“You keep your trap shut,” says Daniel Muessig, who is absolutely a real lawyer, ” and I’ll keep your trap open.”
Dan will defend you for everyday offenses such as murder and burglary, but also “funny throwback crimes such as moonshining.”
Also, he adds, “I think like a criminal: street knowledge.”
I have never been prouder of my adopted home town than at this moment. Slate’s Amanda Hess interviewed the Squirrel Hill native.
Muessig: The most important thing to me is helping a client out. … You have to know what your client wants out of the situation. You have to be able to say, “I know you, I understand where you’re coming from, and what your aims are,” and be able to build your defense around their needs. You don’t want to be the typical white guy in the suit who’s going to impose his worldview on the client. That’s, honestly, the attitude of most lawyers working today. There’s been some diversification in the field over the past 50, 20, 10, five years, but it’s still an overwhelmingly old, white, male, moneyed profession. It’s a lot of patrician guys talking down to people who are in their office. There’s a lot of condescension. If you come at it with a knowledge of the streets, what these people are facing, and how it affects their lives, you can really focus on how best to help them.
In all seriousness, there’s a history to Pittsburgh and unusually epic lawyer ads. Here is a classic, in the terrifying, explosion-gilded form of Larry Green.
GET WHAT’S YOURS.
Then there are the twins, Shenderovich and Shenderovich.
