DA and Criminal Defrense lawyer? Difference?

Question

I'm doing a report of which career field I want to go into. i'm 13 and right now I thought that I wanted to be a Criminal Defense lawyer and work my way up to DA. ButI don't understand how do you become a DA. What law do you have to specialize in? And for how long must you do it? Ijust don't get what general lawyer I want to be, if I want to be a DA then what do i have to do to get there basically

Answer 1

A DA (District Attorney) prosecutes criminal cases.  A criminal defense attorney defends criminal cases.  You don't work your way up to DA from defense attorney (or vice versa) since they work on the opposite sides of cases. To become one or the other you go to law school.  You can then take courses in criminal law and also, for example, do internships with the DA's office, public defender's office or private criminal defense attorney.

Answer 2

Both handle criminal cases but it's the hourly rate that differs and criminal defense lawyer is out in front.

Answer 3

The main difference is that a deputy DA/DA's job is to seek the truth and only prosecute those, who by their discretion, is guilty of the crime. They are prosecuting on behalf of society, not for a particular person. That is why criminal case captions are always "State v. John Doe" etc. A defense attorney must represent any guilty or not guilty criminal client charged with a crime, affectively and to the best of their abilities, once they are appointed to represent them, or decide to take on a criminal client's case via a private retainer.

You would probably not work your way "up" to being a deputy DA by being a defense attorney first. If you worked as a public defender first, you might have conflicts of interest in regards to prosecuting offenders that you had previously represented so that wouldn't be beneficial in landing a job at the DA's office. Both positions are something that you internship for while in law school. That's how you land deputy DA and Public Defender positions. And you would only start out as a deputy DA. The actual "DA" is an elected position. So in that regard, you could work your way up to that after building a reputation in the community as an honest, ethical, and zealous trial attorney. Deputy DA jobs are mostly beginner lawyer positions for the most part.