Change of pace - and case
Hearsay, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, December 11, 2006
It's not every day that the founding partner of a sizeable Boston law firm gets down into the trenches to handle a murder case on behalf of an indigent client.
Such was the move by Dwyer & Collora's Michael A. Collora, who recently secured a not-guilty verdict for a 29-year-old Dorchester man accused of killing two men and leaving a third with multiple gunshot wounds during a 2004 shooting spree.
At the conclusion of the weeklong trial, the Suffolk Superior Court jury acquitted Collora's client, Renardo Williams, of all charges.
What makes Collora's representation of Williams unusual is his handling of the defense as a court-appointed attorney and at a state-imposed hourly rate far below what he ordinarily charges private clients.
Collora, a former federal prosecutor who focuses his practice on white-collar criminal defense and civil litigation, has put his name on a Committee for Public Counsel Services list of private lawyers willing to represent defendants charged with murder in state court.
"Aside from the fact that it helps relieve CPCS from having to find counsel, the reason I take the cases is that trying cases sharpens your skills as a lawyer," Collora says. "The other advantage, from the firm's perspective, is that you can bring an associate along who may get some trial experience or at least get to observe a hotly contested case."
In the Williams case, Collora was assisted by Dwyer & Collora associate Shannon Frison.
Collora estimates that in recent years he has handled some 15 murder cases — five or six of which went to trial.
"Trials are less frequent now, particularly in the white-collar and civil area," he says. "Percentage-wise, murder cases still get tried more often than most, so you're going to get a trial which exposes you to some serious evidentiary and technical issues that you have to master — whether it's fingerprints, ballistics, blood or DNA."
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