Areas of Practice:
State and Federal Criminal Defense

Bar Admissions:
California, 1974
U.S. District Courts of California
U.S. District Court of Georgia
U.S. District Court of Chicago
U.S. Court of Appeal, Ninth Circuit

Education:
B.A., University of California, Berkeley, 1971, Major in Criminology (Honors)
J.D., University of California, Boalt Hall School of Law, 1974

Mr. Lew was a founding name Partner at the law firm of Minami, Lew and Tamaki [www.mltsf.com] since its formation in 1974 until 2006 when he separated from the firm to establish his own practice. He specializes in criminal defense with extensive federal and state criminal defense trial experience, emphasizing business-related prosecutions before the federal courts and complex white-collar matters. Mr. Lew was born in Oakland and received his undergraduate education at the University of California at Berkeley, graduating in three years with Honors in 1971 with a degree in Criminology. He attended law school at the University of California’s Boalt Hall of Law, receiving his Juris Doctor in 1974.

In his 32 years of criminal defense practice, Mr. Lew has defended clients charged with crimes involving multi-million dollar allegations of tax, bankruptcy, bank and wire fraud, embezzlement, money laundering, illegal structuring of monetary transactions, environmental law violations, sex offenses and drug offenses. He has extensive experience with respect to state and federal asset forfeitures, U.S. Customs violations, Department of Commerce Export Controls, Health Care fraud and prosecutions for intellectual property infringement.

Mr. Lew holds the following professional associations and memberships:
Criminal Justice College of Advocacy, University of California, Hastings College of Law, Lecturer, 1985-1990
San Francisco Bar Association, Judiciary Committee, 1989-1990
State Bar of California, Executive Committee, 1983-1987, Treasurer, Co-Chair and Chair
California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, Board of Governors, 1978-1988
Criminal Trial Lawyers Association of Northern California, President
American Bar Association, Criminal Law Section member
Federal Bar Association, member
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (Life Member)
Asian American Bar Association

Professional licensing is also part of his practice and is handled on a select and limited basis.

Mr. Lew holds an AV rating, the highest rating for attorney competence and ethics by the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, a national compilation of attorneys.

In 2004 & 2006 Mr. Lew was selected by Law & Politics magazine as one of Northern California’s "Superlawyers" in the area of White Collar criminal defense. 

AVENUE magazine identified Mr. Lew as one of the 500 most influential Asian Americans in 1998.

He is a contributing author to "California Criminal Law Procedure and Practice", published by the California Continuing Education of the Bar [CEB] and was a co-founder of the Asian Law Caucus, Inc., a leading non-profit civil rights organization.