Welcome to The National Academy of Criminal Defense Attorneys

The National Academy of Criminal Defense Attorneys is an organization devoted to recognizing the top criminal defense attorneys in the nation. With over a million attorneys in the United States, choosing the best lawyer is difficult. However, through a stringent selection process, the NACDA awards the best criminal defense attorneys in each state with our most prestigious honor of being named "TOP 10". The very few attorneys (less than 1%) that are good enough to make our list have demonstrated an extraordinary amount of knowledge, skill, experience, expertise and success in their practice of criminal defense.

The attorneys that make our list have to first be nominated by a licensed practicing attorney or one of our in-house research staff members. Second, our research staff verifies that they meet the minimum requirements of membership. Then they have to be one of 50 attorneys chosen to advance to the final selection stage by our processing committee, and then our Board of Governors officially selects the Top 10 in each state. We know it is a tough process but we wouldn't have it any other way.