California Penal Code, section 977(a), allows a defendant to have an attorney appear in the defendant's place at all times for a misdemeanor case, and for all court appearances after the initial arraignment in a felony case.

In any case, the judge may disallow this option, and in felony cases, often does. For misdemeanor cases, it is very rare when a judge will not allow an attorney to appear in the place of the defendant.

At Thurlow & Thurlow, we prefer to handle as much of our clients' cases as possible in our clients' absence. In almost all of our cases, our client never sees the inside of a courtroom.

This means that we update our clients on the status of their case by telephone, e-mail, text, or letter. The updates take more of our time, but we believe that the client is best served by an attorney appearing in court for the defendant.

There may be some situations where we believe the client should appear at the next court appearance. In such a situation, we will notify our client. Also, the client always has a right to attend their court appearance if they want.