The Merchant Law Firm

Focus and practice areas

Criminal defense is the entire focus of this Marietta, Georgia firm. Ashleigh B. Merchant and John B. Merchant, III run it together, and from their Marietta office they represent clients across Metro Georgia. The site sets out one plain purpose for the work: defending people who have been accused of a crime.

Among the everyday charges, the firm handles DUI, drug charges such as marijuana possession, theft and shoplifting, and traffic tickets. It also takes white collar charges and computer crimes, which usually turn on records, accounts and digital files that build up over months. Those cases can fill boxes with evidence long before anyone reaches a courtroom.

The firm also takes the most serious felony matters. That list runs to sex crimes, domestic violence, assault and battery, arson, kidnapping and murder. It handles cases where the death penalty is possible, which are the gravest charges a criminal defense lawyer can carry.

Charges that carry lasting stakes

Some of these charges carry weight beyond the sentence itself. A sex crime conviction in Georgia can bring registration duties that last for years. A domestic violence case often runs alongside a protective order that limits contact and housing. These knock-on effects are part of why such matters call for careful defense from the first hearing.

Work that surrounds a charge

The firm names matters that reach past the trial court itself. It takes juvenile cases, federal charges and probation violations, each of which runs in its own kind of court with its own rules. It also files appeals, handles expungements, and brings civil rights lawsuits on behalf of clients.

That breadth says something useful about the two attorneys. Juvenile court, federal court and a probation hearing each demand a different footing, and a firm that lists all three is claiming room to move across them. In my opinion, naming both the trial and the steps that come after it points to lawyers who plan to stay with a case for its full length.

How the team is built

Two attorneys carry every case, and they know each other well. Ashleigh B. Merchant and John B. Merchant, III work together as a husband and wife team, a fact the site states directly on more than one page. A client who hires the firm works with these two named lawyers.

Ashleigh Merchant practices criminal defense and appears on local and national news media to comment on major cases. That kind of public commentary calls for someone who can explain the criminal process clearly to people outside it. John B. Merchant, III practices criminal defense at the firm as well, and the two share the caseload between them.

A close, two-lawyer setup

People who describe working with the firm point to direct contact with the Merchants on their own cases. As a reviewer, I take that as consistent with a small firm where the named attorneys handle the files themselves. A two-person office keeps the lawyer a client meets and the lawyer who argues the case as one and the same person.

What the record shows

The site states that the firm has more than 18 years representing accused people. It does not give a founding year, so that figure is the firm's own count of its time in the work. For criminal defense, that experience mostly shows up in judgment: knowing which motions matter and how a given courthouse tends to run.

Both attorneys hold a 10.0 rating on Avvo. Ashleigh Merchant appears in the 2014 Georgia Super Lawyers Rising Stars edition. John Merchant appears in the same Rising Stars list across 2009, 2010 and 2011.

What these listings are

Super Lawyers publishes a Rising Stars list, a selection aimed at lawyers who are earlier in their careers. Avvo assigns numerical scores to lawyer profiles on a scale that ends at 10.0, and both Merchants carry that 10.0. These come from named outside programs, and the firm reports the years and the score as they stand.

How criminal matters tend to proceed

Criminal cases move through fairly set stages, and knowing them helps explain what a defense firm does day to day. A case usually opens with an arrest and a first appearance, where a judge sets the terms of release. Prosecutors then decide the formal charges, and the defense reviews the state's evidence through discovery.

Much of the real work happens before any trial starts. Defense lawyers file motions, question how police gathered their evidence, and talk with prosecutors about whether a case should end in a plea or go to a jury. For charges like DUI and drug cases, an early motion about the traffic stop or the search can decide how the whole case turns out.

Trials, appeals and clearing a record

A trial puts the state to its proof in front of a judge or jury. When a death sentence is on the table, Georgia splits the case into two parts: one on guilt, and a second where the same jury weighs whether the sentence should be death or life. Cases at that level ask a great deal of the lawyers who take them.

After a conviction, an appeal asks a higher court to review legal errors from the trial. Separate from that, an expungement clears an eligible record once a case has closed for good. The firm names both, so its work can run well past the day a verdict is read.

Reaching the firm and who it serves

The firm draws its clients from across Metro Georgia and works from a single office in Marietta, the seat of Cobb County. Cases from that area run through county superior and state courts, while federal charges move to the federal courthouse. A local firm tends to know the judges and staff in those buildings, which counts for a good deal in daily work.

The firm offers a free initial consultation to someone deciding how to handle a charge. That first meeting gives a person a read on both the case and the lawyers before any decision to hire. Ashleigh B. Merchant and John B. Merchant, III take that work from the single Marietta office.