There's no doubt I've been fortunate: I got valuable courtroom experience early in my career. Today I handle a broad range of criminal-defense cases, but I've built a record and solid practice in DUI defense cases. And I receive a lot of referrals from old clients, and that's truly the best way any lawyer can build a practice.

As I tell my clients, it's very important to talk about everything - to put everything on the the table - at our very first meeting. Believe me, I know, that can be difficult. People come to me truly anxious and scared because they are facing some kind of charges - misdemeanor traffic charges, even felony charges of some kind. As my partner Andy Jezic says, clients come to us following what feels like a personal catastrophe - they are "catastrophized."

But what may seem very difficult at first can change - the case against my client may not be as airtight as a prosecutor insists. As we uncover facts - in conduct of law-enforcement, in application of the law, even in the records of those involved - the case can and will change. What looked like a strong case by the government may very well be something quite different. And in those situations in which our work uncovers new facts, well, as I also tell my clients, anything can happen.

Our job of course is to ease our clients' anxiety. And the way we do that is to eliminate the unpredictability and the unknown of what they are facing. I want to know, too, what is the client most concerned about? What are his or her priorities? It's my job to guide people through the process.

There are many tools we use in preparing our client's case. And one of them is to give our client an assignment, a little project to help them focus. That alone helps ease the anxiety and uncertainty. Because the fact is nothing is going to resolved quickly - nothing will be decided or tried in a matter of weeks. And while that may create stress, the process also allows us to research and prepare a strong and effective defense.

I'm really just entering my professional prime and I feel my experience with my colleagues - particularly Andy Jezic and David Moyse - has given me a certain professional advantage, certainly over other young lawyers. Many in our firm are in court almost every day, and we exchange a lot of information and knowledge. We're always bouncing opinions and points of law off each other. Our firm has a wealth of knowledge - about judges, of prosecutors, of the Maryland criminal justice system overall. And our clients all benefit from that.

Maryland, you'll be glad to know, is fairly reasonable when it comes to punishment of DUI first offenders. There is a degree of leniency, as long as the person charged has not committed other related offenses. But the second DUI offense - you are almost always looking at jail time. It will take compelling evidence and mitigating factors to secure something less, and that's what we focus on.

We handle as a firm hundreds of cases a year, many of those DUI and substance abuse cases. We know the judges and the system. We are a part of that system, and we are in it every day. I've been practicing just ten years, and I can say I've seen close to everything. That experience has made me an effective defense lawyer - and I am proud of that. It's a role that just fits me.