Criminal Lawyer in Manassas

I'm an author, Police Academy Instructor, Standardized Field Sobriety Testing Instructor, Firearms and Use of Force Instructor, Forensic Lawyer-Scientist and Virginia Criminal Defense Attorney and I have been helping good people in bad situations all across Virginia for 25 years. My firm handles all types of Criminal cases and I have successfully represented clients accused of everything from simple traffic infractions, to serious felony criminal offenses involving drugs, guns and violent crimes. We also handle civil matters such as Expungement of arrest records, Restoration of Driver Licenses and Gun Rights, Forfeiture proceedings, etc.

In addition to building a successful law practice, I have spent many years teaching. I am a DWI Detection and Standardized Field Sobriety Testing Instructor, and I have taught lawyers from coast to coast. As a police academy Legal Instructor, I teach Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Rules of Evidence and Constitutional Law to police recruits. As a contract attorney for U.S. Law Shield, I teach Constitutional Law and Virginia state laws relating to firearms, use of force, self-defense, etc.

I am a Founding Member of the DUI Defense Lawyers Association, and a Member of the National College for DUI Defense, national organizations dedicated to raising the quality of DUI / DWI defense by educating lawyers about the many complex issues in DUI / DWI cases. In addition, I am one of only two lawyers in Virginia to have earnied the designation of Forensic Lawyer-Scientist as recognized by the american Chemical Society Division of Chemistry and the Law (ACS-CHAL) for my study of chromatography, discussed in more detail below.

I devote considerable time to seeking out and completing specialized education and training, and certification programs in the fields of forensic science and DUI / DWI defense, and it has helped me provide top-notch representation to my clients. I am trained on Police RADAR/LIDAR, Standardized Field Sobriety Testing, breath alcohol testing, blood alcohol testing, medical issues which arise in DUI / DWI cases and as an Operator of several different breath testing machines, including the Intoximeter ECIR II currently used in Virginia.

My advanced education, specialized training and vast experience has enabled me to win NOT GUILTY verdicts in some extremely difficult and seemingly unwinnable DUI/DWI cases, including a case with a blood test result of 0.29 - more than 3.5 times the 0.08 legal limit. I have come to be recognized nationwide for my expertise regarding DUI/DWI and I regularly serve as a consultant on Virginia DUI/DWI laws. I have appeared on tv as a Legal Analyst and I have been featured in both TIME magazine and Bloomberg Businessweek as a leader in the field of DUI/DWI Defense.

I have won cases at trial in all three trial courts in Virginia: J&DR District Courts, General District Courts and Circuit Courts. In addition, I have won in the Virginia Court of Appeals, thereby getting a felony conviction reversed and the case being dismissed.

I have shared some of my knowledge and insight in a book on DUI/DWI in Virginia called the DUI/DWI Arrest Survival Guide: The Guilt Myth - which I co-authored with Bob Battle. If you would like a FREE copy, all you have to do is visit my website.

Completing certification training for breath alcohol machines is absolutely mandatory, in my opinion, for any lawyer who handles DUI/DWI cases. I have gone even further and acquired several of my own breath testing machines, including an Intoxilyzer 5000 and an ECIR, which enables me to further familiarize myself with these machines. Similarly, after completing training on forensic chromatography at Axion Analytical Laboratires, Inc., I acquired my own gas chromatograph, the machine used in the state lab to conduct gas chromatography.

I have earned the ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist Designation, as reocgnized by the Chemistry and the Law Division of the american Chemical Society. As of October 2018, only one other lawyer in the entire state of Virginia has earned this ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist Designation. To do so, I completed course work on the following subjects:

(1) Forensic Chromatography: Theory and Practice, which addresses the theory of Gas Chromatography, as well as ethanol based analysis by Headspace Gas Chromatography with a Flame Ionization Detector (HS-GC-FID);

(2) Forensic Analysis of Solid Drugs, which addresses the instrumental analysis of solid drugs in their pre-consumption form using FTIR, Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS), Colormetrics, Microscopy, Thin Layer Chromatogrphy, etc.; and

(3) Forensic Principles of DUID, which involves the pharmacology of drugs, issues of how drug use may or may not impact driving, instrumental analysis by GC-MS, Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS), etc.

All three courses were 40-hour courses which included both classroom time and hands-on time working in a lab. I was able to calibrate instruments, develop samples, inject samples for testing, analyze and interpret data, etc. I used the instruments in the same way, using the same matrices, as an analyst would in a forensic laboratory.

I am also a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. I have been recognized for excellence by various organizations.