If you have been arrested, the police had to read your rights to you. One of the rights you have is to have a lawyer be there for your questioning and to represent you. All you have to do is tell the police that you want to have a lawyer with you. You may get a public defender until your own lawyer can get there, or you may choose to keep the public defender. There are a lot of reasons that you should wait to talk to the police until your lawyer gets there. 

Confusing Questions

When the police are questioning you, they are going to ask the same question in a lot of different ways, and they are going to do what they can in order to make you confess to whatever you are accused of. All of that means that their questions can get really confusing and hard for you to figure out, or they may frustrate you and make it hard for you to figure out exactly what they are looking for and what you need to say. Your attorney can help you by telling you whether or not you should answer a particular question. The attorney may also be able to point out to the police that they have asked that same question a number of times, just worded differently.

Documentation

Another reason to have an attorney there from the very beginning is that the attorney will be able to take notes as to what questions the police officers are asking and what direction it appears that they may be going in their case. Even if the lawyer you see first isn't the lawyer who will be with you through the whole case, those initial notes can be really helpful to the lawyer that does go through the entire case with you because they will have that record to refer back to in case the police say something different in court. It's important to have the most accurate information possible for your defense. The documentation can also show things like if you had any injuries when you were in custody or if you were questioned for a very long time. 

If you are arrested, you want to make sure that you are adequately represented. You have the right to have a lawyer with you, and it's a right that you should definitely take advantage of because you want to have the best defense possible. For more information, contact a local law firm like Larson, Latham, Huettl Attorneys.