We are all underdogs when facing the criminal justice system.

James Doermann started his one-man law practice for the same reason he joined the US Marine Corps in 2007.

“I like to protect people,” he says. “I like to fight for the underdog.”

After finishing up at the Citadel, after his time in the Corps, after law school, Doermann found himself working for Ernst & Young, in the Consumer Compliance division. It was a life of travel to big cities and nights in fine hotels. Then one day, while admiring the view from a boardroom on a New York hi-rise, he had his Big Revelation.

“I wasn’t helping anyone,” he remembers. “I wasn’t doing anything that impacted people in a positive way.”

So when his wife got a job in Greensboro he came along and hung his shingle.

He handles criminal law, with traffic infractions and DUIs as his bread and butter but with the capacity to handle the most serious of statutory crimes, and he is always available to handle veterans’ advocacy cases. And the former USMC Captain brings to the courtroom the same ethos he learned as a Marine.

“While I was deployed in Iraq,” he says, “I thought a lot about what it means to be an American, and how important it is for people to know those rights we fought for.”

The back of his business card explicitly advises what you should say during an interaction with police: Immediately invoke your Fourth and Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions without your attorney present, do not agree to a search and ask if you are free to go.

“Bottom line,” he says, “the state comes at you with a lot of resources. I see the imbalance of power and the systemic way our institutions can keep people down.”

We are all underdogs when facing the criminal justice system. And like all Marines, James Doermann goes where the fight is.

Law Offices of James Doermann PLLC
318. S. Eugene St. GSO
336.314.3749
jmdlawnc.com

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