Organization in a Capital Defense Term

The two key players at many capital defense firms, including the Northern Virginia Capital Defense Office, are the capital defense attorneys and the mitigation specialists. Before interning at this office, my knowledge of mitigation and a mitigation specialist’s role was very slim. My understanding of the relationship between mitigation specialists and the attorneys was even slimmer. 

It was easy for me to think that most of the work I’d be doing in the office was going to be with the attorneys. However, the majority of work done in the office, specifically pre-trial work, regards mitigation. Mitigation specialists work to uncover information about our clients’ lives from their childhoods into adulthood. This information is used to create a picture of the client’s life for the jury or judge that seeks to help them understand the circumstances that led up to our client allegedly committing a capital crime. This information is found through school records, hospital records, family and friend interviews, social media accounts, and virtually anything that can be useful in better understanding the client’s history. 

While the attorneys in the office do spend a lot of their time engaging in legal research, writing briefs, and other tasks, they spend a large amount of time aiding the mitigation specialists in gathering and analyzing mitigation information. The office is extremely collaborative and everyone’s help is necessary in order to complete mitigation research that is helpful to the client. Mitigation specialists and attorneys rely on each other and work with each other as equals, rather than one party as subordinate to the other. This relationship is the reason that the office is able to provide quality legal services to clients.