here is how it really works
Perry Mason (!) gives the idea that all are adversaries (prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys) nothing could be more untrue!
They are dear friends, there kids know each others kids . The travel together (a fondness for cruising all the kids!)
I've found this to be true to a great extent. Not always to the point of being unethical, but if you're in a small pond, the fish tend to know each other socially and professionally -- sometimes since law school or before.
In my city/state, we're in the middle of a three-ring circus of impeachment of Supreme Court justices. The Chief Justice has been indicted on various charges (23 at last count, IIRC) of fraud, misusing state vehicles, misusing the state's gas card, putting state-owned furniture in his own home, etc. All the justices have been accused of exorbitant spending of state money in the remodeling of their chambers ($90,000 in flooring? $32,000 for a couch? Seriously). Two are still standing, unless something's changed overnight. Two have resigned. One of those was already under intense scrutiny; a few years ago this justice's husband, a prominent plaintiffs' attorney in town, sold a private jet to another local plaintiff's attorney who practices here in WV but whose main offices are in Mississippi. That might've gone more or less unnoticed had the attorney who bought the jet not also contemporaneously gotten a
$91 million dollar verdict in a nursing home neglect case (!) he had before the justice in question.
Given what I know of the justice and her husband, I think it's entirely possible that she didn't know about the plane. It's just all a little too close for comfort. In a place like this, though, it's extremely tricky. Law firms are the major industry of Charleston (and Wheeling, and Beckley, and Martinsburg, and Morgantown...). My second job as a legal secretary was at the same firm where my mother worked. One of my best friends is an attorney I met when she was assigned to me fresh out of law school. Before I went on disability this past year I was working as a legal assistant/paralegal for one attorney I went to high school with and one I didn't know (but our dads know each other, it turned out). Half the counsel in town grew up together or were college roommates. I met my own husband when we were both on staff at a defense firm in town; he is now the director of legal services at a healthcare company, and is a client to both that firm and my most recent one. My most recent job, btw, I got in part due to a good word being put in for me by one of the firm's members -- my husband's best friend from college. Our FB friends lists are all ridiculous to look at because it's a vast interconnected pool of lawyers, judges, clients, insurance adjusters, mediators, experts, PIs, court clerks, legal staff, vendors, court reporters...
This was an extremely long-winded way of agreeing with
@CARIIS, I guess, and saying there is usually SO much going on in the background of any given case. Though to be fair most of my experience is in civil law.
ETA: The connections just keep occurring to me. I was getting a haircut recently from the daughter of the County Commissioner when my cousin -- an attorney, of course -- walked in. I had no clue they knew each other -- but of course everyone knows each other here...