Law Offices of Beles & Beles

Focus and practice areas

Beles & Beles handles criminal defense in state and federal court from an Oakland base. The firm's listed work covers murder and manslaughter, sex offenses, drug crimes, domestic violence, drunk driving, gun charges, white collar matters, theft and embezzlement, and juvenile cases. Appeals and writs sit alongside the trial work.

Immigration is the one area outside criminal law that the firm lists. That pairing makes practical sense in Alameda County, where a criminal charge can carry immigration consequences for a client who is not a citizen.

The range here is wide but coherent. Everything on the list belongs to the same courtroom world, and the firm has kept its focus there since Robert J. Beles opened it in 1979.

How the team is built

Eight attorneys are named across the firm's site, and four of them hold California State Bar certification in a designated practice area. That is a high proportion. Board certification in California requires demonstrated experience, peer review and an examination, so the credential carries weight that a general listing of practice areas does not.

The certified attorneys

Robert J.Beles has been certified by the State Bar in criminal law since 1975. Anne C. Beles, a partner at the firm, holds the same certification and has worked as a trial lawyer for 27 years. Between them the firm has decades of certified criminal practice under one roof.

Paul McCarthy holds certification in appellate law and has 50 years of experience in appeals. Appellate work is a distinct craft: it turns on the trial record, written briefing and doctrinal argument rather than witness examination. A firm that takes serious felony cases benefits from having someone whose daily work is the appeal.

Emilio Tomas Parker holds California State Bar certification in immigration law with 15 years of experience. His presence explains how the firm can treat the immigration consequences of a conviction as part of the same matter.

The wider bench

Matthew Matejcek practices criminal law at the firm with eight years of experience. Octavio Sajuan works as a trial lawyer and speaks Spanish. Michael Sitkin and Gabrielle Nicolet are also named as criminal lawyers.

The site gives less detail on these four than on the certified firms. Law schools and admission years are absent for every attorney except the founder. In my opinion that is the main gap in what the firm publishes, and filling it would help a prospective client understand the depth behind the senior names.

What the founder's record shows

Robert J. Beles graduated from Ohio University in 1964 with a degree in psychology and finished at the University of California, Hastings College of Law in 1967. He began practicing in 1968. From that year until 1979 he worked as an Assistant Alameda County Public Defender, then started his own firm.

Eleven years in the public defender's office is a particular kind of training. Public defenders carry heavy caseloads and go to trial often, in the same courthouses and before the same judges year after year. Beles built his practice on that foundation in the county where he had been doing the work.

His bio states that he has tried more than 100 jury trials. That number matters in criminal defense. Most cases resolve before a jury is sworn, and a defense lawyer who has actually taken cases to verdict brings a different posture to plea discussions than one who has not.

He has also held his criminal law certification since 1975, which places him among the earlier attorneys to receive that certification in California. As a reviewer, I read the combination of that certification date, the public defender years and the trial count as the strongest single body of verifiable detail on the site.

Reach across the East Bay

The firm lists five offices: Oakland, Hayward, Fremont, Pleasanton and Concord. The main office is in The Ordway Building in downtown Oakland, a short distance from the Alameda County courthouse. The Concord office extends the firm's footprint into Contra Costa County.

Five locations across two counties is unusual for a criminal defense firm of this size. The practical effect is that a client charged in Fremont or Concord can meet a lawyer without crossing the county, which matters when someone is dealing with pretrial release conditions or transport.

Alameda and Contra Costa counties have their own charging practices and their own bench. A firm that appears regularly in both builds familiarity that carries into how a case is handled.

Language access and client intake

Staff speak English, Spanish and Mandarin. Octavio Sajuan is identified specifically as a Spanish speaker on the attorney roster, so the language capacity extends to at least one lawyer and to office staff.

In criminal defense, language access is substantive. A client explaining what happened, or reading a plea offer, needs to do so in the language they think in. The East Bay has large Spanish-speaking and Chinese-speaking populations, and a firm staffed to handle both is meeting a real local need.

The firm offers free consultations and accepts credit cards. Those are small operational details, and they tell a prospective client how to make first contact.

How the evidence holds up

Most of what this firm publishes about itself can be checked. State Bar certifications are matters of public record, as are attorney admission dates and disciplinary history. Four certifications across four distinct fields, criminal law, appellate law and immigration law, form the firm's clearest verifiable claim.

One inconsistency turned up. The structured data on the home page says the firm has operated since 1980, while Robert Beles writes in his own bio that he started the firm in 1979. The founder's own account is the better source, and the gap is a year in a history spanning more than four decades.

The site publishes no case results, no settlement figures and no rankings. In my opinion that restraint reads well for a criminal defense firm, where outcomes depend heavily on facts that vary case to case. What the firm puts forward instead is the professional record of the people doing the work.

A prospective client should still verify the certifications directly through the State Bar of California, confirm which attorney would handle their matter, and ask about experience with the specific charge they face. Beles & Beles has been practicing criminal defense in Alameda County since 1979, and four of its lawyers hold state certification in their fields.