Craig J. Rosenstein

Tell us a little bit about your practice and what makes it unique.

• Rosenstein Law Group is based in Scottsdale, Arizona but we serve clients all over the state of Arizona. Our growing team currently has 7 attorneys and we are the only law firm in Central and Northern Arizona with both DUI and Criminal Law Specialists. We also boast the only two board certified DUI Defense attorneys in Maricopa County. The attorneys and staff at the Rosenstein Law Group treat all of their clients facing all manners of criminal, DUI, and traffic offense charges with respect and compassion. We utilize our over 100 years of combined legal experience to provide a smart and aggressive approach to defending our clients. Every one of our clients’ cases is unique, and requires care and diligence to achieve the best possible outcome. We will always be prepared to go to trial to fight for your rights in Court. We are a full-service law firm that provides “white-glove” client services and will handle every detail of your defense. Our attorneys understand that people make mistakes, and this includes citizens as well as law enforcement officers. Craig Rosenstein has worked tirelessly on criminal justice issues and regularly testifies at the Arizona legislature on criminal justice matters. When we come across unjust laws or laws being abused by prosecuting agencies, we don’t complain - we change the laws. Most recently, during the last legislative session our office authored and with the help of AACJ was the driving force behind a bill put forward prohibiting commercial use of mug shots through the legislature and were ecstatic when the governor signed it into law.

What common questions are you asked by clients, and what are your answers?

• How long will my case take to resolve?
  Every case varies. There is no straight answer to exactly how long a DUI or criminal case will take. The DUI process from arrest to resolution varies dramatically. If everything works out perfectly, our services are immediately retained, and everything goes smoothly, we can potentially get the case resolved favorably in about four months. Everything going perfectly is more unusual than usual, so the average length of a DUI case is about seven to ten months.
  
  What do I do when I am stopped or arrested?
  If you are stopped or arrested for DUI/DWI, the best way to avoid a conviction is to know and assert your rights. Be polite to the officer, provide your name, driver’s license, car registration, and car insurance. The next thing you should do is to invoke your right to an attorney. Also, stop talking. You will not explain your way out of the situation and everything you say can and will be used against you later.
  
  What should I do if I am asked to take field sobriety tests by an officer?
  A police officer cannot physically force you to complete field sobriety tests but can take it into account when deciding to arrest you for DUI if you refuse. However, please remember the tests are designed extremely poorly and are very seldomly passed by those who are dead sober much less as nervous as the average person ordered to take them after being pulled over by a police officer. Alleged poor performance on these tests can hurt your chance of being acquitted later, so we recommend that you never do them.
  
  Why should I hire and pay for an attorney when I get a public defender?
  In Arizona, if you are charged with any felony or any misdemeanor where the prosecutor is seeking jail time then the state of Arizona is obligated to assign you an attorney to represent you. Those attorneys are often great people who are great attorneys but are also horribly overworked. The biggest complaint we hear from people who have a public defender representing them is that the attorney has no time to even speak to them on the phone much less meet with them in person about their case. This is due to the heavy volume of cases that public defenders are assigned. Ideally, when you hire a private criminal defense attorney you don’t have to worry about that lack of communication and focus on your case. Maintaining a manageable case load is essential for this to happen. We also often see firms charging small amounts of money and overloading private attorneys with unmanageable caseloads. This results in the same complaints as with the public defenders. What our firm provides is detail orientated and white glove service for you as a client. We provide thorough, personalized service for you and we investigate every angle of the case. This is essential in strengthen your defense and our negotiating power with the very well-funded prosecutor’s office. You cannot do this with an unmanageable caseload, so we make sure that our attorneys are never assigned too many cases allowing them to provide the absolute best defense to ALL of our clients.
  
  What happens if you live out of state and get a DUI while visiting Arizona?
  You will need to hire an attorney to represent you in Arizona so they can attend your Court dates and hearings. If you don’t have private counsel, you will be expected to come back and be present for each required court appearance. Our attorneys are very experienced in assisting our clients in navigating the three giant bureaucracies that need to be dealt with in this situation; The Court, the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division (“MVD”), and the client’s own state’s motor vehicle division. Making sure that your attorney knows the intricacies of all three is an essential characteristic if you find yourself arrested while on a trip to AZ.
  

Describe one of your most interesting or memorable cases in the past year.

• This year, we have worked on something new, unique and special. We found that we were getting calls from clients distressed after their mugshots from their arrests were somehow easily found online and coming up high in Google searches. To make matters worse, representatives from the websites that were optimizing these mugshots to appear online, were contacting our clients and attempting to extort them for exorbitant amount of money for their services to remove the mugshots. We felt this was highly unethical and extremely distressing for our clients, who are already dealing with a difficult situation and stressful time in their lives. We decided to take action. At first, we worked on fighting each website individually, but this ended up being generally ineffective as these providers were just skating inside the law. At this point, we decided to think outside the box, and we worked on a more effective and permanent solution. At the time, Craig Rosenstein was the president of the criminal justice organization Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice (AACJ). Our firm authored a bill and decided to team up with AACJ to work on getting this bill passed into law. On April 1, 201,9 Governor Doug Ducey signed HB2191 into law. The bill targeted mugshot website operators who are now defined as companies that publish a person’s mugshot or criminal justice record on a publicly available internet website for a commercial purpose. However, legitimate news outlets, such as Arizona Republic, FOX, NBC, and ABC are excluded and allowed to use mug shots for legitimate news purposes. The law prohibits mugshot website operators from publishing individuals’ mugshots and other criminal justice information for pecuniary gain, but it gives victims of this predatory practice a right to sue them for damages if they violate this new law. We are proud to say that this was the first, but not the last time our firm will be instrumental in making Arizona a better place.

What is most challenging about your area(s) of expertise?

• We believe that the most challenging thing about our area of expertise is winning an acquittal of the criminal charges for our client(s) in a jury trial. About 97% of all non-DUI cases in the criminal justice system in Arizona resolve without proceeding to trial. DUI defense is an exception to that rule. We attempt to resolve every single case without going to jury trial but if the State’s final plea offer is the same as or worse than what our clients would receive upon conviction, our default position is to try the case. For reasons unknown, more cases need to be tried in DUI matters than in any other type of case, criminal or civil As a result of our position to always aggressively fight for our clients’ interest as well as our thoroughness, we can favorably resolve the overwhelming amount of our cases, but our firm still proceeds to and wins acquittals for dozens of clients in jury trials each year.

Were there any particular inspirations (people or events) that spurred your interest in your practice area(s)?

• The 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution starts with the following: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated”. It is this simple clause that inspires Craig and everyone working at this firm. We know, unequivocally, that the only thing standing in between our freedoms and tyranny is this simple clause. The criminal justice system is where the rubber meets the road and our constitutional rights are tested. It is our job to secure these rights for our clients and to ensure that they continue to exist so our children can enjoy them. That is what inspires us.

What other interests do you have?

• Craig Rosenstein has a family that he very much enjoys spending time and traveling with. He also enjoys and collects classic American-made muscle cars and enjoys driving in these around town when the weather isn’t so hot.