ABOUT THE FIRM
We built this firm around a question the system doesn’t ask.
Courts are very good at asking what someone did. Almost nobody asks why. Everything about how this firm is put together — who we hired, what we do in-house, how we run a first meeting, and how we fight the case — comes from taking that second question seriously.
OUR TEAM
A criminal defense team to turn to when everything is on the line
We’re trial lawyers, law professors, mental health advocates, and advocates for criminal-justice reform. Several of us came out of public defender offices. You’re not going to be handed off to somebody you’ve never met — cases here are worked by our in-house team, and you’ll know who’s on your side from the beginning.
Most of us started in public defender offices.
William was a public defender in Tulare County and then in Monterey County. Alex Martin was beside him in Tulare. Nas Yasin was a deputy public defender in Santa Clara County. Alana Wilson and Dustin Ercolano came up through public defender internships in Marin and Santa Clara.
Ashley Cameron worked alongside William on some of the most serious court-appointed cases early in her career — including an attempted-murder trial they took to verdict and won.
That’s where you learn this work, and there’s no substitute for it. Hundreds of cases. Real trials, early and often. And the kind of local knowledge you only get from standing in the same courtroom every day for years — knowing the judges, the prosecutors, the clerks, and how a case in this building actually gets resolved.
Before Monterey, William and Alex Martin were public defenders together in Tulare County — one of the hardest places in California to do this work. Conservative juries. Judges who had seen everything and were moved by very little. Prosecutors who didn’t negotiate because they didn’t have to. And budgets so thin that whatever you were going to do for a client, you did with what was already in your hands.
Alex stayed in the Valley longer, taking appointments in Fresno and Madera counties on the conflict panel — the cases the public defender’s office can’t take, usually because it already represents a codefendant. The files that land on them are often the hardest ones in the building.
You learn fast in a place like that, or your clients pay for it. There is no expert coming. There is no second investigator. There is preparation, knowing the file better than anyone else in the room, and being willing to try the case when the offer is an insult. The two of them learned to be very good with very little.
Alana Wilson and Dustin Ercolano came at it from the other end. Both interned in public defender offices — Marin and Santa Clara counties — early enough to see clearly what those offices can do for a client and exactly where the wall is. They met William, and chose to do this work on the private side for that reason.
In our office, attorneys are free to do the work cases require without those limits. Nobody here carries a caseload that determines how much attention your case gets. Nobody needs permission to file a motion, hire an expert, put an investigator on a case for three weeks, or take a matter to trial rather than settle it.
That is where the line on our cards comes from. Purpose-driven criminal defense — criminal defense that starts with the why — is not a marketing idea. It is what we learned to do when nobody was going to hand us anything else. Sometimes the why is what put a person in that chair. Sometimes it is why the case against them was never true. We ask it the same way either way.
To be clear: the lawyers in those offices are good, and some are excellent. If you can’t afford private counsel, ask the court for one. The problem was never the people. It was everything built around them — and that’s what we walked away from. We just brought the best habits with us.
William V. Pernik
FOUNDER & CERTIFIED CRIMINAL LAW SPECIALIST
William Pernik is the founding attorney and a Certified Specialist in Criminal Law with extensive experience as a public defender and private defense attorney. He specializes in complex and serious criminal cases, including violent crimes, gang cases, and cases involving mental health, substance abuse, and veterans, and is known for achieving acquittals, dismissals, and strategic case resolutions.
Alexander Martin
SENIOR TRIAL ATTORNEY
Hablo EspañolNative Spanish Speaker
Alexander “Alex” Martin is a criminal defense attorney with over 18 years of experience handling serious felony and misdemeanor cases throughout California. A seasoned trial lawyer, he has taken more than 150 jury trials to verdict and is known for his strategic, results-driven defense. As a native Spanish speaker, Alex also provides direct representation to Spanish-speaking clients.
Ashley Cameron
ATTORNEY & LEAD RESEARCHER
Ashley provides high-level research and persuasive writing that identifies strategic gaps standard defense models often miss. In her role, she crafts precise, compelling motions to ensure every legal argument is strategically sound. A former President of the Monterey County Women Lawyers Association, her commitment to collaborative advocacy is a cornerstone of the Pernik Law method.
Nas Yasin
TRIAL ATTORNEY
Nas Yasin is a criminal defense attorney serving clients throughout Silicon Valley and the Central Coast, with experience in criminal defense, immigration, civil rights, and human rights law. A former Deputy Public Defender in Santa Clara County, she has represented clients through every stage of the criminal process and is a dedicated advocate both inside and outside the courtroom.
Alana Wilson
TRIAL ATTORNEY
Alana Wilson is a criminal defense attorney with experience in public defender offices, legal clinics, and criminal defense advocacy. She specializes in cases involving mental health, juvenile and youthful offenders, and domestic matters, and is dedicated to providing strategic and personalized representation.
Dustin Ercolano
TRIAL ATTORNEY
Dustin Ercolano is a criminal defense attorney with experience in public defender offices and legal clinics, including appellate and post-conviction work. He specializes in complex criminal matters and cases involving veterans and active-duty service members, and is committed to strategic, thorough, and client-focused defense.
Wayne Autry
IN-HOUSE INVESTIGATOR
Wayne Autry is our in-house investigator and a retired police detective. He spent a career building the kind of case that’s now built against our clients — and he knows where the weak seams are. He works your case from the beginning, which is the single biggest reason we find things other lawyers don’t.
PURPOSE-DRIVEN CRIMINAL DEFENSE
What we mean by purpose-driven criminal defense
It isn’t a slogan we picked. It’s the difference between closing a file and solving what put someone in that chair. Four things follow from it.
Nobody is the worst thing they’ve been accused of.
A case is a snapshot of a few minutes of someone’s life, taken by a stranger, on their worst day. Who a person has been for forty years is evidence too — legally, not just emotionally — and we put it in front of the court.
The why often matters more than the what.
A charge tells you what allegedly happened. It tells you nothing about the reasons why. We examine the reasons behind the accusation and build individual strategies for success — at trial, in motion work, or through holistic defense such as diversion programs and treatment courts.
You should understand your own case.
If you can’t explain your situation to your spouse after talking to us, we’ve failed. We don’t hide behind vocabulary. That includes explaining it in Spanish when that’s your language.
We’d rather tell you the truth than keep you as a client.
Some cases should be fought. Some should be resolved. Some don’t need us at all. We say which is which, even when it costs us the fee.
HOW WE STARTED
Twenty years of criminal defense, and one case that stuck.
The case that made me a defense attorney was a Mexican juvenile convicted of murder and sentenced to death on a confession the State claimed was knowing and voluntary. I was a USF law student doing an internship in Texas, going through an old file box, when I found the lie. While waiting to die, our client had written to the Mexican consulate asking for help understanding a system that did not care to understand him. The consulate responded by sending him children’s books about American history and the Constitution — because he was slow, and could not read well at an adult level.
The injustice, the racism, and the cruelty in that case set in motion what became a career, and eventually led me to my purpose.
I had been a public defender in Monterey County, and in Tulare before that. I thought we were better than what I saw that summer in Texas. That hasn’t always been true. I’d seen how fast a person becomes a case number, and how rarely anyone stops to ask what put them in that chair. I saw courage and cowardice, competence and malpractice. Mostly I saw people going through the motions, reacting to things, rarely stopping to understand the human beings affected by their decisions in court.
When I opened my own practice in 2015, I decided we would do it differently. Person first, then the evidence. Always the human before the charges. Understanding the real culprit behind the accusation. Treating clients with mental health issues or addiction differently from the rest. Advocating for veterans. Protecting immigrants and clients with special needs. Working with young offenders to set them on a different path and get them out of gangs.
When you work with us, you work with a team of lawyers who actually care about their clients and their communities, and who fight hard for justice and for long-term success in life — not just for wins in court.
William V. Pernik
Founder · Certified Specialist in Criminal Law
State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization
CREDENTIALS
The credentials behind the work
Certified Specialist in Criminal Law. William is certified by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. It requires years of practice, a written examination, and peer review, and only a small fraction of California attorneys hold it. Other attorneys of the firm are not certified specialists.
We teach this work.
Two of our attorneys teach law in San Jose. We publish a criminal procedure video series covering everything from a street stop through the right to a speedy trial, and we host Counselor: Beyond Conventional Defense, a podcast on defending serious cases.
We don’t do that for marketing. We do it because the people most hurt by the criminal system are the ones who don’t understand it, and most of them will never hire a lawyer at all.
And we push on the system itself.
When California enacted a new diversion statute, the published version contained an error that would have changed how the law was applied to real defendants. We wrote to the Legislative Counsel Bureau to get it corrected, and we circulated the letter as a template so other defense attorneys could do the same.
We do the same thing one case at a time. When a court denies a client mental health diversion on reasoning we think is wrong, or lets a constitutional violation stand, we challenge that ruling by writ rather than absorbing it. Those challenges protect the client in front of us — and when a reviewing court agrees, the ruling becomes law that protects everyone charged after them.
WHAT TO EXPECT
What actually happens when you call
01
The first call
You’ll reach a person, not a menu. They’ll take down what happened and get you to an attorney. If it’s urgent — someone in custody, a court date this week — we treat it that way.
02
The first meeting
Free, confidential, and longer than you expect. We’ll ask about the case, and we’ll ask about your life. We’ll also ask what you’re most afraid of losing — your license, your record, your immigration status, your children — because that answer shapes everything we do next. Some people find the first meeting uncomfortable. It’s how we find the defense.
03
What it costs
We’ll quote you a flat fee for your case, in writing, before you decide anything. You’ll know what you’re paying and what it covers. If money is a problem, say so — we can often work something out, and we’ll tell you honestly if the public defender is the better option for you.
04
While your case is open
You’ll know who to call and you’ll get called back. You’ll get a straight answer about where things stand, including when the news isn’t good. Nobody at this firm will let you find out something important in a courtroom.
INSIDE THE FIRM
Most criminal defense firms are one lawyer and a calendar.
That model works fine for many cases. It falls apart on the hard ones — or when the lawyer gets sick, or busy, or needs a vacation. Our work never stops, because we have a team, and it does four different jobs at once that no one person can do.
A full-time investigator, in-house.
Wayne Autry is a retired detective. He spent a career building the kind of case that’s now being built against our clients, and he knows where the weak seams are. Most firms hire investigation out by the hour, which means it happens late, briefly, or not at all. Ours starts the week you retain us.
An attorney whose job is research, writing, and writs.
Cases get won quietly, in motions, before a jury ever hears a word. Ashley Cameron handles research and appellate work full time, which means our motions get written properly instead of squeezed in between court appearances.
It also means we can do something most defense firms can’t. When a judge denies a mental health diversion petition, or rules against a client on a search that should have been suppressed, we don’t file it away and wait for an appeal after conviction. We challenge it by writ in the Court of Appeal while the case is still open — when reversing it still changes what happens to the person.
Trial lawyers who actually try cases.
Prosecutors keep a mental list of which defense attorneys will take a case to a jury and which ones always fold. That list shapes every offer you’re ever made. Between William, Alex, and Nas, this firm has tried more than 150 cases to verdict. We’re on the right side of that list, and it’s worth more to our clients than any advertisement.
A real treatment network.
Over twenty years we’ve built working relationships with doctors, psychologists, addiction specialists, and trauma counselors across these counties. We know which programs judges here respect and which ones they wave off. When we propose a plan, it’s one the court has reason to believe in.
And behind that: 21 people — attorneys, paralegals, investigators, and an intake team whose only job is to make sure nobody who calls this firm waits for an answer.
OUR PRACTICE
Criminal defense. That’s all we do.
No divorces, no accidents, no wills. We defend people charged with crimes — from a first misdemeanor to a homicide — and we handle the appeals and record-clearing work that comes after. Seventeen practice areas, one focus.
Verified Client Experiences
Read how our purpose-driven criminal defense advocacy restores careers, families, and futures when the stakes are highest.
INSIGHTS & MEDIA
Legal Resources For You
Explore legal strategies, articles, and case law educational videos.
Private Lawyer vs. Public Defender: An Insider’s Perspective
How Mental Health Diversion (PC 1001.36) Works
Pernik Law Featured in Central Coast News
Understanding Criminal Threats
Forensic Strategy
Frequently Asked Questions
TALK TO US
Come talk to us.
Bring the paperwork if you have it. Bring a family member if you want one. We’ll tell you what you’re facing and what can be done about it, and you can decide from there.
Free · Confidential · Hablamos español · Salinas, Monterey & San Jose
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