In today’s complex legal world, most lawyers limit their practice to a specific area of the law. Our firm’s practice is almost exclusively limited to the practice of criminal law. We therefore have extensive experience with regularly dealing with the issues that come up in criminal cases.

Our experience has been that not everyone in the community holds the defense bar in the highest esteem. This is often due to some misperception or negative experience with a sometimes overloaded court system but we have sometimes had negative experiences. Despite these periodic obstacles, we have found that we very much enjoy the practice of criminal law for a number of reasons.

First, it is one of the most professionally challenging areas of the practice of law. The prosecution, especially in federal criminal cases, has almost unlimited financial and personnel resources once they set their sights on a targeted defendant. Confronting the Government or State effectively often requires a competitiveness and temperament that not all lawyers possess.

Second, the practice of criminal law involves appearing in court and trying cases more than any other type of legal practice. A lawyer whose practice is limited to criminal law will generally have significant trial experience.

Third, the government mistakenly charges innocent people with crimes much more often than most people realize. One of our clients was wrongly charged with murder. Gratefully, she was acquitted. There is a certain professional satisfaction to have the skills necessary to help somebody who is falsely charged with a crime, especially a serious crime.

Fourth, criminal defense attorneys are the primary defenders of our personal freedoms and rights. These rights are what make our society different from other societies. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend them. Without defense attorneys relentlessly holding government agents and the police accountable to the law, we would live in a society whose constitution meant nothing, whose homes could be searched by the police without a warrant and whose citizens would be subject to detention and arrest without probable cause. Simply put, without the defense bar we would live in a police state. There is a certain satisfaction in the awareness that our daily activities help preserve the freedoms upon which our society was founded but for which many take for granted.

Fifth, and perhaps most importantly, our experience has taught us that the vast majority of people who commit a crime do so because of some human weakness, most often related to some addiction. We have learned, and most courts now accept, that if the underlying cause of the criminal behavior is dealt with in a responsible and appropriate way by the offender that he or she is less likely to repeat the offense. As a result, the community is benefited in the long run as well. Over the years, we have had the opportunity to refer hundreds of clients to resources which have helped change their lives, and the lives of their families and communities, for the better. It has been our great personal and professional satisfaction to have been a factor in the change of the lives of so many for the better.