About Us
To be clear, we didn’t write that—Lord Alfred Tennyson did. But if we’re going to build a legal team from some cherrypicked lines of centuries-old poetry, those last few lines of Ulysses are a good place to start.
Let us tell you about how we strive, seek, find, and don’t yield.
How we're organized
I (Dustyn) am not one for formalities or tradition. On the one hand, maybe this wasn’t the best profession for me.
On the other, maybe that’s why I am supposed to be a criminal-appeals lawyer and law-firm owner.
Even though this profession binds me to a lot of formality I don’t really care for, there’s a lot I get to do with this firm that’s quite a bit different. One way I’ve build this firm different is the organizational structure. I don’t like hierarchies or silos or “not my job”-ism. I like collaboration and activity. So here’s how our firm is structured:
Most of the behind the scenes probably doesn’t interest you any, but the one thing I want you to see is the very middle of the honeycomb. Client care is at the center of everything we do.
Client care is everyone’s job here.
Can’t say that we always execute perfectly (hey, we’re human too), but we always try to keep our clients right there in the center of our attention and efforts.
Ultimately, you’re here for you (or your loved one). We offer these blurbs so you have an idea of who you’re working with, but this is going to be a two-way relationship. We need to know more about you. What do you say?
To scratch Dustyn’s surface, this bit from Walt Whitman might help frame things:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Dustyn is full of what appear to be contradictions, but his varying interests and characteristics are all very coherently one thing: Dustyn. For instance,
- He believes in good governance and revolution.
- He is a pragmatic romantic.
- He loves a good shortcut and to take the hard way.
- He identifies with “the least of these” and the upper crust (but rarely the majority in the middle).
- He’s an old soul who never grew up.
- His face and voice are typically quite qualm; inside him, a storm of ideas and passions rage.
The man won’t even give a straightforward website biography because getting to know him is different than getting to know about him. But for those who are interested in knowing about him, here we go:
He’s a Christian. It’s important enough to him to list this first, but he’s not overly sanctimonious about it. There will be no evangelizing accompanying your legal work. It’s important for you to know simply because it informs the fact that we at Coontz Law welcome and serve all. Some (white American evangelical) Christians seem to take an opposite approach, but Dustyn’s faith is one of openness and acceptance.
Beyond that, he’s the lucky husband of Stephanie, proud dad of Lily (the human), and sometimes-proud-but-always-tolerant dad of Archie (the dog). He’s a Detroit Lions megafan, and not the sort that have come out of the woodwork the last couple of years. He likes playing hockey, lifting weights, gardening in the greenhouse, and helping with Lily’s sports teams.
We’re working on getting a fuller bio for Mylene. Here’s what we can tell you right off the bat: she is a champion for our clients. She takes the lead on our second-chance cases because they are so detail-intensive, and no detail is too small for her. She’ll make sure that our paperwork is in order before it goes out the door. More info to come.
We’re working on getting a fuller bio for Lovely. Here’s what we can tell you right off the bat: she lives up to her name. She’s also one of the hardest working and most diligent people we know. She’s an absolutely incredible asset to the team. More info to come.
What we look for on our team
You probably want the people handling your case to be here for a reason. I do too. That’s why we have a standardized operating procedure for who even gets to work here in the first place. Here’s what our SOP says about who can work here:
- Unfailing empathy. You cannot do a good job with the kind of work we do if you can’t put yourself in the client’s or their family’s shoes. You just can’t.
- Creativity. We solve problems. If there’s a straightforward solution, it’s not really that big of a problem. To be successful at solving thorny problems, it requires some creativity.
- Good decision-making. The people who haven’t worked out at Coontz Law have made questionable decisions, even though those decisions weren’t wrong or contrary to our values, per se. But poor discretion is often a symptom of not exhibiting Veritas or Ownership, and it can frequently lead away from Results.
- Resilience. The single most important thing that has made for a great team member is that they’ve persevered through something hard.
At Coontz Law, FORGE is more than a word. It is the set of values that shapes every case we take and every client we serve. We live, act, and defend with Forward Motion, Ownership, Resolve, Grace, and Elevation.
Each of our values comes with four precepts that give us a little extra guidance when we’re not sure what it means to live up to our lofty ideals.
Instead of giving you a dressed up version of our values and precepts for the website, we’ll just tell you what Dustyn preaches to the Hive:
Defending with Forge
Forward Motion
We keep moving, no matter what. Cases stall when people sit on them, so we don’t. We stay focused on what needs to happen next.
Ownership
We take responsibility for our clients’ outcomes as if they were our own. If it were our case, we wouldn’t let it slip through the cracks, and we don’t let yours slip through either.
Resolve
We do not back down when the path gets hard. Some cases get ugly before they get better. We stay in it anyway, because that’s when clients need us the most.
Grace
We treat every client with dignity, regardless of what they carry. Everybody walks in carrying something. We don’t judge; we just get to work.
Elevation
We help people rise above their past and build something worth keeping. Ending the case is only part of the goal. Watching someone get their footing back matters, too.
…or you’ll fall for anything. That’s the old saying, and it’s true. We stand on our values of FORGE because we don’t want to take the easy way out for our clients. Will you stand with us?
How is our firm client centered?
It starts with our people. We have good people who care about their work and our clients. It then comes down to our systems and technology. We use this to reduce the friction between us and you. We minimize paperwork and speed up things like payents. We communicate regularly. We track the progress of your case. We limit the number of cases we take so that our clients are served properly.
We also focus on doing really excellent legal work. Ultimately, that’s what you’re here for: for us to get a job done. So we work hard on our craft and getting you or your loved one in the best possible position to OVERCOME whatever it is that got you in this mess.
What doesn't it mean to be client centered?
Think about it like this. Say you had a consultation with an elite heart surgeon because you need a valve replaced. You have a question and don’t feel comfortable getting a good answer from the nurse or the receptionist. In your mind, this is a pretty urgent matter. You call the heart surgeon, but she’s in the middle of surgery on another patient.
Is she a patient-centered doctor if she takes your call right then and there?
In the same way, our lawyers have to dedicate a lot of time to doing the actual work of law. And much like surgery, this requires uninterrupted stretches of intense concentration. Being client centered doesn’t mean unfettered access to your lawyer. Because when it’s your case we’re working on, you won’t want us to take the call from that other client.
Being client centered also doesn’t mean that the client gets to treat anyone on the team poorly. Our work is too important for us to take abuse from our clients or their loved ones.
Why are we client centered?
The better question is, “Aren’t all law firms client-centered?” The answer should absolutely be yes. But, unfortunately, it’s not.
We don’t mean to disrespect other lawyers or their firms. It’s not that there’s a grand conspiracy to keep people in the dark or rip them off. These things happen sometimes, but most firms aren’t client-centered for a different reason: it’s simply hard to do.
Many lawyers go to law school because they’re good at arguing, or because there’s money in the profession. Few go to law school with a plan to design a truly client-focused law firm. After all, practicing law is hard enough by itself.
We understand that, but in our view, it’s still not an excuse. This is your case, not ours. We know what it’s like to feel ignored by professionals like doctors or contractors. It’s frustrating. And we don’t want our services to feel that way. You deserve better, and that’s what we aim to deliver.
What does it mean to be client centered?
To us, it means making it as easy as possible to navigate a hard time in your life. Going through a criminal appeal or an expungement or a driver’s license restoration or any of the services we offer is hard. It’s complicated. We’d daresay these processes are often over-complicated.
It shouldn’t be over-complicated dealing with your lawyer. From first phone call to final farewell, we aim to make dealing with us the simplest and most pleasant part of your experience. We want to minimize your anxiety. We do our best to be accessible on a schedule that works for you. We try to explain the process in a way that makes it easier to understand. We try to minimize the hassles of excessive paperwork. We rely on good systems and great talent from all over the world to keep your out-of-pocket costs down.
And most-importantly, we are focused on getting ourselves in the best position to achieve outstanding results in your case, even as the deck is so often stacked against us.
"How much will all this cost?"
Most lawyers don’t actually answer that question until the final bill arrives. They’ll tell you how much they need to get started. They’ll tell you their hourly rate. Probably somewhere between $200 and $500 per hour. But what does that hourly rate get you? An hour of the lawyer’s time, no matter how valuable it is to actually getting you what you need: results.
We think that’s a bad way to serve our clients. And for our team, that’s a bad way to live. We think our people are more valuable than the amount of hours they put in, and we think our clients are too important for our incentives to be to run up the bill on them.
That’s why our emphasis is on getting the job done efficiently and providing value. And that’s why we bill flat fees. We’ll keep track of our time, sure, but we won’t be slaves to the billable hour.
And you won’t have to worry about surprise legal bills every single month. If you roll with us, we’ll answer that question—”How much will all this cost?”—before you have to pay us a single penny. If you’re looking for a criminal appeals lawyer or someone to help you get a second chance, give us a call. We’ll tell you exactly how much this will cost.
We’re guessing you do. Why else would you be looking through the website of a law firm whose whole thing is criminal appeals and second chances. Let’s see if we can do better for you than you got the last time around.
If you look around on this website, you won't find any of the following:
- a single gavel
- pictures of musty old law books
- the scales of justice (except on our logo of a badass, armor-clad, chain-breaking phoenix)
- laughable stock photos
- the firm owners’ faces plastered everywhere
- that awful, cringey writing you find on other websites that are just trying to get the search engine’s attention.
Here are some other things that are different about us:
- we hire people from all over the world because the world is a big place filled with a lot of talented people
- we’re paperless (whenever the world lets us be paperless)
- our office looks more like a podcast studio than a law firm
- if the lawyers don’t have court, there’s a good chance you’re going to find us at the office in jeans or sweats
- we try our damndest to talk like regular people.
And here's why we're different
It’s not by accident. And it’s not just because we’re antiauthoritarian weirdos (though that may play a factor).
We’re different by design because we think most law firms are pretty good at catering to two things: lawyers’ egos and a broken legal system.
Notice what’s not included in that short list: clients, the wellbeing of the team, and big-picture impact. That’s what we aim to optimize for.
Have we gotten everything exactly right? No, you may rest assured that we’re far from perfect. But we’re getting 1% better every day, and that adds up quick.
So why don’t you see our faces everywhere? Because it’s not about us. Why do we dress comfortably and occasionally have some fun at the office? Because and our work is stressful, and we’re in it for the long haul. We take care of the team so the team can take care of the clients. And together, we just might change the world.
Because if you want different sorts of results, you need a different sort of law firm.