We help our attorney clients build their cases for lesser or alternative sentences.
Top criminal defense attorneys realize that having an expert mitigation specialist who delivers excellent customer service and work product is vital to any good defense strategy. Downward Departure is your mitigation specialist and an indispensable member of your defense team in all proceedings.
We possess the clinical and information-gathering skills and training that most investigators do not have. We utilize our knowledge and skills to assist our attorney clients in weaving mitigation throughout their cases. Our number one priority is producing the best mitigation memorandums that bring your client’s story alive in the courtroom. We offer a holistic view of your client that highlights their contributions to the world and their communities. We play an essential role in maintaining close contact with your client and their family while the case is pending. The rapport developed in this process can be the key to collecting collateral interviews and character letters.
We maximize your valuable time.
We take the time and have the ability to elicit sensitive, traumatic, and abuse information that your defendant may not have disclosed. We have the clinical skills to recognize congenital, mental, and neurological conditions, how these conditions have affected the defendant’s development and behavior, and identify the best experts to examine the defendant and testify on their behalf.
We help you develop a comprehensive and cohesive case.
Perhaps most critically, working with Downward Departure as your qualified mitigation specialist is an integral part of your defense team.
We are thorough and detail-oriented.
- Compiling a comprehensive and well-documented psycho-social history of your client based on an exhaustive investigation; analyzing the significance of the information in terms of impact on development, including the effect on personality and behavior
- Finding mitigating themes in the client’s life history
- Identifying the need for expert assistance
- Assisting in obtaining appropriate experts
- Providing social history information to experts to enable them to conduct competent and reliable evaluations
We are experienced.
We have over 50 years of combined experience, knowledge, and the team to perform your mitigation investigations in a timely, professional manner that gets results. You benefit from our expertise, our passion for our work, and our commitment to providing you with an excellent work product and customer service.
All of our investigations are confidential, client-focused, and designed to elicit empathy in the courtroom.