Looking in a dictionary recently I saw that due diligence was a term coined in the 1930s. Now, everything in commercial law seems to be about lawyers exercising due diligence. But what is it in criminal cases? What steps should we take or have taken to save a client (and probably others) from themselves? James Morton Three cases spring to mind. The first was when I had just qualified and was nothing to do with me personally. A man charged with murder and defended by a very experienced solicitor was running an alibi that, as a keen football fan, he had not been the driver in the shooting but ...