Best Criminal Defense Lawyers in the USA

Lai & Turner Law Firm is a criminal defense, immigration, and family law practice in Oklahoma City. Jimmy Lai and Braden Turner built it around attorneys who explain options in plain terms instead of legal jargon.

The team defends assault, domestic violence, drug crimes, DUI, felony, and misdemeanor charges. It also files expungements for clients ready to clear a record. Attorneys are admitted in Oklahoma, Texas, and the Chickasaw Nation.

Beyond OKC, the office serves Norman, Edmond, Moore, Stillwater, and Lawton, with additional locations in Tulsa and Seattle. Live call answering runs 24/7, and a free case evaluation is available.

Roughly 27,000 DUI arrests happen in Los Angeles County each year, and Daniel Perlman and Matthew Cohen have spent close to two decades each fighting them. Their practice covers DUI, assault, theft, burglary, sex crimes, and drug charges in state and federal court.

Both partners have been ranked among the Top 100 Trial Lawyers, with 30+ years of combined experience between them. They appear regularly in courts across Los Angeles County and neighboring San Bernardino, Ventura, Riverside, and Orange counties.

Payment plans are available, and the first meeting with a Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer costs nothing.

Adrian H. Altshuler opened his Franklin practice in 1991, four years after joining the Tennessee bar. More than three decades on, the office defends DUI, vehicular homicide, drug crimes, theft, sex offenses, and juvenile matters across Middle Tennessee.

Attorney Altshuler is a Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 31-approved mediator, which shapes how the firm approaches negotiated resolutions. The National Trial Lawyers named him to its Top 100, and the American Institute of Criminal Law Attorneys recognized him for client satisfaction.

Clients can reach a criminal defense attorney at any hour. Locations in Franklin, Columbia, and Brentwood cover Williamson County and the counties around it.

Few Maine practices take only criminal cases. This one does. William Bly founded it after serving in the military. His team now brings more than 80 years behind the bar to York County courts and to cases statewide.

Bly is certified as a Breath Alcohol Technician by the U.S. Department of Transportation and qualified to instruct field sobriety testing, the same methods police use in the field. That technical grounding drives his OUI work, which spans high breath test cases, blood draws, and OUI manslaughter.

The firm also handles drug trafficking, sex offenses, domestic violence, and weapons charges in state and federal court, working from Kennebunk, Brunswick, and Portland.

K. Ryan Helmick has practiced only criminal law since being licensed in Nevada in 2012, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal voted him the city's best defense attorney. He took Lawyer of the Year honors in 2024 and 2025.

Helmick sits on the Office of Appointed Counsel for life sentence cases and serves as an Ombudsman for the Police Fatality Fact-Finding Review Board. Two of his cases became episodes of A&E's "The Accused: Guilty or Innocent."

The family-run practice takes murder, sex crimes, DUI, domestic violence, robbery, and kidnapping across Clark County. Virtual appointments are offered.

Attorney Wesley "Bo" Ladner provides criminal defense representation in Nashville and Davidson County. He brings over 15 years of courtroom experience to DUI, drug crime, and felony cases. Bo earned his law degree from Belmont University and completed specialized trial training.

The firm handles domestic violence charges, misdemeanors, and expungement requests. Bo started his career as a public defender before opening his Nashville practice.

More than 500 cases tried to verdict over a 43-year career put Daniel J. Fernandez in rare company among Tampa trial lawyers. He has defended over 3,000 misdemeanor and felony matters in Florida state and federal courts.

Attorney Fernandez started as a state prosecutor and rose to chief of the narcotics division before opening his own office in the mid-1980s. The firm covers Hillsborough, Pinellas, Polk, Pasco, Hernando, Manatee, and Sarasota counties. Staff are fluent in Spanish, and clients meet the lawyer who will handle their case.

Lee Hollander is board certified in criminal trial law by The Florida Bar, a credential only a small fraction of the state's lawyers hold. His partner Dan Hanuka came up as a public defender and has practiced in Florida since 1997.

Together they bring over 40 years of practice to Lee and Collier county courts. Hollander & Hanuka takes DUI, burglary, theft, probation violations, and juvenile offenses in state and federal court.

The Dayton office sits across from the Walter H. Rice Federal Building, one block from Montgomery County Common Pleas Court and Dayton Municipal Court. That proximity matters when a case moves fast.

Suhre & Associates works only in criminal law here, defending OVI, homicide, assault, and theft allegations. The Dayton attorneys carry over a century of criminal work between them, and the group includes a onetime police officer and a former prosecutor.

Federal prison consulting is a narrow specialty, and Christopher Zoukis has built a national practice around it. He founded the group in 2018 and now runs it as the prison consulting division of Elizabeth Franklin-Best P.C.

Zoukis wrote the Federal Prison Handbook and the Directory of Federal Prisons, and CNN, Fox News, and NPR have quoted him on Bureau of Prisons policy. His team advises on prison preparation, facility designation, First Step Act time credits, RDAP placement, in-prison disputes, and reentry.

Eight years prosecuting cases in Charlotte and Lee counties gave Drew Fritsch a working map of how the state builds its files. He has spent the two decades since on the defense side.

His Punta Gorda office takes DUI, drug sales and trafficking, violent crimes, fraud, traffic offenses, and record sealing. Fritsch appears in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit and covers Charlotte, Lee, Collier, and Sarasota counties.

David L. Faulkner keeps every Bakersfield case he takes from start to finish, without handing files to an associate. His downtown office serves Kern County.

Faulkner defends DUI, theft, burglary, robbery, drug possession and sales, assault and battery, hit and run, and child endangerment. He also handles white-collar fraud, expungements, and record sealings. Consultations cost nothing, and weekend hours are available.

Criminal work is all this St. Louis office does. Brian J. Cooke made Super Lawyers Rising Stars every year from 2016 through 2023. He has argued before Missouri's Eastern District Court of Appeals and the state Supreme Court.

His docket runs from DWI and assault to weapons offenses, fraud, and homicide across St. Louis City, St. Louis County, and St. Charles County.

Board certification in both state and federal criminal law is rare in North Carolina. John Pritchard holds it, earned after years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Western District and a state prosecutor.

He opened his Asheville office in 2024 and takes DWI, federal conspiracies, firearms cases, assault, and fraud. Pritchard also represents students in Title IX proceedings. His cases run through Buncombe, Henderson, Haywood, Madison, and Transylvania counties.

From San Marcos, David C. Hardaway covers a wide stretch of Central Texas, taking cases in Hays, Caldwell, Comal, Guadalupe, and Williamson counties among others. He opened the practice in 2010.

Attorney Hardaway belongs to the College of the State Bar of Texas, a distinction held by under 10% of the state's attorneys. He also belongs to the National College for DUI Defense. His caseload runs to murder, DWI, assault, theft, arson, burglary, evading arrest, and expunctions.

JacksonWhite is a full-service Arizona practice whose defense team is led by Jeremy Geigle, a Super Lawyers Rising Star admitted to the state bar in 2002. Former Maricopa County deputy county attorney John Dosdall also sits on the team.

Between them the group has more than 40 years in the courtroom, covering DUI, drug crimes, domestic violence, sexual assault, theft, fraud, and violent crime. Locations in Mesa, Scottsdale, and Peoria serve the Phoenix metro.

Best Lawyers in America named Elizabeth Franklin-Best its 2026 Best Lawyer in Appellate Practice. She founded her boutique federal practice in 2019, after the Richland County Public Defender's Office and South Carolina's appellate indigent defense division.

Attorney Franklin-Best is admitted to every U.S. Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, and she wrote Reversing Your Criminal Conviction. The firm takes federal appeals, 2255 and 2241 petitions, compassionate release motions, sentence reductions, clemency petitions, and white-collar cases nationwide.

Jason Howard finished as a felony chief prosecutor at the Lubbock County Criminal District Attorney's Office before founding this Fort Worth firm. Several colleagues came from the same side, including Ashley Gilmore of the Tarrant County DA's Office and Luke Williams, once a municipal prosecutor.

Some of the attorneys have taught field sobriety testing at police academies. The team covers DWI, theft, assault, juvenile matters, and federal cases in Tarrant and Denton counties, with a second office in Keller.

Andrew D. Alpert is the first and only attorney in Maryland board-certified in DUI Defense Law by the National College for DUI Defense. He also holds the American Chemical Society's Forensic Lawyer-Scientist designation, again the only one in the state.

He and Michael Schreyer lead a group carrying over 125 years of practice, several of them onetime prosecutors who travel nationally for advanced training. The practice runs DUI, assault, theft, and homicide work from Lanham, Rockville, Waldorf, and Frederick.

This downtown Los Angeles office runs on a blunt premise: most felony clients would never have needed a lawyer if they had not talked to police. Perlman & Cohen pushes back at every stage, from suppression motions over illegal search and seizure through to plea negotiations. Its attorneys have appeared thousands of times in area courts.

More than 4,000 criminal cases since 1984 sit behind Robert M. Helfend's Los Angeles practice, along with close to a hundred felony jury trials. The National Trial Lawyers named him to its Top 100, and Super Lawyers has recognized him every year since 2009.

Helfend takes homicide, attempted murder, drug trafficking, wire fraud, RICO indictments, and federal conspiracy cases. He has gone up against investigations by the FBI, DEA, IRS, ATF, and Homeland Security, and he keeps serious files himself rather than delegating them.

Jaffe, Hanle, Whisonant & Knight, P.C. is a Birmingham, Alabama criminal defense law firm with over 100 years of combined experience. The team handles state and federal cases, including DUI, drug crimes, white-collar offenses, and capital murder defense.

Senior partner Richard Jaffe is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a four-time Best Lawyers "Lawyer of the Year." Every attorney holds Super Lawyers recognition and Martindale-Hubbell AV ratings. The firm is the only one in the country to free three death row inmates through new trials.

Michael A. Robinson handled close to 1,000 cases as a prosecutor in Newport News and Fauquier County before founding this Fairfax practice in 2008. Northern Virginia Magazine named him a Top Lawyer for 2025.

His team covers DUI, theft, violent crimes, and federal offenses, with a second office in Fredericksburg.

Nafiz M. Ahmed founded this Bay Area practice in 2005, and Shari Sukaram joined as managing partner three years later. Between them the attorneys hold over 30 years of practice, more than 50 trials, and 3,000 cases resolved.

The team includes a California State Bar certified specialist in criminal law. Offices in San Jose and Redwood City reach Santa Clara and San Mateo county courts. The firm takes DUI, drug crimes, theft, and violent felonies for adults and juveniles.

John Ingrassia has tried roughly 100 cases and lectured for the New York State Bar Association on trial practice. He has also taught DWI issues to judges through the Office of Court Administration, and Super Lawyers has listed him since 2008.

The firm has served the Hudson Valley for more than 35 years, and its attorneys share over 50 years of practice. Offices in Middletown, Newburgh, and Kingston reach Orange, Ulster, and Dutchess counties.

Joe Suhre started the firm in Cincinnati in 1999, after five years as a police officer and a stretch as a township firefighter. Cincy Magazine has named him a leading OVI defense lawyer every year since 2006. He is licensed in Ohio, Kentucky, and the Southern District of Ohio.

More than 10,000 resolved cases and a century of collective practice back this Joliet-based operation. Founder Gordon H. Hirsch is a onetime prosecutor, and the bilingual team pairs defense work with immigration counsel, which matters when a plea carries deportation risk. Ten Illinois offices reach 20 counties.

Two hundred years of collective courtroom experience, built on both sides of the aisle, sit behind this McKinney practice. The attorneys take theft, burglary, identity theft, drug trafficking, DWI, assault, family violence, and federal firearms charges throughout Collin County. Someone answers the phone at any hour.

James D. Owen won his first murder case more than 25 years ago. He has been collecting not-guilty verdicts since, in aggravated murder, bank robbery, kidnapping, and drug trafficking trials. Ohio Super Lawyers listed him nine years running. His Columbus office also takes DUI, domestic violence, theft, and white-collar matters.

Indianapolis clients draw on the same bench that covers Ohio and Kentucky, including a onetime police officer and an ex-prosecutor. The office runs OVI and DUI matters, drug cases, and felony defense, and takes calls around the clock.

Charges rarely arrive alone, and this Fairfax practice pairs defense work with family law and estate planning under one roof. Its attorneys represent clients across Northern Virginia and into North Carolina, with a second Virginia office in Fredericksburg.

Seven consecutive felony trials ending in not-guilty verdicts is the number this Tucson practice leads with. Four attorneys share 45 years of practice across DUI, drug crimes, sex offenses, homicide, and federal cases throughout Pima County.

Brett M. Bloomston has taught evidence and criminal law at Miles College School of Law and appeared as a commentator on Court TV and Dateline. He led the Greater Birmingham Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and holds an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell. His Birmingham office takes drug, violent, white-collar, and DUI cases across Alabama.

John Reed spent four years as an Assistant District Attorney, then built a Texas criminal practice that has now run more than 35 years. He gives clients his cell number and takes DWI, assault, robbery, homicide, and non-disclosure petitions across Galveston and Harris counties.

Bridgeport handles one of Connecticut's busiest criminal dockets, and Michael Riley appears there constantly for clients from Bridgeport, Fairfield, and the surrounding towns. He began inside the Connecticut Judicial Branch and opened his own office in 2014, taking DUI, drug, assault, theft, and family violence cases.

Since 2009, Suhre & Associates, LLC has represented clients facing criminal charges throughout Louisville and surrounding Kentucky communities. The firm handles DUI, drug crimes, assault, domestic violence, theft, and other felony and misdemeanor cases.

Its attorneys build strategic defenses tailored to each case and represent clients at every stage of the criminal process. Free consultations are available.