Nathaniel Burney

Has done very efficient job with my B Felony case from conference with D.A , mitigating circumstances & written motions & follow up,etc. he has a vast array of resources to utilize & great social workers to intervene & advocate alternative resolution besides jail. but as an addict its hard to live ...up to your "End" of the bargain & i may be needing a higher level of care.As pending charges may arrive i am hoping for help thru Mr. Burney once again & a favorable disposition is reached.

I was arrested on a misdemeanor drug charge. The government offered me 3 days community service, but I pled Not Guilty upon the urging of my attorney who felt fairly assured that he could preserve my clean criminal record. There were moments over the next two months that I felt very nervous, and ev...en wished I had taken the government's offer. However, my attorney worked closely with Mr. Burney to negotiate a far better plea than what had been offered. Although they were not able to get the charge dismissed entirely, I walked away with a clean criminal record, a mere violation (equivalent of a moving violation), and no community service. I had direct contact with Mr. Burney who struck me as kind, compassionate and highly knowledgeable. I'm aware that he assisted my attorney in drafting a motion and handled some of the conversations with the D.A. It was excellent team work, and I'm very glad that I stuck it out and can honestly say to whoever might inquire that I have never been convicted of a crime.

This review concerns a criminal case. I was never arrested in this matter rather I was a witness. I had given testimony to the police which I later realized was, on the balance, false and inaccurate and which tragically led to the arrest of a close friend. There was a possibility that I might have... faced a perjury charge. I went to Mr. Burney for a consultation. He struck me as brilliant and compassionate. Outside of the consultation, I did not hire him for this matter as I had not been and was never arrested. Rather, I utilized the advice he gave me to settle the matter without being formally represented by an attorney. Nonetheless, I greatly appreciate the assistance given in one of the most scary and horrific situations in my life.

I have approached Mr. Burney on two occasions as a potential client, and received legal advice from him on these two occasions. As it happens, I am a practicing attorney and have also been a client in the sense of hiring him to assist me on cases on three other occasions. These matters are more... appropriate for a Peer Review so I will refer to these cases as little as possible in this review. However, I did meet Mr. Burney initially in regard to the most serious criminal defense matter that I have ever handled so I do wish to mention how we met. In this matter, a man that I knew to be a very good guy, and who had hurt no one was facing the potential of going to jail for the rest of his productive life. I had gone in to help him for his arraignment, and when I got the defense packet I nearly had a heart attack. It seemed from my limited understanding of that area of the law that my client had no defense at all. Shortly afterwards while reading the Wall Street Journal online I saw a mention that the Supreme Court had overruled a constitutional doctrine that had held for 17 years, and the facts of my case were so close to this case that it appeared my client had a serious potential defense. I posted online to try to find an attorney who was familiar with this new case. Mr. Burney responded almost immediately stating that he had already written a blog posting about the case (the Supreme Court had made its decision perhaps less than 48 hours prior to this first email from Mr. Burney). From the receipt of this email, I was in his office within a couple of hours and he proved most helpful to this matter which after many month eventually resulted in my client getting a disposition in which he never did a night in jail. My next experience with Mr. Burney was in the midst of one of the most shocking crises of my life. He was not the only attorney who assisted me in this matter, but there was one complexity of the matter I brought to Mr. Burney who gave an excellent road map of how to diffuse the crisis. As it happens, I did not hire him on this occasion but rather utilized his advice to handle it on my own. The matter was dismissed on account of the governments failure to do anything within a procedural time limit. Regardless, his assistance in this matter is something I could never forget. More recently, I was handed a summons by an undercover police office as part of an end of the month dragnet on the platform of the Union Square subway station at rush hour for the crime of having been smushed against a metal railing by my fellow passengers on the express train. Mr. Burney gave me some advice as to how to deal with that matter as well -- it was rapidly dismissed. Mr. Burney is wickedly smart, cheerful, gentlemanly, profound in his philosophical observations about the law, up to date in his use of technology and easy to reach. Until recently I didn't know that he was an author and only after I started reading his book did I realize that he had illustrated it himself, and there are a lot of illustrations. I see Mr. Burney as a profoundly ethical attorney in the sense that he doesn't so much act ethically because there are ethical rules mandated by the profession but because he really understands how much society benefits by people acting ethically. His understanding of the areas of law that he practices in are nothing short of profound. He has great knowledge of the workings of the courts. There is one incident that tremendously stands out in my mind about Mr. Burney's abilities. I brought a matter to him where I thought my client had technically committed a crime by violating a provision of the NYC admin hoursing code. Mr. Burney looked up the statute on his cellphone and showed me in less than 2 mins that my client was probably innocent -- the case was soon dismissed.

I got arrested for possession with intent to sell. This was and is my only offense. My girlfriend found Mr.Burney online and he met with me right away. He was really patient with me and answered any questions that I had. I wanted this to be over as quickly and painlessly as possible, and that's what ...Mr.Burney did for me. He was able to get me into an outpatient program and no jail time, which was the best thing that could of happen for me. I've been clean ever since and I wouldn't have done it any other way, or with any other representation.