The mc is quite possibly the worst lawyer in the world. And I'm including the fake law and order/CSI world here.
Good thing the police seem to be equally incompetent
There are many problems with the law/police side of this game. I'll preface this list by saying I have no personal experience in law unless you count reading and watching a decent amount of crime and law fiction and non-fiction, so I may be mistaken in some of this.
In rough chronological order:
- Lydia is arrested despite never being questioned (as far as I can tell) by the police previously. An arrest seems extremely premature (more on this later).
- MC becomes Lydia's lawyer, but it's not exactly clear how. Lydia apparently has never met MC before, so did Lydia just ring up a random law firm? MC mentions how much money he's going to get from this case, so it's not a case of legal aid/public defender. Also, if Lydia is wealthy from her husband, why would she choose a one-man law office, rather than a larger legal team? I'm willing to suspend my disbelief on this one though cause a one-man legal team suits the story better.
- When MC first gets to the police station, DCI Cavendish just gives away all the police's information upfront. I'm pretty sure all she needs to say the reason for her arrest/any charges against her. Instead she lists all the evidence and suspected motive upfront to MC, when it she should really be first mentioning it during the interview so Lydia and MC aren't prepared. Is she trying to help the MC?
- Speaking of which, one piece of evidence Cavendish lists is the car is "covered in [Lydia's] hair and fingerprints". No shit, it's Lydia's car. What's it meant to be evidence of, that Lydia drives her own car? Even if the car is technically in Charles' name, and the police didn't know that Lydia drove the car, apparently the police couldn't be bothered to find out that Lydia de facto owned it before arresting her.
- Another piece of evidence is Lydia having "no alibi" despite the fact Lydia is yet to be questioned. This goes back to the first point. The police missed a huge opportunity by not questioning Lydia before arresting her. The police could have questioned Lydia as a potential witness ("please help us find your missing husband"), which is great for the police as people often waive their right to legal counsel in that situation, and the suspect not knowing they're a suspect might slip up with their story.
- MC spends about five minutes with Lydia before allowing the police interview to begin, learning the bare minimum about the situation. This seems like a good way to get your client convicted. MC should be trying to delay the interview as long as possible and learn as much about the case beforehand and know exactly what Lydia's going to say.
- Related to the previous point, MC pretty much allows Lydia to talk constantly during the interview, even when they're confronted with new evidence from the police (Fleur's photos). He should be advising Lydia to remain silent. This is especially egregious as he knows Lydia is a suspect. The police aren't trying to exonerate you, they're trying to incriminate you. It seems like MC's genius strategy is "just tell the truth, nothing can go wrong then".
- DS Truman is awful at interrogating/interviewing, though it's arguably lampshaded by DCI Cavendish telling Truman off (though they could be trying to do "good cop/bad cop"). In the real world, police interviews, even with a suspect, are almost never antagonistic, especially on a first interview. The goal of a police interview is to either coax the suspect into confessing, usually by essentially guilt tripping them, or to try and find inconsistencies in their story. Being antagonistic defeats both these purposes as it makes the suspect defensive. I'm also willing to suspend my disbelief for this because the whole interview sequence is very Hollywood-esque.
- Apparently the police are unaware of Eve, or at least have yet to question her. Likewise, Lydia's alibi with Yennifer is pretty strong - which links back to my point that an arrest (and charge) seems incredibly premature by the police if they haven't even aware of Eve and Yennifer. Literally the only evidence they have is they found Lydia's car with Charles' blood in it.
- MC goes to interview Eve, and is a moron, implying Eve may have killed Charles. This is arguably lampshaded by Danielle (rightfully) calling him a moron. MC should just be investigating on the pretence of general information gathering and (as Danielle says) be discreet about it.
- In the second interview, the police say that Yennifer said she heard was Lydia and a man talking but she couldn't make out the conversation, though this doesn't exactly match what Yennifer says to MC. Assuming Yennifer told the police exactly what she told MC, the police should now know that (Yennifer heard) Charles took Lydia's car, which makes the "evidence" that Charles' blood is in Lydia's car pretty moot (at least at this stage).
- Despite the complete lack of any substantial evidence against Lydia, the police decide to charge her anyway. (Unless they've got some super secret evidence we don't know about)
- MC (can) decide to get romantically involved with DCI Cavendish - the lead police investigator on his client's case. I'm sure nothing could go wrong here. (Disbelief suspended due to sexy game - game's alternate title should be Defending Lydia Collier Poorly Because I'm Trying to Bang Everyone. )
- There's less than 12 hours between Lydia being charged and the case being heard at the Magistrates'. Talk about an efficient bureaucracy! It's been about 2 days since MC got the case and pre-trial motions beginning, he's got his work cut out for him! If he had more time he should be doing the other 2 investigations he didn't pick previously. Though again, this is easy to suspend your disbelief for so we don't have boring story filler for several days.
I'm not super familiar with the UK legal system, but I'm assuming it's relatively similar to Australia's
- The Magistrates Court should be considering whether there is enough evidence to proceed to trial (or at least MC should raise the issue). Given there's basically no evidence against Lydia, the Magistrate should be dismissing the charge against her. Maybe he's been bought off by TITAN or something.
- MC introduces himself as a barrister to the Judge of the Crown Court. In Commonwealth countries, "lawyers" are split into two general categories, solicitors who provide legal counsel, do the paper work etc, and barristers who argue the case at trial. It is extremely uncommon for lawyers to be both a solicitor and barrister which is what MC seems to be doing. I guess MC is just that good at his job. Again I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for this.
There's probably other stuff that I've missed. I know I'm sounding really negative about the game so I just want to add that I'm actually quite enjoying the game. I really like all the characters - even most of the legal contrivances I've mentioned don't really bother me that much, the same way a stupid Hollywood blockbuster has its own legal contrivances or defies the laws of physics. The only one that really annoyed me was when MC does basically nothing during the first police interview with Lydia (I was almost yelling at the screen "MAKE LYDIA STOP TALKING FOR FUCK'S SAKE").
I also really like where the plot's going with TITAN, even if it's not super subtle. All in all, I really look forward to the future of this game