There's an old song lyric from back in the 90s, which I still love, and quote pretty frequently by Cypress Hill.

And the line is, when the shit goes down, you better be ready.

And I love it because that my friends is a fact.

When you are in private practice as a criminal defense attorney and you have your own firm,

you're actually running two businesses, which are diametric opposites of one another,

as the practice of law has absolutely nothing to do with running a small business.

So when a call comes in on a major case, that potentially will bring in a large fee,

it's not the no-brainer that you think it would be to take the case.

No, there are many factors that have to be weighed before the trigger is pulled,

and you decide to take the case.

Beyond that, it becomes an even more difficult decision when you discover that the case is not

in a state where your license to practice law.

So when Fernando Garcia began searching for Illinois attorneys in the early morning hours of July 17th of 2013,

Alison and I had no concept of how our world was going to be turned upside down in a matter of minutes.

Now, I've told you this portion of the story many times,

and I'm not taking any creative license here, but Alison and I had gotten into some type of beef that night,

the subject matter of which I cannot recall, but I can almost guarantee that it was due to me saying

we're doing something stupid.

At any rate, it was around 2 a.m., and I was down in the living room watching TV,

and she was upstairs in bed.

Now, at that point in time, we'd been living in our house for about seven years,

and at no time had I in all those years ever checked the firm emailed to see if any calls had come in during the late evening hours.

...