... and why I'm the lawyer you need.
Effective representation--and ultimately your future--depend on five key qualities in a defense attorney. Let's take a look at each of them:
EXPERIENCE | KNOWLEDGE | SKILL | INTEGRITY | COMMUNICATION
Your attorney should have dealt with situations and cases related to your situation. Ask prospective lawyers how much experience they have in the area you are seeking representation. Remember, it's not necessarily the number of years, but the number of CASES, that counts. For example, an attorney with 25 years of experience as a lawyer may have only tried 10 or so criminal cases in his/her career. In contrast, a lawyer with only 10 years of practice, but who specializes in criminal defense work could easily have taken hundreds, even thousands of cases to trial within that time.
Experience is particularly important in criminal matters, where liberty is often at stake. No matter how knowledgeable or skilled, there is no substitute for experience, which endows the attorney with a tried and true "sense" of the evidence, and what the prosecution is likely to do, and how to make the most of the weaknesses in the prosecutor's case.
Since 1994, I have tried hundreds of criminal cases of a broad variety (from summary offenses and misdemeanors to felonies, federal cases and 1st Degree Murder). I am intimately familiar with the substantive law, criminal procedure and types of evidence typically involved in criminal matters. One of the things I can offer to you is the benefit of having "been there" a great number of times. From my experience as a trial and appellate lawyer, I have gained the learned insight that must be part of any sound legal analysis.
