Mercer Law Review Volume 50 Number 2 Articles Edition Article 2 3-1999 The Calling of Criminal Defense Abbe Smith William Montross Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu/jour_mlr Part of the Criminal Law Commons, and the Criminal Procedure Commons Recommended Citation Smith, Abbe and Montross, William (1999) "The Calling of Criminal Defense," Mercer Law Review: Vol. 50 : No. 2 , Article 2. Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu/jour_mlr/vol50/iss2/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Mercer Law School Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mercer Law Review by an authorized editor of Mercer Law School Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. The Calling of Criminal Defense by Abbe Smith* and William Montross" There is a call to us, a call of service-that we join with others to try to make things better in this world. - Dorothy Day1 I have known men charged with crime in all walks of life ... when you come to touch them and meet them and know them, you feel the kinship between them and you .... I have friends throughout the length and breadth of the land, and these are the poor and the weak and the helpless, to whose cause I have given voice. - Clarence Darrow2 * Visiting Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center. Yale University (B.A., 1978); New York University School of Law (J.D., 1982). Abbe Smith teaches in the Criminal Justice Clinic and the E.