Why Analytics Must Drive Advocacy

May 2

The Power of Data in Criminal Defense

In one of my past roles as a law school administrator, I was tasked with overseeing data collection and analysis. At the time, I found it tedious and disconnected from the core skills I valued as an attorney. I didn’t go to law school to crunch numbers — I went to advocate, persuade, and seek justice.

Now, having returned to full-time criminal defense practice, my perspective has changed. What once seemed like busy work now stands out as one of the most critical missing pieces in our criminal justice system. Data — its collection, its analysis, and its application — is essential to creating fairer, more transparent outcomes.

We often think about data in the context of police departments or prosecutors' offices. But defense attorneys, too, can and should harness the power of data to advocate more effectively for our clients, to expose systemic injustice, and to push for reforms that make the entire system more just and equitable.

The Hidden Power of Data in Criminal Cases

Every decision made within the criminal justice system has far-reaching consequences. From arrest to plea bargaining to sentencing, these decisions impact not only the individual charged but their family, their job, their health, and their future. Yet, despite the high stakes, many of these decisions are still made without the benefit of systematic, objective data.

Consider a few examples:

How often are people detained pretrial for low-level offenses?
What are the typical plea offers made for similar charges across different prosecutors or jurisdictions?
How do sentences vary depending on the race, gender, or economic status of the defendant?
How do different judges rule on motions to suppress or sentencing mitigation arguments?

Without structured data collection and analysis, the answers to these questions remain anecdotal at best and invisible at worst. Patterns of injustice go unrecognized. Opportunities to advocate for fairer outcomes are missed.

In short: if we don't know what's happening across cases, we can't effectively challenge injustice — and we can't fully inform or empower our clients.

Defense Attorneys Must Be Data Advocates

While there is growing momentum for prosecutors to modernize their data systems, defense attorneys need to join — or even lead — the movement toward a data-driven justice system.

Data in the hands of defense attorneys can serve several critical functions:

1. Improved Plea Negotiations

Defense attorneys armed with data about historical plea outcomes can push back more effectively against unreasonable offers. For example, knowing that in 80% of comparable cases a defendant received probation rather than jail gives a strong foundation to argue for consistency and fairness.

Rather than relying solely on intuition or informal conversations with colleagues, attorneys can bring hard evidence to the negotiation table.

2. Identifying and Challenging Bias

Data can help expose patterns of racial, economic, or geographic bias. If data shows that individuals from marginalized communities are consistently receiving harsher pretrial conditions or longer sentences, that information can form the basis for legal challenges, public advocacy, or internal system reforms.

As defenders of constitutional rights, we have a duty to challenge these disparities wherever we find them — and data gives us the tools to do so.

3. Shaping Case Strategy

Understanding trends within a jurisdiction can profoundly impact defense strategy. Knowing a particular judge’s sentencing patterns, or a specific prosecutor’s likelihood of negotiating certain charges, can help an attorney craft a more realistic strategy and set better expectations for their client.

It also allows defense teams to make more informed decisions about whether to advise a plea deal, seek diversion, or take a case to trial.

4. Enhancing Client Counseling

Clients facing criminal charges are asked to make life-altering decisions — often with limited information. Data allows attorneys to give clients a clearer picture of their options, including the realistic risks and benefits of going to trial versus accepting a plea.

By grounding advice in hard numbers, we not only improve the quality of representation but also build greater trust with the individuals we serve.

5. Promoting Systemic Change

Defense attorneys are often on the front lines, witnessing firsthand the systemic flaws and inequities of the criminal justice process. Collecting and sharing aggregate data about case outcomes, pretrial detention rates, plea bargaining practices, and sentencing disparities can be an essential part of pushing for broader policy reforms.

Defense-led data initiatives can amplify the voices of clients and communities who are too often silenced or ignored.

Practical Steps for Defense Attorneys

You don’t need a large budget or a degree in statistics to start using data in your defense practice. Here are some practical ways defense attorneys — even solo practitioners or small offices — can start harnessing the power of data:

Track Your Own Cases: Create a simple system (even a spreadsheet) to record key details like charges, plea offers, sentencing outcomes, and pretrial detention decisions. Over time, patterns will emerge.
Aggregate Information Across Offices: Local defense bars can collaborate to share anonymized data, creating more robust datasets for negotiations and advocacy.
Partner with Researchers: Universities, nonprofit organizations, and research institutes often have students or researchers eager to assist in analyzing data related to justice reform.
Invest in Smart Case Management: Some modern case management systems include analytic capabilities that make it easy to track outcomes and spot trends. Choosing the right technology can multiply your data power without creating new burdens.
Advocate for Transparency: Push prosecutors' offices, courts, and public agencies to release more data — and hold them accountable when they resist.

Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Of course, integrating data into daily defense practice comes with challenges:

Time and Resources: Defense attorneys are often under-resourced and overburdened. Building data systems can feel like one more task in an already overwhelming workload.
Solution: Start small. Even basic tracking of major case milestones can yield valuable insights over time.
Confidentiality: Defense attorneys must be careful to protect client confidentiality when collecting and analyzing case data.
Solution: Focus on anonymized trends and patterns, not identifying details. Data ethics must be a priority.
Lack of Institutional Support: Unlike prosecutors’ offices, defense organizations often don't have IT departments or data analysts.
Solution: Build partnerships, apply for grants, and seek out collaborations with organizations that specialize in data justice work.

The important thing is not to be discouraged by what you don't have. Meaningful progress is possible with even modest efforts.

Data Is Advocacy

Ultimately, collecting and using data isn’t about turning lawyers into statisticians. It's about giving us sharper tools to do what we already strive to do every day: advocate zealously for our clients, challenge systemic injustice, and promote fairness within an imperfect system.

Data allows us to ask better questions:

Why is bond being set so high for clients charged with the same offenses?
Why do plea offers vary so widely between similarly situated defendants?
Why are certain judges imposing harsher sentences — and what can we do about it?

It also gives us better answers: hard evidence to back up what we already know from experience but have struggled to prove.

Conclusion: A Call to Action

The criminal justice system too often operates in darkness, shielded by a lack of transparency and a resistance to introspection. As defense attorneys, we can — and must — be a part of changing that reality.

Harnessing the power of data is not about abandoning the art of advocacy. It's about strengthening it. It's about making better arguments, crafting smarter strategies, and ultimately achieving better outcomes for our clients and our communities.

Justice cannot exist without information. It’s time for defense attorneys to step boldly into the data-driven future — not just to keep up with reform trends, but to lead them.