Best San Diego Criminal Defense Attorneys

Bradley Corbett is a San Diego criminal defense attorney with 2 decades on felony and misdemeanor charges. He works from three offices, in Mission Valley, Vista and Temecula, and takes calls nights and weekends.

Attorney Corbett has won not-guilty verdicts across San Diego County. His caseload runs from manslaughter and domestic violence to hit-and-run, firearm offenses and fraud. DUI defense is a large part of the work. That includes the DMV hearing, which has to be requested within 10 days of an arrest.

The office also files expungements for people clearing an old conviction. Consultations are free, and the firm serves Spanish-speaking clients.

For the past 20 years, Vikas Bajaj has defended people accused of crimes from an office directly across from the downtown courthouse. He has handled thousands of matters in state and federal court.

Mr. Bajaj built the practice on trial work. Prosecutors know a thin plea offer means going to trial, and that shapes what they put on the table. His pre-filing investigations have led to reduced charges and to cases never filed at all. One felony assault arrest was dropped after he showed the district attorney a self-defense case.

The firm covers violent crimes, sex offenses, healthcare fraud and military diversion. He is among the better-known criminal defense lawyers in San Diego.

A UC Berkeley Law graduate, Peter Liss has practiced criminal law exclusively since 1987. He has tried more than 100 jury trials. Before opening his Vista practice in 1998, he put in 15 years as a public defender, finishing as Assistant Supervising Public Defender.

Attorney Liss is the only lawyer at the firm, so every case is his. Martindale-Hubbell rates him AV Preeminent, and his Avvo score is a perfect 10.

The Vista office sits across from the North County Regional Center, with a second location in Carmel Valley. For most misdemeanors, he can appear in court in your place, so you do not miss work. The answering service runs around the clock.

Monder Law Group is a highly reviewed criminal defense firm in San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter. Founded in 2012, the firm has built a strong reputation for defending assault, DUI, domestic violence, drug, and fraud cases. Lead attorney Brandon Naidu holds Super Lawyers Rising Star recognition for five straight years and carries a perfect 10.0 attorney rating.

The team covers all San Diego County courthouses, from downtown to Vista. Monder Law also defends active-duty military members facing criminal charges. The firm offers affordable rates and no-cost initial consultations.

Jury trial wins in every courthouse in San Diego County are rare. Griffin Law Office has them, along with more than 1,000 cases managed since the doors opened.

Patrick Griffin served as lead defense counsel in the only U.S. case out of Operation Trojan Shield, the FBI's encrypted phone sting. Closer to home, recent results include a full acquittal on felony domestic assault. A drug trafficking case was dismissed after a suppression hearing.

Griffin is a Super Lawyer and a Top 100 Trial Lawyers selectee. He and attorney Keegan Fairfield take federal and state charges, and the office offers free case evaluations.

Former Riverside County prosecutor Anna Yum now spends her days on the other side of the courtroom. Two decades of criminal work sit behind her. She is licensed in California and Illinois and appears as a legal commentator on national news.

Her bench is unusually deep for a boutique. Senior attorney Logan Noblin won seven straight jury trials in 2019 and was named Misdemeanor Attorney of the Year. Associate Deanna Ivers came up through public defense with a perfect first-year trial record.

The office takes state matters and federal cases in the Southern District of California. Someone picks up at any hour.

Blair Defense Criminal Lawyers is a downtown San Diego firm that has worked on more than 5,000 criminal cases over 15 years. Peter Blair leads a three-lawyer team with Joe Seipel and Alyssa Campbell.

Published results include a not-guilty verdict on assault with a semi-automatic firearm. Another client saw felony conspiracy and money laundering charges dropped entirely, on sums near $750,000. The National Trial Lawyers has recognized the practice, which holds over 150 five-star Google reviews.

Cases range from hit-and-run and theft to federal indictments and sex offenses.

Directly across from the Vista Courthouse, where the practice has sat for over 40 years, William and Nicholas Christoph handle criminal and DUI defense. They do nothing else. Between them, they have worked more than 5,000 drunk driving cases.

William Christoph is a former Deputy San Diego City Attorney and a former Marine Corps captain. That background matters to the Camp Pendleton clients who come in on military diversion. He carries an AV Preeminent rating and a place on San Diego Magazine's Top Lawyers list.

The office covers North County from Oceanside to Escondido, and clients often never have to appear in court.

The Criminal Defense Bar Association named Dod Ghassemkhani San Diego County's 2023 Trial Lawyer of the Year. He has worked inside the criminal justice system since 2004.

Juries have cleared his clients on first-degree murder, stabbing and strangulation charges. A vehicular manslaughter case was dismissed outright. Court TV and national outlets have used him as an on-air legal analyst.

Dod Law is a three-office practice, in San Diego, Vista and Orange County, with the phones open 24/7. Two attorneys on the roster focus on court-martial defense and police brutality claims.

Pedro Bernal spent nearly ten years prosecuting before he switched sides. He served first as a San Diego Deputy District Attorney, then as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney. For the government, he tried white-collar and drug trafficking matters.

He defends them now, with a practice weighted toward fraud, tax evasion and complex financial charges. Bernal has taught trial advocacy at California Western School of Law since 2017 and works with clients in English or Spanish.

The Law Office of George Gedulin is a Carmel Valley practice covering criminal defense and family law, with a second downtown office on West Broadway.

Gedulin has represented hundreds of clients in state and federal court. He also has a record of recovering money for people whose civil rights were violated during an arrest. He speaks Russian, his wife Sarah Gedulin runs the family law side, and a California board-certified mediator works on staff.

Criminal charges and immigration status are tangled together in San Diego, and this firm works at that seam. The Law Office of Daniel S. Castañeda, APC is primarily an immigration practice. It handles removal defense, asylum, adjustment of status, and BIA appeals.

Its criminal work follows from that focus, weighing what a plea will do to a client's status before anyone enters one. Castañeda is bilingual, offers payment plans and books same-day appointments.

Law Offices of Michael Anthony Hernandez is a federal and state criminal defense practice, and has been for close to 20 years. That work includes narcotics importation, alien smuggling, firearms, and wire fraud.

Hernandez sits on the Board of Governors for California Attorneys for Criminal Justice. His office publishes plain-language action plans in English and Spanish for people who have just been charged. Appeals and record cleanup round out the work.

Josh Bourne prosecuted domestic violence for the San Diego City Attorney's office before opening his own practice in 2006. That background shapes how he takes those files apart now. He also handles drunk driving charges, from a first offense up to Watson murder trials.

San Diego County certified him as conflict counsel for defendants who cannot afford an attorney, and separately for juvenile matters. His office has held the same block near the downtown courthouse for over 20 years.

Nicole Irmer defends the license along with the case. Nurses, physicians, pharmacists and real estate agents accused of a crime often draw a licensing board investigation at the same time. She works both tracks at once.

Her Uptown practice covers criminal defense, DMV hearings and board discipline statewide, with 19 years behind it.

Gregory Garrison has worked all three sides of a criminal case. He investigated more than 500 crimes as a law enforcement officer. He prosecuted over 1,000 more as a deputy district attorney. The years since have gone to defense, 32 in all.

His downtown office takes everything from misdemeanor driving offenses to felony murder, including gang cases and weapons charges.

Herbert and Tanya Weston are a father-and-daughter defense team in Vista. Between them sit more than 50 years of practice, 4,000 cases and 500 jury trials.

Herbert Weston is a board-certified criminal law specialist. The firm has set appellate precedent that is now taught in law schools, and both attorneys have appeared on Dateline and national news. Se habla español.

Acquittals on first-degree murder, aggravated assault and a three-strikes theft charge sit on Domenic Lombardo's record. He has taken criminal cases and nothing else since 1991.

Lombardo has led two of the county's defense bar organizations. He served as president of the Criminal Defense Lawyers Club, and in 2024 and 2025 of the Criminal Defense Bar Association. Investigators and forensic consultants stay on call.

An $85 million award in a police in-custody death, the largest of its kind at the time, says a lot about this firm. Timothy Scott and Michele McKenzie have run McKenzie Scott PC since 2000.

The defense side leans federal: white-collar charges, money laundering, honest services fraud and border arrests. The firm wrote a Ninth Circuit criminal handbook and serves clients in Spanish and Armenian.

John Kirby spent ten years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of California. Before that he started out at Covington & Burling in Washington, and in 2007 he opened his own defense firm.

The work is almost entirely federal: securities and healthcare fraud, asset forfeiture, tax charges and drug conspiracies. Spanish-speaking staff are on hand.

Practicing criminal and administrative law exclusively since 1990, Paul Neuharth, Jr. has held an AV Preeminent rating since 1998. Super Lawyers has named him every year since 2008. The La Jolla Bar Association has elected him president three times, most recently in 2025.

Federal courts only. Ezekiel Cortez is one of the few attorneys in the county certified by the California State Bar as a specialist in federal criminal law. He has litigated at trial and on appeal since 1983.

His docket runs to complex conspiracies, appeals, habeas petitions and claims of prosecutor or police misconduct.

A death sentence reversed in the California Supreme Court sits at the top of Pat Ford's record. He also argued the 2014 cell phone privacy case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ford takes appeals, habeas petitions and commutation applications statewide, and has published the California Criminal Law Reporter since 1984.

Alicia Freeze handles her own cases rather than passing them down, splitting a downtown practice between criminal defense and family law. In 2024, she got murder charges dismissed against a couple accused in a San Diego landlord's death.

She is a Super Lawyers Rising Star and also takes restraining orders and record clearing.

Led by L. Marcel Stewart, Stewart Law Group is a downtown firm handling federal and California criminal charges. Medical negligence and nursing home abuse claims round out the practice. It serves clients statewide and holds a perfect Avvo rating.