When being faced with a criminal charge I highly recommend that you hire a criminal defense lawyer. I recommend this because the hire of a professional in this matter could be the major difference between a jail sentence and the charges being dropped. A criminal defense lawyer handles many different charges a person can receive such as drug crimes, domestic violence, juvenile crimes, parole and probation violations, white-collar crimes, traffic violations, weapons trafficking, kidnapping, murder and much more.Consider This While Searching Through Criminal Defense Candidates.Start off by making a criminal defense candidate list. You can create this list by browsing either through a phone book or via internet searches. Thing’s you may want to look for is someone in your area. Or quite possibly you have special needs such as a language barrier, so do they have someone to accommodate to your special needs? After all communication between you and your lawyer is vital! Now that you have done this you are ready to make some phone calls to the firms and get more specific information pertaining to meet your exact needs.Things to Ask When Deciding Best Fit to Represent YouWhile speaking with these firms some information that will play an important role in deciding who is best fit to represent you, would be do they have an exact area of expertise in criminal defense? How many years experience do they have? Or even more valuable information would be what kind of result have they produced with previous cases? How many people have they represented? How many times have they been to trial? Are they able to meet with you and if so when? How do they get paid, because some want full payment up front and some want an hourly this differs from firm to firm. By now you should have been able to narrow your list down to only a remaining few candidates.Making the Final DecisionNow that your list should have only a few candidates remaining you should ask these lawyers for references. Check these references see what these people have to say about the lawyer and how they handled their individual case. Knowing how they handled cases similar to yours should be of great value to you. Make sure you are treated with common courtesy from the lawyer and the other staff at the firm. The criminal defense lawyer should have complete total knowledge of the law of the state they represent. It is also a necessity that they have had a great amount of experience with the federal criminal system also. Make sure that you have confidence in the criminal defense lawyer you choose to represent you, because after all you two make up a team now. Do not allow yourself to be forced into any action you do not agree with taking. Last but not least take your time in choosing the perfect criminal defense lawyer to represent you. The research is worth your time and hopefully in the end it turns out to be worth your money also.