Underdog Blog – Fairfax Criminal Defense Lawyer | Virginia DUI Attorney

Jury acquittals are among the most exhilarating part of criminal defense practice. However, a criminal defense lawyer disserves his or her client by not seeing whether the case can settle rather than going to trial. When I say settle, I do not automatically mean seeking a...

When one sees and experiences all the rights that get trampled on in court, and by so many cops and prosecutors, the temptation is repeatedly present to get angry at such situations, and to call the rights violators fascists, tyrants, and low lifes at best. Anger, however,...

With all the uphill battles that so many criminal defendants so often face, they and their lawyers may often feel that everything is about us (the defense) versus them (everyone else). A healthy dose of skepticism is in order in approaching cops, prosecutors, and judges....

Prosecutor: “Jon, you are a private practice lawyer who is willing to waste time.” Translation: “You put time into defending your clients without concern whether doing so will not be financially profitable to you.” One of the more upstanding local prosecutors recently said that to me before court...

A colleague who has known many local judges since childhood and through the old boy/girl network recently told me that half the judges he knows in a particular county do the work out of a sense of public service, with numerous of the remainder dreading...

So many people are afraid of public speaking, seeing the audience as a potential source of judgment, criticism, ridicule and shaming, rather than as connected to the speaker or as akin to the speaker’s closest friends. Many people write in stilted fashion, reaching constantly for...

“You do not care about me or my case! I am going to get another criminal defense lawyer!” The foregoing question is a crossroads statement. A defensive and indignant lawyer might reply: “You ingrate!  I have been working my fingers to the bone for you, even...

All my clients are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. However, that does not mean that all my clients come to me with clean hands. Behind the seemingly picture-perfect lives of plenty of people who seem to have reached many...

“That was nice of the prosecutor,” replied a colleague — a criminal defense lawyer whom I respect very much — after I told him that during his direct examination of a police officer, a Virginia prosecutor strolled over to the defense table to show me...

Thanks to my colleague who posted this fascinating 2000 interview with Jimmy Carter’s first drug czar, Peter Bourne, who claims: – With Reagan came a major federal law shift — supported by people at the DEA — from heavily focusing on treatment for illegal drugs...