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Click a category below for details! Truly Personal
Service, Care & Attention
Greetings, and thanks for visiting my web site! I've been practicing law since 1995, and I love what I do. I love my work because I thrive off of helping others. Though the money is certainly nice and provides a very comfortable lifestyle, I did not become an attorney to get rich - I became one so that I would have an interesting livelihood with which I could validate my own existence in the universe by doing meaningful things for folks in need of help while fully utilizing all of my language and "people" skills. Unlike a lot of other attorneys, I take the time to provide my clients such quality services as making house calls (not just for the sick or elderly), and I personally return each and every client's telephone call and e-mail reasonably promptly, if not immediately. With the exception of bankruptcy-client cases, no one ever touches my files but me. I do have people helping me out at any given time with the administration of my law practice, but only my hands touch my non-bankruptcy files. I am the only one who drafts my criminal-defense and family-law clients' paperwork, not some paralegal. When a client retains me to handle his or her case in court, I am the one who goes to court for that client, not an associate attorney working for me. And I am the one who is in charge of taking and answering my telephone messages on my direct line. I do everything myself for my clients because modern technology allows me to, and because past experiences have taught me that letting somebody else do work on my cases can lead to sloppy carelessness below the high standards that I adopted from half a decade of military service during the cold war. I realize that what I do for people is very serious business; I take each and every client's case equally as seriously, no matter how much or how little is at stake for each one because everybody's case is important. Another reason that I can do everything for my clients myself and take such good care of them personally is because I am very selective with the number of legal matters that I take on at any given time, unlike other lawyers I know who pile so many cases onto their desks that they end up spreading themselves far too thinly to give their clients the close attention, care and results that I give mine! Click HERE to read a few newspaper articles about some of my legal victories. Also, click here to read a poem that one of my actual clients has published on poetry.com about the quality of the service and care I provide. Though my legal areas of
practice
have focused over the years on criminal law
(federal/state felony & misdemeanor defense - all levels),
family law matters (divorce, child
support/custody, paternity),
small-business/professional licensing application denials/appeals (for
municipal liquor
licenses, state-granted professional licenses,
etc.), simple wills and a
smattering of
other things (just ask me), I find myselself concentrating more and
more these days on a very special Wisconsin bankruptcy
alternative
commonly referred to as "Chapter 128" (I am only the third lawyer in
history to be published on the subject - see the link below). I have been trial certified by
the
Wisconsin SPD's office to handle all felonies (attempted Class-A), all
misdemeanors, paternity, Chapter 980 cases, Chapter 51 & 55
psychiatric commitments (dormant certification), all juvenile,
including termination of parental rights, and probation/parole
revocations. I was also certified/qualified by the Federal
Defender panel in Wisconsin for federal felony and misdemeanor cases -
it is no easy task for a lawyer to get that certification!
Geographically, I take Chapter-128 debtor cases from all over the state, and I accept criminal-defense, family law and other cases solely in Milwaukee County now.
Back when I started law school in 1992, we were taught that it is unethical for an attorney to expressly claim to "specialize" in any area of legal practice except admiralty (maritime) and patent law. The old ethics rule prohibiting lawyers from making such claims was in part intended to prevent attorneys from misleading people into falling victim to the very easy assumption that one who "specializes" in an area of law is necessarily certified as competent in it to help the general public. Practitioners out there who practice solely in one area of the law should not be presumed to know more about that area than any other attorney, including those who practice in more areas than the one in which you currently need help. We are all required to maintain the same, minimum standard of competency in any areas we practice by attending mandatory continuing legal education courses, by associating ourselves with more experienced attorneys and through on-going self-study. There are a number of reasons why some lawyers only practice in one area - many simply have no experience in any other area besides the one claimed as a specialty. Saying that one specializes in an area of law is no guarantee at all that the lawyer is competent and more on top of his or her game than anyone else. An attorney who practices in more than one area is in fact able to provide you more thorough advice, is better able to plan for contingencies and is more able to provide you assistance in complicated situations which ride the line between two or more areas of legal practice. Think about it (and click HERE to dispel some other myths about lawyers that you may have heard before).
A SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT
CRIMINAL-DEFENSE
ATTORNEYS WHO ARE FORMER PROSECUTORS Every former prosecutor I
know
against whom I
at one time had to defend clients who has since jumped the fence to
defend the criminally accused was relentlessly, unreasonably
heavy-handed as a prosecutor. What would make anybody think that
someone who chose to start his or her career prosecuting people and
making their lives hell would be able to simply flip a switch in his or
her brain such that he or she could then thoroughly and sincerely
advocate for the best interests of people charged with committing the
same crimes he or she once zealously prosecuted? Once a prosecutor,
always the prosecutor's mentality! If you're thinking about hiring
a former prosecutor to
defend you in a criminal case, instead of a career defense attorney,
like me, then ask him or her a few questions first: Why is the attorney
now defending the criminally accused when he or she started out
prosecuting them? What's your guarantee that he or she will really be
looking out for your best interests and will not let old instincts
inadvertently take over to the point that you get "sent down the river
without a paddle"? If he or she says it's because the money is better,
run (don't walk) out of his or her office, then call me. Some
former prosecutors I know
who are now defense attorneys have been busted for drunk
driving and shoplifting, so they had no
choice but to leave the prosecutor's
office. Without practice experience in other areas of the law, they are
forced to resort to doing criminal-defense work (it's not hard to
imagine that they really don't want to be doing what they do now). So
do you want one of them defending you? That's something else to
think about!
I provide legal consultation in
Spanish for both clients and other attorneys. In some cases, I can provide Spanish-language legal forms for people, too.
Though my skills as a
negotiator
result
in
the
satisfactory resolution of over 90% of my clients' cases for them short
of having to go all the way to a trial or other applicable form of
final evidentiary hearing, I have litigated my fair share of both bench
and jury trials over the years and
won
most
of them. I attribute much of my success to
the uncommonly good fortune I had during my first few years of
lawyering,
when I gained a wide, yet detailed base of practical courtroom
experience working for a full-service, general law firm in downtown
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That started for me in 1994, right after I served
a one-year judicial clerkship with a Milwaukee County Circuit Court
Judge on the civil bench. After graduating from Marquette University
Law School, I was admitted in May of 1995 to the Wisconsin State Bar -
I am also admitted to practice in both the U. S. District Court for the
Eastern District of Wisconsin and the U. S. District Court for the
Western District of Wisconsin. After serving for a while as an
associate attorney at the
downtown law firm where I first started out back in '94, I declared my
professional independence on July 4th of 1997 and hung my own shingle
in Milwaukee
helping clients throughout the state in the Spanish, and French languages (as well as in my native English, of course).
My unique and lengthy
experience
encompasses
familiarity with practically every level of litigation within nearly
every municipal, state and/or federal court, hearing board and judicial
governmental agency in southeast Wisconsin. I have built an extensive
personal and professional network with other lawyers, judges, law
clerks, other legal professionals and forensic experts in many areas of
the law. My experience earned me a place on both the State Public
Defender's private-bar appointment list for top felonies and the
state's highly-selective CJA
Federal Defender Panel (the latter appoints criminal cases
in both the Eastern and Western Federal Districts of Wisconsin; in
addition to having regularly accepted appointments in years past to
represent indigent defendants from the State Public Defender's office,
I routinely accepted for more than 20 years appointments to represent
indigent CJA clients
in federal felony-level cases in partial fulfillment of the pro bono
obligations recommended by
Wisconsin's Code of Attorney's Professional Responsibility). Again, I personally
handle
every
client's file and telephone calls myself. If
I'm out, just call my cell phone at (414) 372-6598 and try to reach me
there. I'm the one who checks my voice-mail messages and replies to
them when I return (not an associate attorney or other legal
assistant). I like to stay in very close contact with every client,
especially those who are located elsewhere; next to the telephone,
Internet e-mail is one of the best tools I have found for communicating
with clients (as any of my current or past clients can attest to, it is
not unusual for me to e-mail at odd hours of the morning or night, and
during weekends). I am able to convert most documents into files
which I am then able to provide a client as an e-mail attachment (I'm a "green" lawyer!).
I understand that people can be very busy sometimes. But
if a client fails to maintain regular communications with me, it can
become next to impossible to effectively represent him or her. Anyone
who retains any lawyer on a case has to keep in touch with him or her
on a regular basis and respond to his or her communications. If a
client fails to maintain a reasonable degree of contact with his or her
attorney, the attorney might have to formally withdraw from the case
(and nobody ever wants that). The
vast majority of people who have contacted me for help over the years
have had
trouble coming up with a lot of money to pay me upfront for my
services. So, in
order to make my services most affordable for people, I can offer my
clients the choice with many types of cases of either paying me a
single, upfront flat fee or
having me
bill them by the hour, or a combination of both types of fees. With the
flat-fee choice, I can normally work out a monthly payment plan where a
client pays a portion of the quoted fee down/upfront and the rest of it
through monthly payments, should a person not be able to pay me the
entire quoted flat fee upfront. Otherwise, I charge $350 billed at 10th-hour
intervals/increments for family-law, criminal-defense and other cases I might agree to accept.
I bill my clients at the hourly rates via
email only after
I've
completed work for them after each week in which work is performed. The
average number of hours billed each month for each
of my clients is between two and six. That said, paying me the agreed
on flat fee may actually be least expensive for a client in the long
run, depending on the complexities of the case.
Active-duty
military
personnel not only get free consultations, but 10% off my quoted fees. Relocated
to Wisconsin in
July of 1992 from New Orleans, Louisiana. Hobbies/pastimes include
attending area art exhibits and other
art-related things, collecting
kitschy, retro glassware, cooking spicy foreign and domestic
cuisine (especially Cajun/Creole - click HERE
for some of my favorite recipes), biking around scenic Milwaukee when
the weather permits, and traveling abroad (when I can afford it, that is!). Please let me know if I can do anything for you.
I give unlimited, free telephone and
e-mail consultations for a variety of legal matters to people who have
cases for which they might need
an attorney to represent them in Wisconsin. Call or email me anytime
if you need help! I was selected as one of the top 100
family lawyers out of all those practicing in the State of Wisconsin by the
American Society of Legal Advocates. I maintain an A+ rating
with the Better Business
Bureau! |
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P.O. Box 579, Milwaukee, WI 53201 - Wisconsin State Bar # 1020925 |