” I’m glad you asked because first of all, that’s my home. I live in Frisco. I live just off the tollway, halfway between the line between Collin County and McKinney courthouse and the Denton County courthouse for Denton. I live just off the tollway, right next to that line, so we’re in both counties. The thing about Frisco is you’ve got the west side of town that’s going to be reporting all those cases in the Denton County district attorney’s office. The east side of town reports all of its cases to the Collin County district attorney’s office. If you’re going to hire an attorney out of Frisco, you need somebody who knows both places.
I started my career as an assistant in the Denton County district attorney’s office way back in 2000; I was an intern there. My wife works as a probation officer in Collin County, so I have a foot firmly in both counties, and I have an emotional commitment to both counties. By living here in Frisco and having an office in Frisco, I’m in a position where that’s my neighborhood. My kids play soccer at the northeast park, and sometimes they [inaudible]. I’m there involved in everything as a part of Frisco. The reason I think that’s important is we’re a unique community. We’re a blend of people from all over the United States because we’re the kind of community people want to move to. They keep saying such nice things about us on the news; we get people from all over. We’ve got people from Maine. We’ve got people from California. We’ve got people from everywhere in between, and we’ve got a great deep connection to Texas as well.
We have a lot of people that are interacting with law enforcement on a daily basis but not in a negative way. The Frisco Police Department is actually one of the better police departments in Texas, in my opinion. I have not seen a Frisco Police Department officer’s report that ever offended me and believe it or not that’s really unusual. Typically, most police departments have somewhere between 10 and 20% of officers that are, I’m going to say, a little overzealous. It could come out in the reports where they’re trying so hard to see the bad in people. What I’ve seen in the Frisco Police Department is they’re doing their very best to see the good in people. They’re trying to keep everybody safe, but at the same time, they’re also trying to make sure that everybody at least meets them on an even footing. That is remarkable, and it’s one of the reasons my wife and I moved to Frisco in 2011 because that’s where we wanted to raise our kids.
What I like about it is I like being not far from the municipal court, which I’ve been to multiple times, helping people through some mistakes they’ve made driving their car and otherwise. Then also being able to get up on the 380 and drive right over to McKinney or right over the other way, to Denton, and know the prosecutors. To be able to walk into the felony courts and see the different people that I see every single week and know them. Know what they’re going to talk to me about. Understand the limits of what is the best thing they can do for my client, what’s the worst case scenario. Basically, walking in and knowing what the options are.
The other thing is we have two district attorney’s offices that will work with attorneys. When you have someone who has maybe only made one mistake, and it might have been a pretty big goof, say for instance, it’s your child. A lot of our representation in this area is helping parents through the idea that their kids, their adult kids, which in Texas is 17 or older, have made some kind of critical error. Whether it’s a substance abuse case or they bought something to school they shouldn’t have or something along those lines, both district attorney’s offices have programs that allow people on their first-time offense to work through the system. Learn something from the experience and then have their record cleared. I think being the kind of attorney that can target our clients in that direction, when they’ve done something and they really need to be held accountable for, then we need to put ourselves in a position where we’re helping people with who they are going to be.
You’ve got a kid who is going to college, but he did something stupid. Maybe he had some marijuana. Maybe had some marijuana but it was in THC form because you get all these things from other states now. In Texas, if it’s not the plant material itself, it’s a felony, which is crazy, but it is. We need to be in a position where we know those rules, how those things affect your future, and how we can help the district attorney’s office make sure they’re not ruining some kid’s entire career path because he bought home some gummies!
In Denton and Collin County, the district attorney’s office has those kinds of programs, but you have to know how to ask for them, and you have to know when. Both programs have deadlines, and if you don’t meet those deadlines because you’re not a hometown attorney who understands that it is the responsibility of the attorney to know the programs, then you miss out. You have to make sure you have an attorney who knows what they’re doing. The joke I always make is if your lawyer doesn’t know where the restrooms are in the courthouse, get a different lawyer! “
Speak to an Experienced Criminal Defense Attorney in Frisco
Philip D. Ray is an experienced criminal attorney and former prosecutor who will provide you with a skilled and aggressive defense. He has years of experience defending individuals against intoxication crimes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Call The Law Offices of Philip D. Ray today at (469) 588-6770 for a consultation.