Emergency? Call Now - The short answer. Check three things you can verify yourself, in this order. One, is the lawyer Board Certified in Criminal Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. You can look this up free, by name, in about thirty seconds. Two, has the lawyer actually tried cases to a jury verdict in the county where your case is filed. Ask for the number and the counties. Three, will the lawyer you are paying be the lawyer standing next to you. Everything else, including price, comes after those three.
People search for the best criminal lawyer in San Antonio at two in the morning, usually because someone they love was arrested that afternoon. I understand the search. I want to give you something more useful than another lawyer telling you he is the answer.
Why no honest lawyer will tell you he is the best
Texas Disciplinary Rule of Professional Conduct 7.01(a) governs what a lawyer may say about his own services. A communication is misleading, in the rule’s words, if “there is a substantial likelihood that it will lead a reasonable person to formulate a specific conclusion about the lawyer or the lawyer’s services for which there is no reasonable factual foundation.” Comment 7 to that rule adds that an unsubstantiated comparison of one lawyer’s services to another’s may be misleading where it is stated specifically enough that a reasonable person would think it could be backed up.
There is no data set that ranks the criminal defense bar of Bexar County. So there is no lawyer in this city with a reasonable factual foundation for telling you he is the best one, and you should treat the claim itself as information about the person making it.
What can be substantiated is narrower and more useful: certification, experience, prior positions held, and the counties and courts where a lawyer actually appears. Ask for those. They are checkable.
What does Board Certified in Criminal Law actually require?
The Texas Board of Legal Specialization is an arm of the Supreme Court of Texas. Certification in criminal law is not a membership, a listing, or an award anyone can buy. Here is what it actually takes, which almost nobody outside the profession has ever been told.
TBLS requirements for certification in criminal law
| Requirement | Standard |
| Time in practice | Licensed at least five years, with the three most recent years spent primarily in criminal law |
| Substantial involvement | At least 25 percent of the lawyer’s time devoted to criminal law in Texas in each of the three years before applying |
| Trial experience | Lead counsel in five state felony jury trials, or ten state misdemeanor jury trials plus five felony jury trials, or a qualifying federal or appellate equivalent |
| Continuing education | 60 hours of approved criminal law CLE in the three years before applying |
| References | Five, and they are not friends: four Texas criminal lawyers, prosecutors or defenders, who have tried a case with or against the applicant, plus a judge of a Texas court of record |
| Examination | Six hours. Three essay questions in the morning, 100 multiple-choice questions in the afternoon, including ethics |
| Recertification | Every five years, with the same 25 percent standard in each year of the period |
Read the reference requirement again, because it is the one that matters and it is the one nobody expects. Four of the five references must be lawyers who have sat across the table from the applicant in a real trial. The prosecutors who tried to beat him get a vote on whether he is certified.
Certification is not a guarantee of anything. It is evidence, and evidence beats adjectives. When you are choosing a Board Certified Criminal Law Specialist in San Antonio or anywhere in Bexar County, you can verify the certification yourself at tbls.org before you pay anyone a retainer.
The eleven questions
Take these to every consultation, including mine.
What to ask before you hire
| Question | What a straight answer sounds like |
| Are you Board Certified in Criminal Law by TBLS? | Yes and the year, or no and why the lawyer believes his experience substitutes |
| How many jury trials have you taken to verdict? How many in Bexar County? | Two numbers, said without hesitating |
| Have you tried a case of this type to a verdict? | A straight yes or no. “I’ve handled many” is not an answer to this question |
| Who will appear at my settings? You, or an associate? | A name |
| Who will answer the phone when I call at night? | A name |
| What is the fee, and what does it cover? | A written agreement that says what is included and what is billed separately |
| Does the fee cover trial, or only up to trial? | This is the single most common surprise. Get it in writing |
| What are the investigator and expert costs likely to be? | A range and what triggers them |
| What is the range of punishment I am facing, including enhancements? | A specific range with the statute named |
| What are the first three things you will do on my case? | Concrete actions with a timeline |
| What is the worst realistic outcome here? | An honest answer, even though it is unpleasant |
If a lawyer will not sit still for the last question, he is going to be a problem later, when the answer matters.
What a former prosecutor knows
I spent years at the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office, including as Chief of the Criminal Trial Division and Chief of the Major Crimes Division. I am not going to pretend that makes me a better lawyer than someone who never worked there. What it gives me is specific and limited: I know how a case gets evaluated inside that building, who has authority to approve what, which weaknesses in a file the State’s own lawyers worry about, and what a chief looks at before deciding whether to try a case or resolve it.
That knowledge shortens the distance between the first phone call and a realistic conversation about where the case is going. It does not change the evidence. Nothing changes the evidence except the evidence.
Warning signs
These are the things that make me uneasy when clients describe a prior consultation.
- A promise or a prediction of a result. No lawyer can ethically guarantee an outcome, and one who does it in the first meeting will do worse things later.
- A fee quoted before the lawyer has asked what you are charged with, what your record is, and what county the case is in.
- Pressure to sign today, or a discount that expires tonight.
- Website results that are vague about the offense, the county, and the disposition. Specifics are provable. Vagueness usually is not.
- A lawyer who has not read the probable cause affidavit but already knows the defense.
- No written fee agreement.
Does the cheapest lawyer cost more?
Sometimes and not always, and anyone who tells you it is a universal rule is selling. Here is the honest version. A criminal case has a fixed amount of work in it that is set by the evidence, not by the fee. Records have to be obtained. Video has to be watched, all of it, in real time. Witnesses have to be found and interviewed before they move. Motions have to be researched and written and argued. If the fee does not support that work, the work does not get done, and nobody tells you which parts were skipped.
Ask what the fee buys in hours and in tasks. It is a fair question and it has a real answer.
What to bring to the consultation
- The cause number and the name of the court, if charges have been filed
- Any bond paperwork and any conditions of release
- The magistrate’s order for emergency protection, if there is one
- Any card, letter, or business card left by a detective
- A written timeline of what happened, in your own words, kept to one page
- Names and phone numbers of anyone who was present
- Your criminal history as you remember it, including deferred adjudications and out-of-state matters
Do not bring your phone to the consultation expecting me to look through it, and do not delete anything on it. Deleting is its own problem.
One last thing
You are about to hand a stranger the most important decision of your life and then do what he tells you for the next year. Meet him. Listen to whether he asks you questions or talks at you. Notice whether he tells you something you did not want to hear. That last one is the tell.
If you want to have that conversation with me, call 210-663-3750 . I answer my own phone.
Related reading: what board certification means , my years at the District Attorney’s Office , and where I practice .