My Why – Attorney Edwina Elcox
(Video Transcription:)
My name is Edwina Elcox, and I am a criminal defense attorney. I am a senior attorney with Brian Webb Legal located in Eagle, Idaho. And I am fortunate enough to have spent the vast majority of my career in criminal law. I was a deputy prosecuting attorney for the ADA County prosecuting attorney’s office for a little over half a decade where I dealt with all kinds of cases from general low-level misdemeanors to when I decided to transition to criminal defense, to being a felony trial team attorney. So that meant I litigated all aspects of felony cases, including when a person decided to stand on their right to go to trial. I also had the opportunity in that role as a deputy prosecuting attorney to be assigned to the specialty courts. And what that meant for our jurisdiction is to be assigned to the drug courts, mental health courts, and the veteran’s courts.
And that frankly offered me one of the most profound, eyeopening learning experiences that I’ve ever had in my life, not just my professional career. And those courts offered me the opportunity to get to know defendants in a way that the normal criminal justice system just would not afford. We wouldn’t get that level of information, that level of interaction. And frankly, it gave me insight, a profound learning experience, and a depth of knowledge to be able to understand people and their circumstances, and frankly, that they are oftentimes so much more than the crime that they’ve been accused of. That there’s so much more that they bring from life experiences to what got them to this position, to the interaction between substance abuse and mental health issues, that I frankly didn’t have. I didn’t have that depth of knowledge, that body of knowledge. I certainly couldn’t appreciate it in the way that these specialty courts taught me with the intersection of prosecutors, law enforcement treatment, providers, counselors, people that were truly invested in making sure that a person that had intersected with the criminal justice system was set up for success. And that was probably one of the best experiences that I could have had, and frankly shaped my career in a way that I certainly didn’t anticipate.
I decided to make the transition to criminal defense for a variety of reasons, both professional and personal. And I am honored on an, on a daily basis that my clients trust me with their life, oftentimes their life, their Liberty, their freedom. And I am oftentimes the only person that my client can talk to and not just as their attorney within the purview of the crime that they’re charged with, but the worries that they face, the uncertainty that they face, that their families face potentially facing years, if not up to life in prison. And it is a responsibility that is profoundly important to me, my ethical obligations as an attorney mandate, that I must be a zealous advocate for my client. And that is not something that I take lightly or, or is frankly something that is even up for a debate. That is my unequivocal obligation. And for me, that means late nights, that means early mornings, but that isn’t something that can not be put by the wayside for me. And so I am honored that people trust me with their, their lives, their freedom, their Liberty, their futures…
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