I think DSS is the demonic sister of Satan,” defense attorney Rich Cassady said without mirth.
Cassady is referring to the Department of Social Services and, after a more than 20-year career as a defense attorney spanning several counties, he has earned the right to hold such an opinion.
“It’s not an issue of corruption, but more that the system is broken,” Cassady said. “I think they only go after the poor, and then they drag on for a year and half with no resolution.”
Cassady admits his opinion may be jaded as he drives from courthouse to courthouse serving his clients.
“A typical day? There’s no such thing,” he said. “This week, I’m in court every day; tomorrow, I’ll be in federal court.”
Cassady’s work as a criminal lawyer is quite different from many of his 30,000 peers, who are all licensed in the State of North Carolina.
“Criminal law is very different from land law, for example,” he said. “You have to have empathy in this job, but it can’t consume you. You can’t adopt these people’s drama, these people’s problems as your own. It will eat you up.”
Fighting fatigue
The American Bar Association agrees with him and has created Lawyer Assistant Programs to assist attorneys who experience what they term compassion fatigue. On its website, the Bar writes that “those who are regularly exposed to human-induced trauma, and are called on to empathetically listen to victims’ stories, read reports and descriptions of traumatic events, view crime or accident scenes, and view graphic evidence of traumatic victimization” may be at risk for compassion fatigue.
It’s unlikely Cassady would succumb.
“Some people can’t do it,” he said. “You’re not going to have this problem if you are a land attorney, that’s more a business. I’ve chosen this, I have to let go or I’ve got to do something else.”
One way Cassady deals with the pressure is to have a short memory.
“When I lose, I have to move on,” he said. “I feel the sting of the loss, then I have to have a short memory or go back to installing cable television.”
Cassidy always knew he wanted to be a lawyer, but won’t call it a vocation.
“I’ve been accused of that,” he said with a laugh, “but I don’t want to be taken as a zealot. I’m not out there hollering ‘cops are always wrong’ and ‘everybody is innocent.’ ”
In fact, Cassady considers his client’s innocence or guilt beyond his concern.
“I’d much rather represent the guilty,” he said. “Then I don’t have to worry that if I fail or miss something, ask one too many questions, that I might screw up and cost this guy his freedom.”
Defending the guilty
The U.S. Department of Justice published a study from the University of Bridgeport Law Review about defending the guilty. In it, they argue that a defense attorney’s job is to vigorously defend his client.
“In fact,” they write, “the symbolic value of having an attorney represent a defendant may be increased when we know the accused is guilty. Moreover, we should expect lawyers to handle the defense in the same way regardless of their views about the client’s guilt.”
Cassady has no problems with this kind of defense.
“I almost never ask them, ‘Did you do it?’ because I don’t care,” he said. “The state has to prosecute them.
“The person I have standing next to me knows if they did it or not. If they don’t tell me, they can take the stand and say what they want. If they do tell me, I have to withdraw or commit a fraud against the court.”
North Carolina Rule 3.3 (a) (3) states, “a lawyer shall not knowingly … offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false.”
The consequences are steep. A lawyer who allows his client to lie on the stand could face prosecution for suborning perjury and be suspended or disbarred.
However, Cassady’s fears don’t rest with such things.
“I’ve represented evil, and they are entitled to the same effort from me,” he said. “I have a duty to perform. Duty is what drives this attorney.”
Representing the innocent
Cassady’s real fear lies in representing the innocent.
“It’s terrifying to represent someone you believe is innocent,” he said. “Did I do enough?”
Cassady said he never looks at the jury when they come back.
“I just look at the floor,” he said. “You want justice in this country? You get 12 in a box. If 12 in a box say Cassady is wrong, who am I to say I wasn’t? Am I that much smarter than them?”
Early in his career, Cassady said he gave it all of his time.
“I used to not be able to turn it off,” he said. “But you’ve got it or it will cost you a family, a marriage.”
Cassady remembered advice he received from an experienced lawyer one late night sitting around a desk working.
“He said, ‘This desk will never look up and say, ‘I love you daddy.’ It will never love me back. I had to find a way to disengage from the passion I have for this practice. I was working until 10 at night, Saturdays and started eyeballing Sunday when my wife sat me down for a one-way conversation.”
Bloomberg Law conducted a study on attorney burnout and found that of the 614 lawyers questioned, 52 percent experienced burnout. The American Bar Association reported that 24 percent of lawyers who passed the bar in 2000 were not practicing law in 2012.
Cassady holds to a philosophy that might explain his longevity in a career that sees so much attrition.
“I’m in the advice business,” he said, “not the decision-making business.”
Besides, Cassady doesn’t have a plan B.
“I’m too fat to go back to installing cable TV,” he said with a laugh.
How it started
Cassady’s career, in a roundabout way, is a legacy to his daughter. “I’m not a lawyer because I sucked at math and couldn’t get into medical school,” he said.
Cassady was involved in a custody battle over his 4-year-old daughter and lost.
“I already knew on March 1, 1996, at that custody hearing that I could do a better job than this,” he said. “It’s why I pushed through my degree while I was in the Navy.”
When Cassady left the Navy, he went directly to law school. When he’s not in court, Cassady hangs out with his wife of more than two decades and his Pomeranian-poodle mixes Lucy and Penny Iris.
“I named them after my paralegals, who always leave me to become wives or mothers,” he said.
Cassady has handled several high-profile cases, including the acquittal of Harland Squirrel of Cherokee and Daniel Hughes of Cherokee County in 2020.
“We’re really trying,” he said of his colleagues. “It’s not about the money. We really are doing our best, even if we are the easy ones to hate.”
But for those wishing to follow in his footsteps, Cassady said, “I would encourage them to become dentists.”