Summit Defense Attorneys - Michelle Spaulding

There is no question that the skill and reputation of your attorney influences how the prosecution will treat you and your case. Therefore, it is a fortunate defendant that has Michelle Spaulding standing beside him or her in a criminal courtroom.

Michelle is among the elite in the Northern California legal community. With experience in Federal and State courts, she is as comfortable in the courtroom as she is in her won skin. Michelle's credentials include a law degree from the nations's top school — Harvard In addition, she has worked at some of the most prestigious law firms in the country and has taught at Harvard as a Head Teaching Fellow.

While at Harvard, Michelle studied under the most skilled and knowledgeable lawyers in the business. This includes constitutional law scholar Alan Dershowitz who defended OJ Simpson, Michael Milliken and Mike Tyson. She also learned from Phil Heyman, former Deputy Attorney General under President Clinton and Lawrence Tribe, who was also Barak Obama's constitutional law mentor while in law school.

Acquittals come with talent, skill and complex trial experience. This sums up what Michelle Spaulding is all about. Over the years she has tried numerous cases ranging from the smallest misdemeanors to complex felonies. She is also one of the few who can claim a victory in one of the most difficult types of cases to win - a Federal Court Death Penalty Appeal.

When Ms. Spaulding agrees to take on a case, she gives it her all. Perhaps that is why her clients tell us that they admire her fighting spirit. Her goal, in every case, is the complete dismissal of all charges. She may achieve this result through negotiation, written argument or jury trial.

Ms. Spaulding says that many dismissals come because of her keen knowledge of pretrial motions that lead to winning cases on legal technicalities.

Unlike other legal scholars who prefer to stay behind a desk in a fancy office, Michelle volunteers in the community. She strongly believes that people who have repaid their debt to society deserve a second chance free of discrimination by potential employers. That is why she volunteers with All of Us or None, an organization that helps parolees by holding monthly meetings assisting them with the difficult transition back to society.

One of their key programs that Michelle works on is called Ban the Box. This program advocates for local cities to drop the check here if you have previously been convicted of a felony box from employment applications. In 2005, because of the group's intense lobbying efforts, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to stop asking about past felony convictions on applications for public employment.

Erasing Criminal Records

Michelle also works with a local group that helps people with expungements and certificates of rehabilitation - legal processes that allow people to erase their criminal records so that they can start with a clean slate. She is one of the founding members of Plan B, an organization that provides affordable sober housing for parolees.