About
Andrew D. Segal
I was born and raised in Cook County, Illinois, and I spent approximately five years defending people there at the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender, first as a law clerk licensed to represent clients under supervision during law school and later as an Assistant Public Defender. I worked on hundreds of cases ranging from traffic offenses to murder trials. Most of my practice was devoted to misdemeanor and felony cases at all stages of the criminal process, from initial appearance through sentencing. I litigated a range of constitutional issues, including First Amendment questions involving the right to protest during the 2024 Democratic National Convention and Fourth Amendment challenges to police searches and seizures.
I opened this office in Maine to bring the same high-quality representation to a smaller caseload, and to serve clients at a time when the state faces a serious shortage of criminal-defense attorneys.
I believe every person deserves a robust defense and an advocate who will fight with the same urgency and care they would bring to defending a member of their own family. I am called to this work because our criminal courts do not treat everyone equally. They come down hardest on poor and working-class people, Black and brown people, those who challenge the government, and those forced to confront the criminal process without a zealous advocate.
Criminal defense cannot cure all of these systemic injustices, but it provides a vital check on the government's immense power to take away a person's freedom and forever alter the course of their life.
