OurCity Magazine

Features

A passion for justice

Saturday, June 12, 2010

By Jack Crittenden


When Peter Hughes moved to San Diego in 1958, there were only 650 attorneys in town. He arrived as one of only two U.S. district attorneys, and went to work prosecuting the many cases that were brought through San Ysidro, which was then the busiest port in the county for arrests.

“The law at that time provided if you came across the border with a couple of joints, you would get five to 20 years with no chance of parole,” Hughes said. “A woman came over the border with two ounces of marijuana and was busted. I got the case and when it was over, I told [the DA’s Office,] ‘I got a conviction for five years. But there is something else — I am leaving.’”

For the second year, OurCity has teamed up with Avvo Inc., a Seattle company that rates and profiles attorneys nationwide, to present a list of recommended lawyers in five practice areas. Avvo rates lawyers using a proprietary algorithm, giving each lawyer a score on a 10-point scale. The end result is a group of lawyers who are respected in the bar, and have a proven track record.

While the Avvo recommended attorneys run the gamut from a few years in practice to more than 30 years, we interviewed senior and highly regarded attorneys in each of the practice areas — criminal, estate planning, small business, family and personal injury — to get a sense of how things have changed over the past 30 years.

To read more of this story, pick up the Summer issue of OurCity San Diego at your local Barnes & Noble Bookstores or by subscribing. To do this go to http://www.ourcitysd.com/thisIssue/comments/where_to_purchase_a_copy_of_OurCity

Family
Michelle Brown
Michelle Sullivan
Beatrice Snider
Garrison Klueck
Nancy Bickford
Sharon Blanchet
Julia Garwood
Lesa Christenson
Shana Black
John Tannenberg

Estate Planning
Louis Mezzullo
Pablo Palomino
Frederick Vandeveer
Jack Charney
Judith Copeland
Carol Kao
Michelle Graham
James Cowley
Robert Armstrong
Gary Powell

Personal Injury
Thomas Penfield
George Delaflor
Brian Chase
Richard Huvar
Harvey Levine
Frederick Schenk
William Berman
Mike Bomberger
Janice Mulligan
William Turley

Criminal
Mary Prevost
Knut Johnson
Michael Attansio
Dorn Bishop
Charles Sevilla
Allen Bloom
Russell Babcock
Gerald Blank
John Phillips
Edward Swan

Consumer/Small Biz Finance
Dean Kirby
Antonio Maldonado
Daniel Grindle
Kurt Campbell
Jerome Grossman
Mikel Bistrow
Gregory Cartwright
Martin Waters
James Hill
Marco Torres