Interviewer: What do you believe makes you different, unique, or particularly suited to help people that are arrested for DUI amongst all other firms?

Brian Geno: I have been practicing law for 25 years. During that time, I have developed a David and Goliath-type perspective, where we’re not the big firm but we are going to come up with an intelligent strategy that’s going to send that little rock hurling toward the giant.

When you’re a small firm like us, you have to focus on the details. You have to focus on your expertise and the law and you have to focus on your ability to fight. That is not a common perspective among defense attorneys. Even though they seem like they go to court and they should be willing to go and fight. You see attorneys who really are not trying to be fighters. They’re trying to be dealmakers. They’re trying to quickly get out of there so that they can go do their other work.

I decided a long time ago that wasn’t going to be me. I wasn’t going to suffer from people saying that I didn’t give them that tenacious time that they needed to walk away with a win, if they could. I guess it’s in the heart of the matter. I’m going to care about my clients first. I’m going to do everything I can think of to help them out. It sounds like I’m just saying, “Well, I care,” and that is kind of what I’m saying, but that is a hard commodity to come by when you’re talking to lawyers and defense attorneys: someone who cares enough to fight all the way.

I guess I would also say as far as my value in the market, it would also be I’ve always been a defense attorney. That’s always where my loyalty has been. I have never sought to be a prosecutor because I’ve always been defense-oriented, and I stick with that.

Prosecutor & Judge Attitudes

Interviewer: What have you seen in the mind of the prosecutors and the judges? Are they out to just get people and put a notch in their belt, regardless of whether they’re guilty or not? Or do they really try to go forward with the case because it has true merit?

Brian Geno: A lot of good prosecutors don’t just look for a win every time. There are exceptions to this rule, but I have found that prosecutors tend to disbelieve anything that someone says in their own defense. They tend to think that people are filled with weasel words and they’re filled with excuses and they’re filled with reasons why they should not have to pay the price for what happened. Yes, I do think that is a stereotype that they do live up to.

As far as judges go, there are exceptions, but I do think that judges tend to be very prosecution-oriented. Being prosecution-oriented gets them reappointed. Being prosecution-oriented gets them friends in the right committees and stuff like that. There’s not as much heat from the legislature about their reappointments. Unfortunately, I think that’s true as well.