The criminal defense attorney occupies one of the most important roles in the justice system: standing between the state and an individual whose liberty, reputation, and sometimes life is at stake. The stakes make betrayal of this role particularly devastating. Criminal defense attorneys who fail to investigate their clients' cases, who miss filing deadlines, who negotiate pleas without informing clients of the consequences, who steal from clients facing incarceration, or who simply abandon complex matters mid-representation cause harms that can be genuinely irreversible. The Ethics Reporter investigates criminal defense attorney misconduct with attention to the cases where attorney failures contributed to unjust outcomes — and what the discipline system did, or failed to do, in response.