WELCOME...

...to the Law Office of Robert Sheridan.

Mr. Sheridan is a California attorney who practices in San Francisco and the Bay Area, mainly at the Halls of Justice, in criminal cases, but also in the civil and federal courts. He has taught Constitutional and First Amendment law for years at San Francisco Law School.

The photo of RS (click to enlarge) is from a wedding in sunny Nashville, Tennessee, the Country & Western Music capital of the U.S., which accounts for the wide-brimmed hat.  You'll have to visit the office to view the crystal ball. And the Professor of the Year Award.

As a former prosecuting attorney and a practicing criminal defense attorney for many years, the emphasis is on representing clients who are experiencing legal difficulties involving the police, sometimes quite grave legal matters such as allegations of multiple murder.

We have also made substantial recoveries in personal injury cases where the client has been injured through the fault of someone who is able to respond in damages, i.e. has insurance.

As a district attorney in San Francisco and across the Bay, Mr. Sheridan prosecuted a wide range of cases from traffic to drug, sexual assault and murder.  He served as the head of the San Francisco District Attorneys Office Sexual Assault (i.e. Rape) Prosecution unit.

As a defense attorney since 1974, Mr. Sheridan has represented in some of the most challenging cases of the time, including the Golden Dragon Chinatown Massacre and the Foxglove poison-murder conspiracy case.  Make that alleged poison-murder conspiracy.  A fascinating story of alleged poison and murder, it lacked only two things.  Poison and murder.  Through the miracle of cross-examination, Mr. Sheridan took the Foxglove (the plant from which digitalis, the heart medicine, is made; too much can harm you, or as the investigators believed, kill you, like for your money if you've left all to the poisoner in your will or other legal document) out of the Foxglove case when the Medical Examiner admitted that he'd made a series of errors including misinterpreting a number on a test that he thought indicated the presence of the poison he'd hoped to find when in fact there was none.  It can be a terrible mistake to send someone looking for something that they want to find.  Sometimes they find it when it isn't even there.  As my vicarious mentor (I've read him and about him), the late Nobel laureate in physics, Richard P. Feynman, has aptly stated, "The First Principle is that you must not fool yourself; but remember, you are the easiest one to fool."  He was speaking to scientific investigators, but the principle applies to all investigators, including criminal, i.e. police detectives and prosecutors.  After two years in jail, Mr. Sheridan's client was finally released. He has defended a number of people falsely accused by the backers of children whom the backers induced to make false sexual abuse complaints against caretakers including other parents. 

If you would like to read what he has written about false accusations, how they develop, and are prolonged unnecessarily, please click on the list of articles in the margin to the right.

You are welcome to visit his Constitutional Law web site, Sheridan Conlaw, here.

More usually, Mr. Sheridan represents individuals experiencing criminal law problems.  Examples:

• Probation violations
• Outstanding arrest warrants
• Out-of-town clients
• Domestic violence prosecutions
• Department of Motor Vehicle suspension and revocation proceedings
• Driving under the influence prosecutions, felony and misdemeanor, with injury and w/o
• Drug offenses
• Sex offenses
• Shoplifting and other property offenses
• Violence allegations
• Children's allegations
• Serious and violent felonies, i.e. strikes
• Assault, torture, mayhem, homicide prosecutions
• Legal problems having psychological causes...
• This partial sampling cannot be a complete list because there are so many offenses listed among the various penal laws in force.  The point is that Mr. Sheridan has become well-familiar over many years with representing in serious matters in the local courts.

That's quite a list.  There was an attorney in San Francisco years ago who had an ad in the Yellow Pages stating his specialty:  "Gunshot and knife wounds."  I always got a kick out of that.  I haven't seen him around in a long time, however.

I like "Honest lawyer, one flight up," better. 

Or Abe Lincoln's "A lawyer's time and advice are his stock in trade."

On a vacation trip some time ago we'd meet new couples every night at dinner.  They'd ask,

"Where are you from?" and "What do you do?"

I'd reply,  "I'm from San Francisco. I practice law." 

"Oh, what kind of law do you practice?" they'd say. 

"Mainly criminal law," I'd reply, skipping that I do other work as well.

That usually killed the conversation, as no one imagines they'll ever need the services of someone who has spent a career dealing with legal problems in criminal court.  Orange jumpsuits, you know.  They never believe it could happen to them.  I don't tell them about the motorists I've represented, people with no criminal record, who woke up the next morning and found out they'd killed someone the night before, sometimes more than one person.  Alcohol and drugs, of course.

I didn't like killing conversations this way, so I had to come up with a new answer to the "What do you do?" question.  I gave some thought to what I really do, and then I'd say:

"I represent people who have legal problems caused by psychological problems (not necessarily theirs)." 

The parenthetical clause takes care of many of the false accusations as well as police and prosecutors who go to extremes without thinking things through.  These are what I've spent my life preparing for and I've had considerable practice fighting those.  See the list of articles I've written in the margin to the right and click on a link if you'd like to read about how false accusations occur, over and over again.

Bingo!  Suddenly we had something to discuss.

Everyone knows someone who has had a legal problem because they or someone went out of control.  Suddenly the conversation opens up nicely as they tell me about their brother-in-law or a friend who's had this little problem with alcohol, drugs, anger, or something, see, and then... 

The conversation takes off from there.  We all know someone who has needed a little help once in awhile, down at the Department of Human Frailty, or the Hall of Injustice, as we sometimes call it.

I liked the description "legal problems, psychological causes" so much that one year I put it in a Yellow Page ad of my own.  Big mistake.  Suddenly whenever I got a call inspired by the ad, the caller sounded like an unusually disturbed person.  I didn't renew the ad, as it selected for too many people beyond my ability to help.

***

Fellow-attorneys have rated Mr. Sheridan "AV" in the Martindale-Hubbell rating system, the highest in terms of integrity and skill.  He has also been deemed qualified by lawyers on the Bar Association of San Francisco's Indigent Defense Panel to be appointed by the San Francisco courts in the most serious of criminal cases.

The entries posted below will give you some idea of the experience and ability of Mr. Sheridan to represent in your matter.

We have long experience in keeping many clients out of trial, prison and jail. And then there are the clients who are already in jail.  Whether a client requires a jury trial or not, however, there are few attorneys with Mr. Sheridan's trial experience and ability.

We also have long experience in plea bargaining, from both sides of the table, before many judges in the Bay Area.

Federal cases?  Mr. Sheridan has served on the federal conflicts panel and has tried criminal cases in U.S. District Court.

FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION

There is no charge to call and speak to Mr. Sheridan to find out how we may be of assistance to you, your family member, or a friend. 

Mr. Sheridan will be happy to speak with you, at no cost, to discuss retaining counsel.

Please call:     (415) 391-4750   to speak with Mr. Sheridan or leave a voice message if we're in court.

If the matter is an emergency or concerns a person who is newly in custody or seriously injured and you would like to discuss representation now, the cellphone is:

                                               (415) 515-9752

Please be advised that we cannot give legal advice on your matter before you have arranged for the individual in need of the services to be seen in person and we have reached an agreement to represent.

Nevertheless, it is generally a very good idea for the potential client not to speak to anyone, including you, especially you, about the circumstances of the incident, and certainly not over the jail telephones, which can be monitored, or to other prisoners who can spin tales, especially in the more serious cases involving a death.

I look forward to your call.