Quillen Law Office: Kenneth Quillen

I am a hard-nosed criminal defense attorney with a great deal of experience. Everything from murder on down to possession of drug paraphernalia.

When people come in for a free consultation, we first go over the warrant or indictment. We talk about the facts: who, what, when, where. Then we go over the elements of the charged crime. That is, what would the Government have to prove to get a conviction. For example, a man is stopped for speeding and police find a little baggie of marijuana on the floorboard. He is arrested for simple possession. Possession is of course an element of the charged crime. Did you possess the marijuana. That is a jury question. You might not have known (or admitted to the police) that there was marijuana on the floorboard. What are the possible defenses? Maybe some else had driven the car recently. Maybe there had been passengers. Maybe the car is titled in someone else's name. The will be a lot of "maybe's" to consider.Next, we talk about the penalties for conviction. What is the worst-case scenario? (You will need to consider what is at stake before deciding whether a plea offer is attractive.) Then, I give the client my best forecast of the likely outcome of his case.The fee is the last thing we talk about. In setting a fee I consider the difficulty of the case, the amount of work involved, and how confident I am in getting a good outcome. All I ever promise to to do the best job I can.