I loved the work. I missed it for years after I was arrested. I couldn't drive past 100 Centre New York City Criminal Court, that whole area, without crying, seeing people going to court and knowing I couldn't do that anymore. I still do miss it. I don't think I could ever go back. Maybe I could consider second-seating my son or someone else whose work I respect. But I could not take on any responsibility. I'm out of step; I haven't kept up.

We had people who did housing, people who did anti-war, people who did schools. Everyone operated in their own niche, but not separately. We all were together on certain issues when it was important. Everybody was active in the '60s. I feel that there's a lot of active radical thought today but not much action.

The prosecution makes all the important decisions: what's charged, how much is charged, whether you can get a decent offer. Every defendant becomes an informant today.

Today, it's not the same playing field as when I first became a lawyer in 1977, where the government had been restricted by our wonderful Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren's court rulings. Now it's all going the other way, the flow is against the defendant, against anything that could really help a client. But you still fight it, you do what you can do. It's all there is.

You know that question: What do you do when you think the client's guilty? The real question is: What you do when you think a client's innocent?

If you make a mistake as a prosecutor, your mistakes go home, whereas if you make a mistake defending, they go to jail.

Lawyering is very individualistic. There are lawyers who are going to be that persistent birddog, they're never going to give up on the client, they're going to defend people.