Once you get hired by a client to represent them in a criminal case, there would be number of things that you would need to get done before the court date arrives. However, one thing needs to be done first before anything else, and a big part of the reason what that is the case has to do with the fact that it would have an impact on how comfortable your client might just end up being during the proceedings that are underway.
The first thing that you should do for your client is to get them bail. A lot of criminal lawyers for Tampa residents end up getting hired by people who are already in jail. They are not in prison of course since they have not been sentenced yet, but they are still behind bars in a rather badly kept facility. Your main priority here should be appealing to the judge and asking them to give your client the chance to walk free for now since the time for sentencing is still quite far away and they might need to figure out how they can support themselves in the meantime.
Getting your client bail would then allow you to talk to them in a convenient manner too. It can be impossible to get your client to calm down and trust you if they are in jail after all, so prioritizing bail is the sort of thing that won’t just make them happy, it would also make your job a lot easier which is really quite important. Bail can be set at all kinds of amounts so try to make sure it’s at a cost that your client can afford.