Mass exodus escaping Larry Krasner’s ‘leadership’

In a rare story critical of D.A. Larry Krasner, the Philadelphia Inquirer produced a report that has his own staff indicting Larry, a legal action to which he seems averse when it comes to criminals.

I’ve written many times about Let ‘em Loose Larry.

You know how I feel about him. This time I will report on how his own staff feels about him.

It ain’t flattering. (I note that reports of staff unrest were first reported in Ralph Cipriano’s BigTrial.net blog.) Staffers are screaming out of the office as if it were on fire.

The biggest disturbing fact is that two-thirds of the D.A.’s lawyers — 261 out of 340 — have left the office since Krasner took it over in 2018. You might ask how an office can efficiently prosecute criminals with turnover like that. You don’t have to ask — you know. It can’t.

While the Inquirer does not say the churn is unprecedented, it did make the story the lead on Page One. If that dropout rate were anywhere near normal, it would not have been given such display.

You can read the full story in the link I provided. For everyone else, I will provide the highlights.

More than 70 of the lawyers who said, “See ya,” we’re the alleged best and brightest for whom Krasner scoured Ivy League and Black colleges to find young lawyers interested in so-called restorative justice and not so much in prosecuting.

The most shocking statement I read in the story is this one, from a departing lawyer: “He would hire people that didn’t think anybody belonged in jail at all. Why are you a prosecutor? He would hire people who would cry after convicting someone.”

Now that’s woke — crying when you successfully prosecute a criminal It makes you wonder how hard some of these duds tried to prosecute criminals.

I use the word “duds” with little caution, because one-third of the  geniuses recruited by Krasner were unable to pass the bar exam. What the hell, just so their hearts are in the right place.

Two-thirds of the lawyers in Major Trials, which handles the most serious cases, were admitted to the bar in the last five years. That means they are green and chum for Philadelphia’s famed class of criminal lawyers.

The loss of experience began with Krasner’s first days in office, when he dismissed 31 veteran staffers, for various reasons, but mostly, I believe, because they did not share his vision of everyone charged with a crime is innocent.

Apparently, Krasner didn’t snuff them all. The story says several of the new kids on the block hired by Krasner described “micromanagement” by supervisors who seem opposed to Krasner’s reforms. A fifth column within the D.A.’s office? That may explain how Cipriano gets some of his scoops. That’s what reporters do.

Other new lawyers complained the reform they found was not the reform they expected.

I return now to the previously-mentioned crying lawyers. 

If you believe the dude did it, and you nail him, why would you burst out in tears?

It makes you wonder what the hell is going on in law schools.