"Mr. Doerfler, You're a pain in my ass. But, if I ever need a lawyer, I'm calling you."

- Anonymous County Prosecutor

A Past That Came Back To Haunt

Imagine the nightmare. You had a checkered past, but that was thirty years ago. You went on to clean up your act, get married, move to a different part of the country, and start your own successful construction business. Then, out of the blue, the cops show up at your door. "Sorry Jim," they say, "there's a 30 year old warrant for your arrest in Arizona." They put you in cuffs and stick you on a prison bus to Arizona.

Then your luck changes. You decide to hire Chris Doerfler. Two weeks later you are sitting in front of the Parole Board and everyone is praising you for what a great job you've done with your life. They know because they're holding a telephone book-sized stack of papers that show the history of your life from every angle, and they've just seen the PowerPoint. There are no questions. They order your release. They next night you are having dinner at a nice restaurant with your wife, talking about driving up to the Grand Canyon on your way back home.

"Mr. Doerfler, This is one of the finest legal briefs I've ever seen."

- Maricopa County Superior Court Judge

Power Conservation Backfires

You are an immigrant from an Eastern European Country. You grew up under communism, where everything was rationed, and you got used to getting by with fewer comforts. You came to the Land of Opportunity and did well. You worked hard. You built a successful business. You bought a big house in a good part of town. But, you remember the lessons of your past, so you hardly use the air conditioning. You replace all your appliances and light bulbs with energy savers. You refuse to run the toaster and the blender at the same time. Your power bills are amazingly low, so low in fact that the power company thinks you must be stealing and sends in a police swat team to search every inch of your home and business. Now the cops want to file charges and the power company wants tens of thousands of dollars.

It's a good thing you called Chris Doerfler. He knows just how to handle things when criminal and civil law meet. In a matter of days, the power company stops playing the bully, because of the Temporary Restraining Order Mr. Doerfler filed. Your credit record is safe, and your power will stay on. And, the prosecutors have received a lot of information about you, including a good explanation for your power savings, statistical and weather data, and the promise that if they file charges, they're in for a fight. They don't.

"You make it look so easy standing up there. But I don't have the talent, and I don't have the nerve, to do what you do."

- One of Mr. Doerfler's many trial advocacy students

And You Think You've Been on a Bad Blind Date

You're a nice college senior on a blind date. You're having a drink at a bar after a movie. You get up to go to the bathroom, but once you get there there's a group of drunk guys who decide it would be fun to hassle you. They bump you and push you and won't let you pass. You shouldn't have called them names, but you did. Later, you're alone outside the bar when the whole group approaches you, and all you have is a pocket knife. They start the fight. You pull your knife and swing wildly, cutting one guy in the gut. Then you take off running in a blind panic, looking for a place to hide.

When the police find you, it looks bad. The other guy never landed a punch, but you put him in the hospital. And there are ten witnesses - his friends - who say you started it. Not to mention you ran away and hid. You're facing aggravated assault charges. Eight years prison, minimum. So much for graduation.

Then you call Chris Doerfler. He tracks down and interviews every witness, cop and bystander, all 33 of them. He files every motion imaginable. He digs up evidence that the "victim" has a history of getting drunk and starting fights. The prosecutor offers you probation, but you decide to risk it all and go to trial. Chris Doerfler gets the victim to admit he had ten drinks before the fight. He tangles up all the cops' and witnesses' stories so well the jury can't believe any of them. Even the sweet-faced girl who called the police when you hid in the dorm lobby comes off as biased. You're the only witness in your favor, but Mr. Doerfler spent two days getting you ready for this moment, and you shine. After deliberating for 45 minutes, the jury comes back. "Not guilty." the foreman reads. By reason of self defense.

"You've got a real gift. You can see the big picture. But you also focus on the details. Not many lawyers can do both."

- Phoenix area private investigator.