My primary goal in opening my own office was to provide each client with individual, creative, enthusiastic, and brutally effective representation. Each and every case begins and ends with the client and his or her own circumstances. Accordingly, each and every case requires its own approach – a universal application simply means that the application fits nothing. I started my own practice because I saw too many people hurt by a combination of indifference, sloth, and ignorance. I looked at my own life and saw that many of my interests are geared toward restoration and customization, and I realized that just as Otto Halliwell (Robert Duvall) said in “Gone in 60 Seconds,” – “One morning I woke up and thought, “I’m no longer a destroyer, I’m a means of resurrection.’ Now we rebuild and restore…Look around you, these days I’m all about second chances.”
The same holds true for the practice of criminal law – I spent a lot of years getting very good at putting people in jail. Over those years I realized that prosecutors and police have an awesome responsibility. Their job is to do justice – but justice isn’t always a conviction, “victims” aren’t always innocent or right, and “defendants” aren’t always guilty or wrong.
The responsibility of prosecutors and police requires an understanding that the choices they make in bringing criminal charges against another individual have lasting implications for that person’s life. And that really is the heart of the matter, for while the prosecutor and police officer may have gotten their arrest and or conviction, they will move on to the next case – the defendant’s life is the one that is permanently altered for good or bad. If that alteration is attempted or made contrary to the law, without sufficient evidence or the appropriate regard, or as a “career-builder”, then something has to be done about it, and that’s where I get involved as a defense attorney. Other times, the consequences of a person’s actions expose them to extremely harsh prison sentences. In those cases, my function is to act as an advocate on their behalf, in an attempt to mitigate their circumstances. In either case my function is no longer to destroy lives, but rather to rebuild, and restore.