What Sets Us Apart

Robert W. Chestney

E-mail: bob@dui-lawyer.com

Georgia Super Lawyer®. One of only two lawyers in the entire state of Georgia selected by their peers every year to be Super Lawyers® in the limited area of DUI/DWI Defense.

Board Certified by the National College for DUI Defense. One of the few lawyers in the country originally board certified in 1999 by the prestigious National College for DUI Defense—and still one of only four lawyers in the entire state of Georgia who hold this distinction.

Mr. Chestney was an original member of the Georgia "Defense of Drinking Drivers" group. This organization of lawyers who vigorously defend DUI charges presented him with a LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD in 2000 and honored him again in 2002 as DUI LAWYER OF THE YEAR.

Most recently, Bob was selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2012 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® for DUI/DWI Defense. He was also selected as one of Georgia's Legal Elite by Georgia Trend Magazine, an honor that recognizes the state's top attorneys based on the votes of other lawyers.

Bob has been a criminal defense lawyer for 36 years, and since 1993, his practice has been exclusively devoted to defending DUI and Vehicular Homicide cases. He has handled thousands of DUI cases, and has actually been lead counsel in well over 100 DUI jury trials, and hundreds of bench trials. The majority of his cases, however, have been successfully resolved without a trial (see our "Results" page). Since 1995, Mr. Chestney has been recognized by Martindale-Hubbell with their highest "AV" rating, and is presently listed in their Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers.  Avvo.com also gives Bob its highest rating, 10.0/10.0.

In addition to his trial work, Mr. Chestney maintains an aggressive appellate practice, having personally handled such significant cases as Jorgensen v. State and Baker v. State.  Mr. Chestney also co-wrote the winning brief in Cooper v. State, 277 Ga. 282 (2003), a landmark case in which the Georgia Supreme Court struck down a portion of the implied consent law as unconstitutional. He is a member of the bar of the Georgia Court of Appeals, the Georgia Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth, Sixth and Eleventh Circuits, and of the United States Supreme Court.

Mr. Chestney is a founding member of the National College for DUI Defense and served on their Board of Regents from 1995 to 2002. He is also former chair of the Criminal Law Section of the Atlanta Bar Association and served on its Board of Directors from 1999 to 2003. He is a member of the Atlanta Bar Association, the Cobb County Bar Association, the Gwinnett County Bar Association, the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

In addition to serving on the faculty of the National College for DUI Defense, held at the Harvard Law School each summer since 1995, Mr. Chestney has lectured on DUI Defense at programs and seminars in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Missouri, Arizona, Hawaii, Louisiana and Nevada, including the National NACDL DUI Seminar in 2000 and 2003, as well as the National "Getting Tough on DWI" Seminar put on by the Minnesota Society for Criminal Justice in 2004. Mr. Chestney chaired the Georgia "Defense of Drinking Driver" programs for ICLE of Georgia in 1995, 1996 and 1997.

EDUCATION:

• West Georgia College, B.S. Physics/Mathematics, 1969.
• Florida State University, M.S. Mathematics, 1970.
• Woodrow Wilson College of Law, J.D. Magna Cum Laude, 1976.