About Me

I. Defend. You.

I was born in Kiel in 1973 and attended primary school, as well as the Heinrich-Heine-Gymnasium in the northern German district of Plön, from which I graduated with Abitur in 1995. Thereafter, I completed my military service in Flensburg and subsequently began studying law at the Christian-Albrechts-University at Kiel from which I graduated in 2001. I completed the legal traineeship at the Higher Regional Court of Schleswig-Holstein and was initially hired by the public prosecutor’s office in Kiel. I completed my legal clerkship in March 2004 by passing the 2nd state examination in law.

On 31 March 2004, I was admitted to the bar by the Schleswig-Holstein Bar Association.

I am married and have 2 children.

„We are all made for what we do.“

Ernest Hemmingway

The inquiry of why I chose to become a criminal defense lawyer is, by far, one of the most frequent questions occurring in my daily experience, and it is just as often accompanied by rather critical comments, such as “Your clients have done terrible things. You can’t possibly defend them!” I have often heard such and other reproaches put forward by all sorts of people from all sorts of political, social or ethno-cultural backgrounds. Even among colleagues, this is widely considered controversial at best, as exemplified by the one once calling me an “accomplice” in the heat of the moment, as my defense strategy led to my client ultimately being acquitted.

The fact that some of my clients are charged with serious, and – if you believe in tabloid-headlines  – sometimes even despicable crimes, has never made me and will never make me refuse to take over a mandate in their defense. It is my firm professional conviction, that every person subject to criminal proceedings, regardless of his or her political conviction, color or creed has a right to a fair trial, while my personal experience in- and outside of courtrooms has taught me well not to jump to conclusions as regards criminal allegations in general. Whenever fellow lawyers ask me: “What if you knew that your client was guilty, and that he was acquitted because of your defense?” my response usually is that “That’s our rule of law and it’s a good thing that it works the way it does. It’s better to help a guilty person be acquitted than to send an innocent person to prison.”

My job is to assist the defendant or the accused through every stage of criminal proceedings and to fight for the best possible outcome with all weapons and shields that a period of almost 20 years of experience have given into my hands.

I can no longer change the past but I can try and shape the future of my clients in the best possible way through criminal defense.