“We owe C. Justin Brown such a debt of gratitude and there is nothing I can write in this review that will do justice to how my family and I feel about him and the job he did in representing my brother in a recent criminal defense case. Last year, my brother was arrested for possession of large amounts of a controlled substance. We as a family understood the very serious nature of his offense and understood he would be painted with a broad “drug dealer” brush by the prosecutors, media and possibly the courts. However, we knew there were other deeper seeded issues/factors involved and there was much more to my brother than how the charges would portray him. We needed a voice. We also needed an attorney with experience in the federal system and someone who had dealt in these types of cases. We were particularly concerned about distance as we live clear across country. Without any contacts in the east coast, we decided to conduct extensive research on attorneys in the D.C/Baltimore area with experience in this district court and in these types of cases. As the family lead, I narrowed it down to four and I spoke to/interviewed all four attorneys. They all came across as extremely competent and knowledgeable, but there was something about C. Justin Brown that stood out to me. He was thoughtful, extremely bright, and very knowledgeable about these types of cases. However, he also really took time to listen to our concerns and learn as much about my brother as possible in our initial conversation. He didn’t just want details of the case; he wanted to learn about my brother’s life, he wanted my brother’s story. My instincts were correct. From the day we retained Mr. Brown, we never felt he was over 2600 miles away. We felt he was right around the corner as he was always accessible and always made time to keep us updated throughout the process. He was also very honest with us. We understood my brother was going to pay a debt to society but Mr. Brown did the best job possible in mitigating the sentence. We decided we did not want to risk a 20-30 year sentence by going to trial. Thus, Mr. Brown did an exceptional job of communicating and negotiating with the U.S Attorney’s office and my brother pleaded guilty. From his very first visit with my brother, Mr. Brown noticed something that we have always known and that is that my brother suffers from certain mental health disorders. The facility psychiatrist had put my brother on a medical regimen. Mr. Brown suggested that we also hire our own independent mental health professional to assess my brother. We did and those findings came back with similar results. Mr. Brown included this information in the sentencing package and clearly articulated these findings during the court proceedings. Mr. Brown writes an ongoing blog about drug reform and he used his knowledge of recently passed laws and bills currently in process to make an extremely compelling case for my brother during the sentencing hearing. Lastly, there were a number of other strategic defense tactics employed by Mr. Brown, which I will not discuss, in an effort to lessen the sentence. The end result was that it all worked in our favor because the judge issued a very favorable sentence and one that was several years below what the U.S Attorney recommended. Within a few years, my brother will have paid his debt to society. He will be able to rejoin his family as a free man and productive member of society as he has been throughout most of his life. We will always look back and be thankful for how everything turned out given that it could have easily gone the other way. For this, we will always be thankful and appreciative of C.Justin Brown. We highly recommend him to anyone seeking legal representation.”
–J.N. California
