A criminal charge puts your freedom, your record, and your future on the line — and the cost of getting it wrong can follow you for decades. We defend felony and misdemeanor cases throughout Lake County and the collar counties, from the first bond hearing through trial, and we prepare every one of them with the same discipline: read the entire file, find what the State got wrong, and be ready to try the case if a fair resolution never comes.
The State has had its investigators, its lab, and its police reports working since the day of the arrest. Our first job is to catch up and then get ahead — obtaining and reading the complete discovery, the squad and body-camera video, the 911 calls, the lab analysis, and every witness statement. We look for the gaps, the contradictions, and the corners that were cut, because that is where a defense begins. No strategy is set until we know the case better than the people who charged it.
A great deal of a criminal case is won or lost on motions, long before trial. Where the stop was unjustified, the search exceeded its limits, or a statement was taken in violation of your rights, we move to suppress the evidence — and what the court throws out, the State cannot use against you. We litigate identifications, charging decisions, and the admissibility of the State’s evidence, narrowing the case to what can actually be proved, or ending it outright where the law allows.
Most cases resolve without a trial, on terms our clients are glad to accept. But that leverage only exists when the other side knows you are willing and able to go the distance. Your case is handled by an attorney who has taken more than one hundred matters to verdict before judges and juries, from DUIs to the most serious felonies. A prosecutor negotiates very differently with a lawyer who tries cases than with one who only ever pleads them — and that difference is yours.
A conviction is rarely just a sentence. It can reach your driver’s license, your job, your housing, your firearm rights, and your background check for the rest of your life — and we account for every one of those before advising you to accept or reject an offer. For clients who are not U.S. citizens the stakes can be higher still, and our immigration attorneys weigh in on every plea in-house: this is the rare firm equipped to carry both a criminal trial and an immigration case from start to finish under one roof, so a win in one courtroom is never a loss in another.