When you or someone you love is staring down a murder charge, everything changes. The world gets very small, very fast. And the most important decision you will make — maybe the most important decision of your entire life — is who is going to stand beside you in that courtroom.
You’re not shopping for a lawyer. You’re looking for someone who has been in the fire and knows how to bring you through it.
So you ask the question everyone asks: “What’s your win rate?”
It’s a fair question. You want to know if the person holding your future has actually been to battle. But I’m going to be straight with you — a percentage alone will never tell you what you need to know. Not in a murder case. Not even close.
The “Win Rate” Myth
If a lawyer sits across from you and promises a 100% success rate, get up and walk out. That’s not confidence — that’s either dishonesty or inexperience, and you can’t afford either one.
The American Bar Association’s Model Rule 7.1 prohibits attorneys from making false or misleading statements about their services. A naked win rate with no context is misleading by definition. Think about it: a lawyer can post a great success rate by simply refusing every hard case that comes through the door. Easy cases, easy numbers.
I’ve done the opposite my entire career. I take the cases nobody else wants. The ones where the evidence looks bad, where the odds are long, where everybody else has already told the client there’s no hope. That’s where I live.
So when you evaluate an attorney’s record, the first thing you need to ask is: what kind of cases is that record built on?
Understanding How the System Actually Works
Here’s something most people don’t know walking in: the overwhelming majority of felony convictions in this country never see a jury. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, most felony cases are resolved through guilty pleas.
But murder is different.
Murder defendants go to trial at a far higher rate than people charged with other crimes — historically, roughly half of murder convictions in large urban counties still come from plea agreements, but the other half go in front of a jury. That means if you’re charged with homicide, there’s a real chance your case ends in a courtroom, not a conference room.
That matters because you can’t hire a lawyer who’s built their entire practice around negotiating pleas. You need someone who has stood in front of a jury — hundreds of times — and knows how to win.
I’ve tried over 150 murder cases and more than 400 jury trials. That’s not a talking point. That’s the kind of repetition and mastery that only comes from taking the hardest cases and seeing them through.
What “Winning” Actually Looks Like
Before you ask about an attorney’s track record, you need to understand that success in a murder case is a spectrum — not a single outcome.
Complete Acquittal. This is the not guilty verdict. The jury looked at everything the prosecution put in front of them and said: you haven’t proven it. Getting there means exposing weaknesses in the investigation, suppressing evidence that was obtained illegally, and telling a story the jury believes. It’s the hardest thing to do in a courtroom.
Case Dismissal. Sometimes the fight is won before the trial even starts. If your rights were violated, if the evidence doesn’t hold up, if the state simply doesn’t have what it needs — a skilled attorney can get the case thrown out entirely.
Charge Reduction. This one gets overlooked, and it shouldn’t. If you walk in facing First-Degree Murder — potentially the death penalty or life without parole — and your attorney fights that down to Involuntary Manslaughter, that is a victory. That can be the difference between watching your kids grow up and never going home again. I’ve had those fights, and I’ve won them.
Sentencing Mitigation. Even when things don’t go the way we hoped, the job isn’t over. A good defense attorney keeps fighting at sentencing — humanizing you, presenting every mitigating factor available, and making sure the judge understands who you really are.
The Questions You Should Actually Be Asking
Don’t let an attorney talk in generalities. Push them. Here’s what I’d want to know if I were sitting in your chair:
“How many murder cases have you taken to a jury trial?”
Not settled. Not pled out. Tried. In front of a jury. You do not want to be someone’s first murder trial. The complexity of jury selection, cross-examination, and closing argument in a capital case is something you only learn by doing it — over and over again.
“Have you handled cases with facts like mine?”
Murder cases are wildly different from one another. A case built on DNA evidence is not the same as a self-defense claim. A case involving multiple co-defendants requires an entirely different strategy than a single-defendant trial. Ask specifically. Has this attorney challenged forensic experts? Argued Stand Your Ground? Managed a situation where co-defendants are pointing fingers at each other? The details matter.
“What resources do you have for investigation?”
Here’s the truth: police investigations are sometimes rushed, incomplete, or just plain wrong. A strong track record isn’t built in a courtroom alone — it’s built in the months before trial, when your team is out re-interviewing witnesses, challenging forensic assumptions, and finding what the state missed. Ask who’s behind the attorney. Private investigators. Forensic pathologists. Digital evidence experts. You’re not just hiring a lawyer — you’re hiring a defense team.
Reputation Is Part of the Track Record
Attorneys generally can’t call themselves “specialists” unless they’ve met specific regulatory requirements. But the way a lawyer is regarded by their peers tells you everything.
When a prosecutor knows who’s sitting across from them, it changes the calculus. Years of being known as someone who will take a case to trial, who is prepared, who has won cases that shouldn’t have been winnable — that reputation carries weight in plea negotiations, in pre-trial hearings, everywhere.
Recognition like being named a Top 100 Trial Lawyer or earning high peer-review ratings isn’t just vanity. It’s a signal that other attorneys and judges have watched you work and given you their respect.
What Winning Looks Like in the Real World
Ask any attorney worth their fee to walk you through the type of victories they’ve secured. Confidentiality rules mean they can’t give you names, but they can give you scenarios.
When the state claims DNA evidence proves my client was at the scene, I want to know: was that sample properly handled? Was the lab clean? Does presence at a scene actually prove commission of a crime? DNA is powerful evidence — but it’s not infallible, and I’ve beaten it.
When someone claims self-defense and the prosecution calls it murder, the entire case can hinge on physical evidence — bullet trajectory, wound patterns, the layout of a room. I’ve worked with experts who can reconstruct a scene and show a jury exactly why my client feared for their life. That kind of work wins cases.
Red Flags to Watch For
A few things should give you pause:
Guarantees. Nobody can promise you an outcome. The courtroom is unpredictable by nature. An attorney who tells you otherwise is telling you what you want to hear — and that’s not what you need.
Vague “combined” experience. “Our firm has 100 years of combined experience” doesn’t mean much if the lawyer assigned to your case has handled three jury trials. Ask about your attorney’s specific record.
No transparency about disciplinary history. You have every right to check a lawyer’s standing with your state Bar Association. A lawyer with nothing to hide will tell you to look it up.
What You’re Really Looking For
When you’re facing the possibility of spending the rest of your life in a prison cell, good enough isn’t good enough.
You need a track record forged in hundreds of real trials. You need someone who has walked into courtrooms where the odds were ugly and found a way to win. Someone who sees your case — your life — not as a file number but as the only thing that matters right now.
A real track record in murder cases isn’t a spreadsheet. It’s depth. It’s resourcefulness. It’s the willingness to fight when everyone else would fold.
If you’re ready to build a real defense — one built on hard-won experience and a genuine commitment to your future — I’m ready to have that conversation.
