who holds the U.S. record for winning the most counts in a single-defendant federal criminal case, had a personal courtroom encounter with Shankman that left him deeply impressed -- both professionally and personally.
Why did the battle with Shankman, of the Tampa firm Shankman & Leone, leave such an impression on Watkins? At the time, the Alabama attorney had a 155 winning streak in trial victories, which had lasted roughly three decades. The streak came to an end in October 2017 in a St. Petersburg, FL, courtroom. Who ended the streak? It was David Shankman.
Was Watkins bitter about the outcome. Nope, he proved to be classy loser. This is how Watkins tells the story in a post at his DonaldWatkins.com Web site:
No one in America could beat J. L. Chestnut in the courtroom. He was the "best of the best" trial lawyers.
J. L. Chestnut, Jr., died on September 30, 2008.
Chestnut’s mentorship and litigation training helped me to establish a three-decades long winning streak of 155 straight trial victories.
My winning streak ended in October of 2017 in a St. Petersburg, Florida, courtroom, when David S. Shankman, a Tampa-based attorney with the law firm of Shankman Leone, beat me at the conclusion of a three-week trial.
Watkins' admiration for Shankman has only grown over the years. Watkins writes:
Shankman, a Tampa-based lawyer, is the only attorney I know who possesses the knowledge, courtroom skills, litigation abilities, and trial experience needed to win Trump’s criminal case – a case where losing is not an acceptable option.
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