Underdog Blog – Fairfax Criminal Defense Lawyer | Virginia DUI Attorney
Fairfax Criminal Lawyer / Virginia DUI Attorney- Highly-Rated
Pursuing Your Best Defense Since 1991
When a criminal defense lawyer speaks with human sexuality graduate students
Last Friday, I returned for my nearly annual invitation to speak with graduate students at George Washington University’s Human Sexuality class. From what I can tell, the fields the students might go into include school counseling, mental hospitals, and private counseling. I provided this handout...
Fourth Circuit puts brakes on police using innocent facts to detain and search people.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is often referred to as one of the more conservative circuits for criminal law. Fortunately, the Fourth Circuit breaks from that characterization from time to time, including earlier this week, when the court determined that...
In Praise of Lawyer and Psychodramatist Simina Vourlis
My close friend and teacher Trudy Morse — a great grandmother who learned many key life lessons before I ever was born — once wrote in thanks to those who supported her along the path of life. Local taijiquan teacher David Walls Kaufman, who very generously...
Getting to the place where the client is, from the power of zero
For me to truly help my client, I need to shed my lawyer’s cloak, keep and enhance my humanity, and find the place where my client is, so that we may move forward together. A criminal defense colleague of mine told a great true story...
Reconnecting with NACDL members after 13 years
Today through this Saturday is a golden opportunity for area criminal defense lawyers to attend the Washington, D.C., quarterly CLE conference of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which last had a quarterly conference in this area in 1999. The continuing legal education program is...
Of prosecutors, power, high horses, and the magic mirror
In all state-level courthouses where I practice, prosecutors take over a table in the courtroom well within feet of the judge, unless a jury trial is scheduled there. Depending on the courthouse, judge and circumstances, a criminal defense lawyer who tries entering the well before...
Don’t let prosecutors rejoice over divisive competition among criminal defense lawyers
“We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”- Ben Franklin. Prosecutors’ offices likely share with each other on email listservs and at conferences to help make each other better prosecutors. Plenty of criminal defense lawyers do the same, and...
Meeting the pressure to convert a DWI charge to a DREAM Act-friendly result
The DREAM Act is still a dream, to bypass immigration law penalties against those who came to the United States as children. Praised be the Obama Administration for having directed the use of prosecutorial discretion (see the June 15, 2012, Homeland Security Department directive, with...
A blue uniform makes one no more likely to tell the truth (and more likely to lie?)
When I remind judges that the law does not cloak police with any more credibility than a civilian, they readily agree with me. However, in reality, a huge percentage of judges seem to assign a higher level of credibility to police. It is exasperating to...
In Virginia, the handgun is legal when segregated by a closed glove compartment
Image from the Government Printing Office’s website. Spend enough time around Virginia Circuit Court clerk office windows, and you will hear the stream of applicants for concealed carry handgun permits. Many parts of Virginia and other parts of the South greet visitors and locals with particularly kind words...