James R Fridie III

I am a 28 year old Air Force Veteran who hit a rough patch in life. I was faced with 4 serious charges for an unregistered weapon in NJ which was legally purchased in the service. I faced a possible 10 year prison sentence being that NJ is the most strict with gun laws and in most cases there is a ze...ro tolerance because of the Graves Act. I called and went to a few lawyers immediately because I was worried and couldn't put this in a public defenders hands. All the lawyers seemed to give me minimal information in order to help and put my mind at ease, until money was discussed. I wasn't happy about that at all so I kept looking an came across Mr. James R. Fridie III. He was knowledgable and really made me feel comfortable. He explained pre trial intervention, how mitigating factors were huge in this particular case, and explained much more, then told me he would be more then happy to be my lawyer. I actually had to bring money up in conversation and told him the offers I had been told. He then came back and said "Not to step on anyone else's feet but I can do it for this amount" so after we met I knew he was the guy for the job. So all in all after some time the case was finally wrapped up, I got two years non-custodial probation and a few fines here and there. Before we even entered court he put me at ease and told me what to expect everytime and always proved to be right. Funny thing is he said I would probably get 3-5 years for probation because of the extensiveness of my charges and I walked out with a 2 year probation after he requested 1-3 years probation and made his statement to the judge during sentencing. I forgot to mention 3 out of the 4 charges were dropped due to his focus and will to get me the best results. He would not allow average results but instead strived for the best results which I received. My family and I can most definitely say that he made us feel good and we would use him again if need be(not for criminal of course). Lastly he even kept my parents in the loop 100% which was huge to me. Mr. James Fridie is a family man and real recognizes real and he is the real deal. Thanks James and good luck and Godspeed in all your future endeavors!

What an absolute nightmare and a waste of my time working with James Fridie! I retained him in late 2020 to handle my expungement. We received the expungement order signed by the judge in April 2021, and he told me it could take up to a year for the state police to remove the records. Fine. April 202...2 comes around, and I noticed that the expungement has not been completed and records still showing on background checks. So James Fridie begins investigating as to why... fast forward 8 months to December 2022, James Fridie cannot figure out why the expungement is not going through and tells me he is constantly calling the prosecutor's office and courts to find out what's going on... fast forward another 6 months to June 2023, he claims he is still calling and mailing the documents repeatedly with no solution in sight! I even offered to pay him EXTRA to make this a top priority, but he declined and still cannot figure out the issue. August 2023 comes, and still no answer from James Fridie, so I took it upon myself to contact the court, the prosecutor's office, and the state police to figure out what's going on. Within an hour, I discovered that the root cause is that James Fridie left out the criminal case number and only included the indictment number on the expungement! BINGO, I thought; this will be an easy amendment, and the expungement will be completed soon (it's been 3 years now). I told James Fridie my findings and proved that this is the issue with my co-defendant's order of expungement, whose expungement was successfully completed in late 2021, and records were removed! We both filed at the same time but with different lawyers. I wish I had used the same lawyer as my co-defendant. James Fridie states he will amend the expungement and send it to the judge again. This was on Aug 13 2023, then silence! All he has to do is have his secretary make a few sentence amendments to the document and mail it to the judge. James Fridie has not responded to six emails in the past four weeks and over 15 phone calls to his office! Out of the blue on Oct 11 2023, James Fridie re-appears claiming he has been busy with a trial, so I guess he just forgets about all his other clients for weeks on end when this happens? He has now miraculously gotten in touch with the prosecutor's office after one and a half years of not being able to, and now says that amending the order to include the criminal case numbers will not fix anything but still has no solution for me and says he is waiting for a return call from the expungement office. I ask James Fridie how long I am expected to wait, and he does not respond (of course). Fast forward to today, November 27, he has still not responded or provided a solution, and I have followed up every week by email. Again, all he has to do is amend 1 sentence to the expungement order which I have proved to him with co-defendant's orders. I will now have to retain the lawyer my co-defendant used and start the process from scratch, which will now take another year at minimum! I paid James Fridie $1300 in late 2020 for a simple expungement that should have been finalized by mid-2022. I wasted three years with James Fridie and got no results! Absolutely horrible service from James Fridie and his office. If you are considering retaining James Fridie, please think again; he was not even able to handle an expungement case! Avoid at all costs!