Whether you're facing a misdemeanor or a serious felony, the decisions made in the first hours and days have consequences that follow cases for their entire length.
A criminal charge in Illinois carries collateral effects on employment, housing, professional licenses, and immigration status that follow a conviction for years.
Logan Bierman has real courtroom experience at every stage of a criminal case throughout Chicagoland, including Cook, Lake, DuPage, Will, and Kane Counties.
Invoke your right to remain silent immediately and completely. Do not answer questions, explain yourself, or attempt to clarify anything without an attorney present. Request an attorney explicitly. Do not consent to searches. The time between arrest and first contact with counsel is where cases are most easily damaged and hardest to repair.
Misdemeanors carry potential jail sentences up to one year in county jail. Felonies carry sentences from one year to life in state prison, depending on the class. The classification also determines collateral consequences for employment, housing, professional licenses, and firearm rights.
Yes. Charges can be dismissed through successful motion practice: suppression of unlawfully obtained evidence, challenges to probable cause, constitutional violations, and other grounds. Many cases never reach trial because effective pretrial motion work eliminates the prosecution's ability to proceed.
After arrest, a bond hearing occurs within 48 hours. If charged, there are preliminary hearings or grand jury proceedings, followed by discovery, pretrial motions, and finally trial or a negotiated resolution. Felony cases typically take six months to over a year.
That depends entirely on the facts, the charges, the evidence, and your personal risk tolerance. An attorney's job is to give you an honest comparison of what trial would likely produce versus what's being offered, so you can make an informed decision.
The single most damaging thing people do after arrest is try to explain themselves to police. Silence is not an admission of guilt.
Speak With Logan NowLogan was appointed to the CJA Panel for the Northern District of Illinois — federal judges personally vetted his criminal defense competence. That standard of rigor carries into every state court matter as well.
A free consultation means a direct conversation about your situation: what the legal options are, what the process looks like, and what comes next.