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Practice areas

Plain-language guides to every major area of law. Pick the one closest to your situation.

Criminal Defense & Traffic

Criminal Defense

A criminal charge — misdemeanor or felony — puts your freedom, record, job and immigration status at risk.

DWI / DUI Defense

Driving while intoxicated (DWI, DUI, OWI — the name varies by state) is a criminal charge with a parallel administrative case against your driver’s license.

Traffic Tickets

A traffic ticket is more than a fine: points, surcharges, insurance increases and license suspensions follow a conviction for years.

CDL & Commercial Driver Violations

Federal rules forbid masking or deferring convictions for CDL holders, and two “serious” violations in three years means a 60-day disqualification — in a personal vehicle too.

Drug Crimes

Drug charges range from a misdemeanor possession ticket to federal trafficking counts carrying mandatory minimums.

Domestic Violence Defense

Family-violence charges move fast: an arrest, an emergency protective order that can bar you from your own home, and a case the complainant often cannot simply “drop.” A conviction carries a lifetime federal firearm ban and lasting effects on custody and employment.

Federal Criminal Defense

Federal cases are investigated for months before charges, prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney with FBI, DEA, IRS or HSI agents, and sentenced under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines — often with mandatory minimums.

White Collar Crime

White collar matters start as audits, civil investigations or internal reviews long before anyone is charged.

Juvenile Law

Juvenile court is built around rehabilitation, but the stakes are real: detention, placement, a record that can follow a child into adulthood, and in serious cases certification to stand trial as an adult.

Injury & Accidents

Personal Injury

Personal injury law lets people hurt by someone else’s carelessness recover medical bills, lost wages, and compensation for pain and lasting harm.

Car Accidents

After a crash you are dealing with repairs, doctors, missed work and an adjuster whose job is to minimize the payout.

Truck Accidents

Commercial truck crashes involve federal safety regulations, multiple defendants (driver, carrier, broker, shipper, maintenance contractor) and insurance policies in the millions.

Motorcycle Accidents

Riders are hurt far more often by drivers who “didn’t see” them, yet adjusters and juries often assume the motorcyclist was reckless.

Medical Malpractice

Malpractice means a provider fell below the accepted standard of care and that failure caused harm — not simply a bad result.

Wrongful Death

A wrongful death claim lets a spouse, children or parents — and in a survival action, the estate — recover for a death caused by negligence or wrongdoing: lost financial support, funeral costs, loss of companionship and the deceased’s own suffering.

Nursing Home Abuse & Neglect

Nursing homes and assisted-living facilities accept responsibility for vulnerable residents and are regulated under federal and state law.

Workers’ Compensation

Workers’ compensation pays medical care and partial wage replacement for job injuries without having to prove fault — but insurers routinely dispute whether the injury is work-related, cut off benefits early or push a low impairment rating.

Family & Children

Protective & Restraining Orders

Protective (restraining) orders can be issued quickly, sometimes without the other side present, and then set for a full hearing within weeks.

Family Law

Family law covers the legal side of relationships: marriage and divorce, children, support, property, protective orders and adoption.

Divorce

Divorce ends the marriage and divides everything built during it — property, debt, retirement accounts, the home — while setting the terms for children and support.

Child Custody & Visitation

Courts decide custody — legal decision-making and physical time — based on the child’s best interests, weighing each parent’s involvement, stability, cooperation and any safety concerns.

Child Support

Every state calculates child support with a guideline formula based on income, number of children and sometimes parenting time — but “income” for a self-employed parent, deviations for special needs and arrears enforcement are where disputes arise.

Adoption

Adoption creates a permanent legal parent-child relationship.

Paternity

Legal paternity is the foundation for a father’s custody and visitation rights and for a child’s right to support, inheritance and benefits.

Prenuptial & Postnuptial Agreements

A prenuptial (or postnuptial) agreement decides in advance how property, debt and support will be handled if the marriage ends — replacing the state’s default rules with your own.

Immigration

Immigration Law

U.S. immigration law is federal, constantly changing and unforgiving of mistakes: a wrong form, a missed deadline or an undisclosed arrest can mean years of delay or a permanent bar.

Deportation & Removal Defense

Removal proceedings begin with a Notice to Appear and move through immigration court, where there is no right to appointed counsel.

Family Immigration & Green Cards

U.S. citizens and permanent residents can petition for close relatives, but the path depends on the relationship, the relative’s current status and how they entered.

Employment & Business Immigration

Hiring or keeping foreign talent runs through a maze of temporary visas (H-1B, L-1, O-1, TN, E-2) and permanent categories (PERM labor certification, EB-1/2/3, EB-5 investors).

Asylum & Humanitarian Relief

Asylum protects people who fear persecution in their home country because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.

Money, Work & Business

Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy is a federal legal process that stops collection, garnishment and foreclosure the moment you file and discharges most unsecured debt.

Debt Collection Defense

Debt buyers file millions of lawsuits a year expecting no one to answer — and win by default.

Tax Law & IRS Disputes

Tax lawyers handle disputes with the IRS and state agencies — audits, appeals, Tax Court, collections — and advise on transactions where the tax consequences are large.

Business Law

A business lawyer helps you choose and form the right entity, paper your relationships with partners, investors, employees and customers, and buy or sell companies.

Contract Disputes & Civil Litigation

When a deal falls apart — a contractor who did not finish, a customer who will not pay, a partner who breached — civil litigation is how the dispute gets resolved.

Intellectual Property

Intellectual property protects what you create: trademarks for brand names and logos, copyrights for creative and software works, patents for inventions, and trade-secret law for confidential know-how.

Employment Law

Most U.S. employment is “at will,” but employers still cannot fire, demote or harass you because of race, sex, pregnancy, religion, national origin, age, disability or for reporting illegal conduct, taking protected leave or filing a workers’ comp claim.

Wage & Hour / Unpaid Overtime

The Fair Labor Standards Act and state laws require minimum wage, overtime after 40 hours for non-exempt workers, and payment for all time worked.

Consumer Protection & Lemon Law

Consumer protection laws — state deceptive-trade-practices acts, lemon laws, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act — give individuals real remedies against businesses that lie, overcharge or sell defective goods.

Insurance Claims & Bad Faith

You paid premiums for years; when you file a claim, the insurer owes you a prompt, fair investigation and payment of what the policy covers.

Entertainment, Media & Sports Law

Creators, athletes and performers sign contracts that control their work and income for years — recording and publishing deals, management agreements, brand partnerships, NIL and sponsorship deals, option and distribution agreements.

Home, Property & Estate

Real Estate Law

Real estate is usually the largest transaction people make, and problems — undisclosed defects, title clouds, easements, contract breaches, HOA disputes, construction defects — are expensive.

Landlord-Tenant & Evictions

Rental disputes move fast: eviction cases can be heard within days of filing, and tenants who miss the hearing lose automatically.

Foreclosure Defense

Falling behind on a mortgage triggers a timeline that ends with your home sold at auction — in some states in as little as a few months, with no court involved.

Estate Planning, Wills & Trusts

An estate plan decides who receives your property, who raises your minor children and who makes decisions if you cannot — and it can spare your family a year or more of probate.

Probate & Estate Administration

Probate is the court process that proves a will (or determines heirs when there is none), appoints an executor or administrator, pays debts and transfers property.

Elder Law & Guardianship

Elder law addresses the legal needs of aging: paying for long-term care without losing everything, qualifying for Medicaid or VA benefits, protecting a parent who can no longer manage finances, and preventing exploitation.

Government, Benefits & Rights

Social Security Disability (SSDI / SSI)

Most initial disability applications are denied, and the real decision usually happens at a hearing before an administrative law judge a year or more later.

Veterans Benefits & VA Appeals

Veterans are entitled to tax-free compensation for conditions connected to service, but the VA frequently denies claims or assigns ratings far below the evidence.

Civil Rights & Police Misconduct

Civil rights law lets people sue government officials and entities — police, jails, schools, agencies — for violating constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and private businesses for discrimination in housing, public accommodations and lending.

Education Law & Special Education

Students have enforceable rights: children with disabilities are entitled to a free appropriate public education under the IDEA and Section 504; students facing suspension or expulsion are owed due process; and schools must respond to harassment and Title IX complaints.

Appeals & Appellate Law

An appeal is not a new trial: appellate courts review the record for legal errors, applying different standards to different kinds of mistakes.

Environmental & Toxic Exposure

Environmental law reaches both directions: residents harmed by contaminated groundwater, air emissions, PFAS, lead or industrial accidents can pursue toxic-tort and class claims, while businesses need counsel on permits, cleanup liability and enforcement actions from the EPA and state agencies.

Military Law & Court-Martial Defense

Service members accused of misconduct face a separate justice system — the UCMJ — with its own rules, and administrative actions that can end a career without any court.