About meRepresenting clients is not just my job or my chosen occupation...it's my passion. I truly love what I do. But I didn't always know that this is what I would love to do for a living.
After growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, I moved to Cincinnati, Ohio for college at Xavier University. I loved my time at XU and I will always bleed blue for Xavier Musketeers basketball. I spent my college career studying psychology, and at that time my goal was to become a clinical psychologist. Pursuing a potential career in psychology, I spent my last summer back in Nashville working as a psychology intern with the Metro Nashville Public Defender's Office. Little did I know how much my life would change spending a summer in the Davidson County jail! I learned a ton about psychology as I interviewed over a thousand clients and helped with the newly created Mental Health Court in the summer of 2001. But something else happened that summer that would shape my future. I realized that for me the real fight was in the trenches. I saw so many people getting swept through the "justice system" that it made me sick. I saw some great lawyers and great advocates in action; but I also saw some terrible lawyering and a system that can be so unfair that people's lives get shattered. I learned that I had a fire building inside of me that wanted to stand up and fight and a passion for advocacy that I had never felt before. So I changed my plans. I went to law school at Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama. I was drawn there because of Cumberland's reputation for training not just lawyers, but advocates and fighters. Throughout law school, I specialized in criminal defense. I studied and practiced the science of cross-examination and the art of storytelling, the bedrock skills of any zealous trial attorney. When I graduated in 2005, I moved back to Nashville and joined the Metro Nashville Public Defender's Office, which has one of the best reputations for any public defender organization in the country. I spent three years fighting for my clients as an Assistant Public Defender in Nashville, handling hundreds of cases ranging from driver's license offenses to first degree murder and everything in between. In 2007, I got an offer I couldn't refuse--work with my father and mentor, Richard McGee. I left the Public Defender's Office and joined my dad and several other great lawyers in private practice here in Historic Germantown. But as it turns out, some great opportunities must wait. After a year in private practice, my bride decided that she wanted to join the calling and become a lawyer. She got accepted to the University of Tennessee College of Law in Knoxville and life took me to beautiful East Tennessee. When I moved to Knoxville, I got the opportunity to join another great office, the Knox County Public Defender's Community Law Office. I spent three years as an Assistant Public Defender in Knoxville. I learned more about client-centered, holistic representation than I ever knew I could. By client-centered I mean taking the time to know my clients, their families, their life story, and their goals. By holistic representation I mean realizing that my job is a lot more than just trying to defend a case in court. It's about fighting to help in any way that I can. In 2011, my wife Sarah graduated from UT Law and we moved back to Nashville, Tennessee. I restarted my private practice, and I've been lucky enough to surround myself with some of the best legal minds and passionate lawyers I've ever met. You can find me fighting for my clients across Middle Tennessee in both State and Federal Court. I have a passion for fighting for people, and I'm truly blessed to get to do what I love. My wife and I have three beautiful children, two boys and a girl. You may see me on the weekends coaching soccer. Fortunately for my clients, I'm a much better lawyer than a soccer coach for 4 year-olds. |
mentoring |
Every great lawyer has a mentor. I'm lucky enough to have several, and I get to work with them on a daily basis. Following in my dad's footsteps, I feel blessed to try to serve as a mentor and teacher to other lawyers who devote their lives to zealously standing up for their clients. And I strive to help other lawyers to raise the bar in my community to make sure that the right to counsel for all citizens accused is real. Every month I get to help facilitate what we call the "Roundtable." It's a meeting with defense attorneys designed to help train each other on the latest trial techniques, changes in the law, and creative brainstorming to focus on outside the box innovation in criminal defense. I have a passion for the law and I love sharing that passion with others so that we all keep improving everyday to be better advocates and better people.
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training and teaching |
Any lawyer who has ever stepped foot in a courtroom knows that real trial lawyers must continuously strive to learn persuasive skills to advocate for their clients. Throughout my career, I have attended numerous trial colleges designed to do just that. I've attended the Tennessee Criminal Defense College twice, the National Criminal Defense College Cross-Examination Training, and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association Life in the Balance Death Penalty Training twice. I've attended countless trial skills trainings, case law updates, DUI Defense Training seminars, cross-examination seminars through the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), and other continuing legal education programs sponsored by the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (TACDL), an amazing organization that I have been a member of since I was in law school and for which I have actively served as a board member. Over the past several years, not only have I had the opportunity to continue training myself through these programs, but I have had the opportunity to take on the role as a teacher of law students and other lawyers in Tennessee and abroad. I regularly lecture at both Vanderbilt Law School and the Nashville School of Law on cross-examination techniques. I have presented multiple times at the Tennessee Public Defender Conference on topics such as litigating motions to suppress and advanced cross-examination. I have presented at multiple TACDL conferences on advanced dynamic cross-examination. I was a faculty member at a cross-examination trial college for the San Francisco Public Defender's Office. And I had the opportunity to take my skills across the globe as a member of the teaching faculty at the Pacific Judicial Council Public Defender Training College in Guam, training public defenders from all across the South Pacific. I have been a faculty member at the annual Tennessee Criminal Defense College since 2016. I am also one of the founders of the TACDL Advanced Cross Examination College, which was started in 2017, and I am a master instructor at the advanced college. All of these opportunities to participate as a student and a teacher have fueled my passion to continue to take my practice to higher levels everyday.
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