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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Welcome to the shit show. Things are going to get weird. It's your fav villain, Kale Lowry. And you're listening to Barely Famous. Welcome back to another episode of Barely Famous Podcast. Today, I not only have a dedicated listener as a guest, but also a powerhouse in the courtroom. So I'm excited to announce Kayla Murphy.
Chapter 2: When should someone hire a criminal defense attorney?
Welcome to Barely Famous Podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Kayla.
I'm a big fan.
First of all, I have to give you your flowers for how you even got here. So Kayla reached out to me in an Instagram DM and I'm basically shooting my shot everywhere all over the place in 2026. And so I really resonated with the DM and I was like, here, Rebecca, please book her for Barely Famous. And so you are barred in Washington and you have your own firm. as a criminal defense attorney.
Chapter 3: What inspired Kayla Murphy to pursue criminal law?
So let's talk about it. I have a lot of questions. One thing that I want to ask is about, first of all, when would people retain you as a criminal defense attorney?
Well, I have had people retain me pre-charging. So when they know that an investigation is ongoing, but before a prosecutor has actually decided to move forward. So I would say You could get a defense attorney on board as soon as you suspect that you're potentially being investigated for a crime. Or once you're charged, I would say that's when most people get me on board.
Interesting. And what made you want to go into criminal law versus every other scope of the work? Yeah. It's the most interesting. Okay.
I grew up watching a lot of like Cops and America's Most Wanted with my dad. Yeah. And so when I was a kid, I thought I wanted to be a prosecutor, you know, like put the bad guys away. But like I'm not, you know, very, you know, strong or whatever. I'll use my brain. But I think as I grew older, I just realized that people are very dynamic.
And I think that most people are really capable of anything given the right circumstances. And I mean – Frankly, I've loved most of my clients. I think most of my clients are like good people who just made a mistake. And I think there's something really beautiful about being able to like guide people through that shame and shame.
When you go to law school, is it sort of like medical school where you do rotations and clinics in the different fields of medical or is it completely different where you kind of just get the overview of law and then you specialize after? Yeah.
Basically the latter.
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Chapter 4: How do plea deals work in the criminal justice system?
So you'll take, you know, property, crim law, all of those basics. You typically get an opportunity to pick some classes, like maybe you really want to learn about environmental law or something like that. But there's not like clinics where you actually get to practice the work. I would say the closest thing is, oh gosh, I guess you could call it like you can take
kind of do like a class, like internship type thing with like the prosecutor's office or like domestic violence resource organization. So you can kind of work with clients a little bit in that sense. But I would say like law school really doesn't teach you how to be a lawyer. I think it's something that you just have to learn on the job.
So do you think that the apprenticeship type of lawyers actually benefit more than people that go to law school?
Chapter 5: What happens during a domestic violence arrest?
They probably do, honestly.
I think just – I have a little bit of like that – boomer mentality that I'm trying to like get rid of, you know, it's like, well, I have to suffer. But it's like, no, just because you suffer doesn't mean they have to suffer too. Like there's a better way to do it. Like you should do it the better way. And like, frankly, I mean, I went to law school at the University of Oregon.
And so, you know, and I practice in Washington. So it's not like you're necessarily learning the laws that you're going to be working with every day, you know, overall larger like concepts.
Kim Kardashian gets a lot of backlash online for doing it the way that she's doing it. But I kind of have respect for her doing it that way because you're just immediately sort of immersed in that. And then you're forced to – you'll have to look up the laws. So it's not like you're not going to know.
I mean, thankfully, we have the world at our fingertips on our phones and through the books and through all the things. And so – And then case law, of course. And so I think it's really cool. Delaware doesn't offer that. So I know some states do and some states don't. And so we don't have that here. But I think that's kind of cool that that's even an option.
I mean, I think it takes a little bit longer than law school. Do other lawyers look at... lawyers that do the apprenticeship approach differently or do they not really care or how does that work?
So we do have that in Washington state and I've only known one attorney who has gone through that program and she is amazing. And, um, I've seen her in court and she does a really good job and she really doesn't have like that same, um,
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Chapter 6: Why do victims sometimes get arrested in domestic violence cases?
I don't know, uneasiness, I think that I did when I first went into practice. And that's probably because she's like, you know, been on the ground and like actually sees how the work is done. Where in law school, I think a lot of people will like realize, oh my gosh, I don't even actually want to be a lawyer. Like this work is not even, you know what I mean?
It's not like you're just like critically thinking about, you know, topics, which is a lot of what law school is, you know, just like concepts, like what is justice or, you know what I mean? I would say the most helpful thing about law school was also the most painful thing, which is the Socratic method, where basically they'll just pick you at random and ask you a question about the material.
And most law school classes are really big, especially your first year. God forbid you didn't read your whatever 150 pages you were supposed to read and you get called on to answer a specific question. That can be really painful, but it's good because it makes you think on your feet, which is probably the most useful skill that you can have, especially if you're in the courtroom a lot.
Right. Oh my gosh, that's so interesting. And it's funny that you just said, you know, some people get into law and they don't even want to be lawyers. Two of my, one of my favorite producers ever from Teen Mom, he was a former family attorney and then he got into law executive producing TV. He left that and went to TV.
And then another producer that I'm working with right now, she also is or was an attorney. They may still both be barred, but I always think that's so fascinating because I'm like... Why?
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Chapter 7: How can social media impact criminal cases?
I don't get it. And then I always tell my regular entertainment attorney, I want to be a lawyer. And she's like, yeah, do copyright or trademark or entertainment law because it's not like family law where nobody wins. I hate family law.
Yeah, I would imagine. Oh my gosh. I would take a criminal case any day over a family law case. I dipped my toes into it a little bit, but people are so petty and it's so annoying. And I think it's like once you have... you know, been on the ground, like trying to get people out of jail, like trying to save them from like, you know, years in prison.
It's like, am I really going to like work this hard for this stupid bullshit? Like, you know what I mean? Like we're fighting over a garage door opener.
Chapter 8: What rights do undocumented immigrants have in the criminal justice system?
Like what is this? Yeah.
But I mean. You'd be surprised. I mean, frivolous filings don't, I mean, you could file something for frivolous filings, but then it doesn't really do much. So I don't know. Okay. And so we briefly talked about it before we started recording, but you are barred in the state of Washington, but could you in theory go be barred in other states as well? Yes. And would you ever do that?
Totally. I've been practicing for over five years now. And I think that's the mark for most states where you can try to get, gosh, what's it called?
Like reciprocity. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's really cool. We have some questions about domestic violence, if you're okay answering that. Yeah, absolutely. What typically happens when police respond to a domestic violence call? Do you immediately get a call? Are you immediately involved as, not you specifically, but are criminal defense attorneys immediately involved?
No. Typically, the police will arrest somebody. And we'll get into that, I think, a little bit more about how sometimes they don't arrest the right person. But then they get booked into jail, they go in front of the judge, and then they either get assigned a public defender or told they don't qualify for a public defender. And then if they didn't qualify, that's when they would be looking for a
What would disqualify someone from a public defender? Making too much money. You have to be like a certain percentage under the poverty guidelines in order to qualify.
So when they arrest somebody and they say, you know, if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you, that only applies if you can't – what if you're like in between in that threshold that's like – it's the same way for like welfare benefits. Like you're in that threshold. I have a friend. She's a single parent of four kids. She gets no child support. Yeah.
she does not make the threshold. Like she's just over it just a little bit for like welfare benefits. It's the same thing. I did not realize that. I thought it was across the board. Like if you opted to not have a private attorney, you got a public defender.
No. No.
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