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Vincent Perini
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Vincent Perini
Law Offices of Vincent W. Perini
2501 Oak Lawn Ave
Oak Lawn Plaza Building
Suite 350
Dallas, TX 75219
Phone: (214) 750-7477 | Fax: (214) 969-0258
http://perinilaw.lawoffice.com/home.htm
When You Hire Me, It's Me You Get.
Legal Topic
Criminal Defense
Preferred New Clients
An individual with a state or federal felony who understands the mutual advantages of a fee based on hours and has the resources to pay my retainers and subsequent billings, if any.
Sub-Categories
Criminal Defense
- Aiding, Abetting, Accessory, Conspiracy
- Capital Crimes/Capital Cases
- Environmental Violations
- Felonies
- Grand Jury Proceedings
- False Identification
- Truancy
- Misdemeanors
- Perjury
- Plea Negotiation
- Search & Seizure
- Animal Abuse
- Child Abuse
- Domestic Violence
- Elder Abuse
- DUI
- Felony Auto Accidents
- Expungement or Expunction
- Drug Cultivation & Manufacturing
- Drug Possession
- Intent to Distribute Drugs
- Intent to Sell Drugs
- Constitutional Rights Defense
- Illegal Possession or Transportation
- Other Weapons & Devices
- Bank Fraud
- Checks & Credit Cards
- Embezzlement
- Forgery
- Trade Secrets
- Arson
- Burglary
- Embezzlement
- Larceny
- Shoplifting
- Theft
- Trespass
- Vandalism
- Abduction
- Child Abuse
- Child Pornography
- Indecent Exposure
- Prostitution, Solicitation, & Pandering
- Rape
- Sexual Assault
- Stalking
- Trafficking in Women
- Assault & Battery
- Domestic Violence
- Kidnapping
- Manslaughter
- Murder
- Robbery
Bar Admissions
TX, Sep 1966
Bar Number: 15782000
Specialty Certifications
Board Certified, Criminal Law, Texas Board of Legal Specialization, 1975
Other Court Admissions
Texas; US Supreme Court; United States District Courts, Eastern District Texas, Northern District Texas
Association Memberships
Dallas Bar Association, 1986
President
Dallas Bar Foundation Trustee, 1987-1995;
Vice-Chair, 1993-1994, Grants Committee Chair, 1995
State Bar of Texas, 1991 - 2000
Chair, Legal Representation for Those on Death Row (Standing Comm.)
State Bar of Texas, 1987 - 1990
Board of Directors, 6th District
State Bar of Texas, 1981 - 1983
Chairman, Court Appointed Counsel Committee
State Bar of Texas, Criminal Law Advisory Commission to the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, 1973 - 1978
State Bar of Texas, 1975
Director of the First Advanced Criminal Law Course
American Bar Association, Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, 1982 - Present
Bar Information Program, Advisory Group
American Bar Association, Criminal Law, General Practice Section, 1982
Editor, Law Notes
American Bar Association, Criminal Justice Section, 1981 - 1983
Chairman, Economics of Criminal Practice Committee
American Bar Association, Criminal Justice Section, 1981
Council Member
Continuing Education
Texas has a mandatory continuing legal education requirement and, as a board certified specialist (criminal law), I am required to have even more CLE annually than lawyers who are not certified.
Papers and Publications
In 1975 I was hired by the State Bar of Texas to be the first director of the first ever "Advanced Course" [Advanced Criminal Law Refresher Course] to fulfill the need for a Bar review type course to prepare applicants for the examination required for board certification. Mine was the first of those courses, the concept and design of which was to become the format for annual "Advanced" courses by the State Bar in multiple fields ever since. From time to time I have been involved as director or as a speaker. Most recently, a "Boot Camp" for young lawyers was added to the curriculum, and I have been its director and principal speaker since its inception in 2004.
Example Cases
Right now I have open files which include the following cases: (1) A physician in her 50s lost her temper with a contractor remodeling her house, threw coffee on him and joined in a pushing-shoving match, which led to her prosecution for misdemeanor assault, complicated by a concomitant civil suit for damages and the hazard that any kind of reportable conviction could affect her physician's licensure or her admission to hospital staffs. (2) A man is his 50s, a computer expert, who took his laptop to work for a special project, inadvertently forgetting that it contained a few images of child pornography, which were discovered by another computer expert at the company also tied into the network, which led to the search of his house and his prosecution in federal court for possession of child pornography and the prospect of multiple years in federal prison, although he is a mild-mannered, married homeowner with a grown son and no criminal history except for a minor marijuana case when he was a teenager. (3)A middle-aged businessman from another state who often comes to Texas for consulting work who one Friday afternoon on his way home for the weekend, for no apparent reason, lost his normal faculties while driving his rent car to the airport and was arrested for Driving While Intoxicated after a sample of his blood showed Ambien, a sleeping pill, which he may have ingested by mistake. (4) A teenager accused of fondling his younger stepbrother one weekend when they were both visiting their (common) father.
Education
Degree:
B.A.
School:
Yale University
City:
New Haven
State:
CT
Year:
1962
Focus and Accomplishments:
Political Science major
Degree:
LL.B
School:
The University of Texas School of Law
City:
Austin
State:
TX
Year:
1966
Focus and Accomplishments:
Hildebrandt Moot Court competition winner (best speaker).
Number of Attorneys
1
State Licensed In
Texas
Firm Focus and History
Through my 40 years of criminal practice I have been in two small law firms, but today I am in the solo practice in a building with other lawyers and a small firm, all sharing staff and facilities, made possible by my learning to use a computer so that I can type my own letters and documents.
Previous Employment Summary
Throughout my legal career, I have been involved in criminal jurisprudence, as a practitioner, as a Bar leader and as a teacher. Early on I was the president of the fledgling Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, the first of its kind in the nation. I was the designer of the first ever Advanced Criminal Law course put on by the State Bar of Texas in 1975, which revolutionized continuing legal education in Texas. I served as an adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University School of Law, teaching criminal trial practice.
Activities and Awards
Instructor, Constitutional Law, Criminal Justice System, Dallas Sheriff's Academy, 1998 - 2001
Adjunct Professor, Texas Criminal Trial Practice, Southern Methodist University, School of Law, 1974 - 1977
What is your opinion regarding clients educating themselves on legal issues?
I encourage my clients to educate themselves on the applicable law. I usually give them copies of the statute in question, and we discuss them. Sometimes they have questions and observations which give me ideas about how best to represent them.
Are you willing to review documents prepared by clients?
Yes, but it does not apply to criminal law.
Are you willing to coach clients who want to represent themselves?
This is not really applicable to my practice, although I have no objection to clients representing themselves, is not something I usually do.
Why did you decide to be a lawyer?
After law school, I wasn't sure I wanted to be a lawyer. A friend of mine from my hometown a West Texas, Abilene, invited me to join him in "hanging out a shingle." We did, and the rest is history. The practice of law was a lot different from law school, I found.
What work experience and education helps you be a better lawyer?
I learned by the school of hard knocks. Back then, so-called continuing legal education, what little there was, was of various dubious qualities. There were not many good books either. Necessity being the mother of invention, I began teaching as an adjunct professor at SMU School of Law, "Texas Criminal Trial Practice." And, yes, I learned more than anybody. Then when an opportunity presented itself (the beginning of a specialization program), I designed the first ever multi-day "advanced" Texas course. It enforced uniform high standards for written and oral presentations and is now the backbone of lawyer continuing legal education Texas.
Why did you decide on your primary area of practice?
I didn't find criminal law; it found me. Over the months and years that followed my hanging out a shingle, little by little I found my practice narrowing my practice to criminal law. I am now a board certified specialist in criminal law, since 1975, the first-year of the specialization program (which I helped design).
What do you like best about your career?
I get a great deal of satisfaction out of helping people. The practice of law, and perhaps especially criminal law, is more the business of problem solving than courtroom hijinks. I am good at both, and I get as much pleasure coming with an artful solution to a person's problem without a trial as getting a good result at trial.
Tell us about your law firm:
I am a solo practitioner in a client-friendly office that I share with other lawyers. It is easy to find, and there is parking on the street in front of the office. The building is an old house (it's hard to believe there are 19 lawyers in it) on Yale Boulevard near Mockingbird Station and Southern Methodist University.
What are your strengths and style?
Patience is my strength. Experience -- four decades out of it -- is my expertise. Probably the best thing I do is diagnosis. That is one reason I charge a nonrefundable minimum fee. The first few hours I work on a case, when I meet the client and his family and try to get my arms around the problem, are far more valuable than hours I spend later in the case effectuating the ideas born in the first three hours.
I am a gregarious person. I like people. I can empathize with my clients. I brag that I have never had a client with whom I could not empathize and whom I could not like on some basis, however slight, and that's saying a lot. The other day I read about one of my former clients who is the oldest living resident of Texas's death row.
Personal Interests:
I love to read, especially history. I hate to finish a good book. So I usually have as many as a dozen books I am reading at one time.
Office Manager/Assistant
Elizabeth Milan does not work for me exclusively but does a lot of my secretarial/clerical work.
Fax
(214) 969-0258
Office Hours
I will meet with you anytime, call for an appointment. You can usually find me in the office unless I am in court or have another obligation outside of the office.
Emergency After Hours
Yes
Foreign Languages
I am not fluent in Spanish but Elizabeth and others in this office are.
Fixed-Price Services and Fees
There are only a few, for things like expunction's and orders of nondisclosure, usually $1,252 to $1,500 plus the filing fees.
Hourly Rates
I charge by the hour in almost all of my cases. That is unusual for a criminal defense lawyer, but I find it to be fair to both sides. My usual hourly rate is $250 an hour, which has remained the same for the past 20 years. If you divide the fees of other lawyers who charge a fixed amount by the number of hours they spend on a case, their effective hourly rates will often be much more and rarely less. I have learned about how many hours it takes me at a minimum to represent a client in Dallas criminal case. I ask that my clients pay me that in advance as a minimum fee, which is not refundable. Those are the "retainers" I mention below.
Free Initial Consultation?
A prospective client can make an appointment to see me about his case without obligation.
Typical Retainer
I charge "minimum fees," not retainers, and they are not refundable. They are usually $3,000-$4,500 for misdemeanors and $5,000-$7,500 for felonies.
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