Anyone who has been involved in the practice of criminal defense law for a while has had a client or two sentenced. A recent PEW Research Center Report examined federal criminal cases. There were 80,000, but only 2% went to trial, 8% were dismissed and 90% pled guilty. Of the remainder, 800 went to trial and were convicted.

Sentencing is a recurring and common phenomena but there are not a lot of CLE's focused on it. This is going to be an exercise on individualizing your client for sentencing. All of us - lawyers, judges, and defendants, are individuals. How your client came to be in their current predicament has its own story. Some of it may be unsavory, but that person has a life story and there is often more good there than might be evident at first glance.