Family Law

• Divorce
• Child Support
  During his tenure in private practice, Dr. Belcher has counseled more than one thousand persons concerning the various areas of family law described above, by his estimate, and he has actually represented hundreds of litigants in family law cases involving issues of divorce, custody, visitation, child support cases, and domestic violence. Dr. Belcher also has represented many young persons charged in juvenile cases and parents embroiled in CINA disputes.
• Child Custody and Visitation
• Spousal Support
  When lawyers talk about “family law” or “domestic relations” as an area of practice, they are referring to the use of law to resolve disputes arising in connection with marriage, sexual and romantic relationships not resulting in marriage, and the parent-child relationship. If you need help obtaining custody of a minor child, visitation with a minor child, child support, divorce, alimony, or a fair distribution of marital property, then you should speak to a family law practitioner. You also need to speak to a family law practitioner if you are a victim of domestic abuse from a romantic or sexual partner (including a same-sex partner) and wish to obtain a protective order to protect you from further abuse. Additionally, family law courts deal with matters focusing on the child, including juvenile cases and the alleged abuse or neglect of a child (known as “CCAN” cases in the District of Columbia and “CINA” cases in the Maryland).

Criminal Law

• Criminal Defense
  “Tort law” describes that broad area of law–usually studied by law students during their first year in an American law school, along with contracts and criminal law–which, in a nutshell, concerns Jill’s right to recover from Jack for damages that Jack has caused to Jill’s person or property. The term “tort” comes to us from Latin, through French, and simply means “wrong.”
• DUI/DWI
  Dr. Belcher’s prosecutorial background suits him particularly well to handle complex criminal cases, especially criminal tax cases, other white collar offenses including wire fraud and mail fraud, and complex drug conspiracies. However, Dr. Belcher understands that even a “minor” criminal charge or serious traffic offense such as DWI or DUI can be devastating to the person who has been charged, and he takes very seriously the defense of such cases.
• Traffic Violations
  For a defendant charged with a serious traffic violation or a criminal offense, whether in federal court or in state court, a criminal defense lawyer is often the only person protecting the defendant from joining the 7 million persons who are already incarcerated in this country. A good defense attorney will review the charges facing his client; study the applicable law and thoroughly investigate the underlying facts so as to reach a reasoned opinion concerning what charges the government would likely prove at trial; advise his client accordingly; and then follow his client’s instructions to the best of the attorney’s ability, whether the client instructs him to negotiate the best possible plea agreement or to challenge the government’s evidence at trial.
• Fraud
  When prosecuting alleged criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code, Dr. Belcher often incorporated into an indictment related violations of Title 18 of the United States Code (the Criminal Code), including mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. §1341; wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. §1343; false claims, 18 U.S.C. §371; and false statements to the United States, 18 U.S.C. §1001.
• Robbery
  Although we live in an age that has been characterized by an apparently ineluctable movement towards greater and greater specialization in all our skilled trades and professions, including the legal profession, there are still a few professionals whose intellectual curiosity and desire for variety does not allow them to fall in with this movement. Dr. Belcher draws inspiration from the classic English barrister and the eighteenth and nineteenth century American lawyer who would think nothing of defending a client accused of robbery on Monday, negotiating a property settlement on Tuesday, and representing a plaintiff in a defamation or breach of contact case on Wednesday.
• Misdemeanors
  Dr. Belcher zealously represents selected defendants who are facing serious traffic, misdemeanor, and felony charges in federal and state courts. Although Dr. Belcher has enjoyed a high rate of success both as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney, he never makes any guarantee concerning the outcome of any case. By the same token, Dr. Belcher never gives up on a criminal case that must be tried, no matter how hopeless it may seem, as long as there remains one more day before a jury or one more minute to convince an appellate panel that his client’s cause is just.
• Drug Crimes
  Since leaving the government and entering private practice, Dr. Belcher has defended federal criminal defendants in cases involving alleged criminal tax violations, wire fraud, firearms violations, money laundering, and drug charges ranging from simple possession and possession with intent to distribute to international drug trafficking. In addition to representing federal criminal defendants during investigations, in plea negotiations, at trial, for sentencing under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, and on appeal, Dr. Belcher has also prepared and filed petitions for postconviction relief under Title 42 United States Code, §2255.
• Assault
  While these cases all were based upon a theory of negligence, Dr. Belcher has also represented plaintiffs in a number of intentional tort cases involving such causes of action as defamation, malicious prosecution, and civil assault and battery.
• Murder
  When beginning his career as a defense attorney, Dr. Belcher served for several years on the Criminal Justice Act panel for the District of Columbia, representing criminal defendants on misdemeanor and felony charges in Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Dr. Belcher now regularly represents state-level criminal defendants, largely in the State of Maryland, on a wide variety of criminal offenses, ranging from murder and other violent offenses, controlled dangerous substance charges, and robbery to misdemeanor assault and serious traffic offenses, including DWI and DUI. Dr. Belcher has also represented a number of juveniles charged with acts of delinquency. Belcher appears mostly in the District Court of Maryland for Prince George’s County, Maryland, and the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, Maryland. However, Dr. Belcher has also appeared in criminal or juvenile cases in Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Calvert County, Charles County, Montgomery County, and Harford County.
• Money Laundering

Employment Law

• Workers Compensation
• Employment Discrimination
  Dr. Belcher has previously represented claimants before the EEOC and in federal lawsuits filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and the United States District Court for the District of Maryland alleging violations of the major federal statutes prohibiting discrimination in employment, including Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), the Rehabilitation Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
• Employment Contract
  For most of our nation’s history, employees had virtually no rights vis-à-vis employers other than what was put into an individual written employment agreement or a union contract. To this day, in fact, with a few important exceptions, most employees are governed by the “at-will” doctrine of employment, according to which an employer can hire, fire, or demote an employee for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all. However, beginning in 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, Congress has enacted a series of statutes that protect employees against many kinds of discrimination in employment, the most important of which may be summarized as follows...

Property Law

• Premises Liability
• Real Estate Transactions
  To this background, Dr. Belcher adds the multi-faceted skills that he has developed while in private practice to handle many of the sorts of legal problems that small businesses confront on a daily basis: Contract review and preparation; commercial litigation, both as plaintiff’s counsel and as defense counsel; employment law; personal injury claims; and other common legal problems that few solo practitioners or even small law firms have the resources to solve without outside assistance. In the critical area of contracts, which is the heart of any business enterprise, Dr. Belcher brings the perspective of a litigator who has litigated a broad range of contract issues, both before trial courts and on appeal, including issues arising in connection with real estate sales agreements, plea agreements in criminal cases, and separation agreements in family law cases.

Health Law

• Personal Injury
  Dr. Belcher makes no attempt to compete with the large-volume personal injury firms that advertise heavily for any and all injured claimants. However, once Dr. Belcher accepts a case, as long as his client is candid and cooperative, Dr. Belcher does everything in his power to obtain a maximum settlement for his client without regard to the time required and, if no fair settlement can be reached, to win a case in court.
• Medical Malpractice
  In addition to automotive torts, other tort cases that involve mostly physical injuries include civil assaults and batteries, dog-bite cases, boating accident cases, and premises liability cases. In other personal injury-type tort cases, such as malicious prosecution and defamation cases, a victim may seek relief for psychological rather than physical injuries. Workers compensation and medical malpractice may also be considered as areas of personal injury-type tort practice, although Dr. Belcher does not customarily handle either workers compensation or medical malpractice cases. Other than torts in which the alleged injury alleged is a physical or emotional injury suffered by the claimant, tort law includes economic torts, in which the alleged damage is to a person’s pocketbook.
• Auto Accidents

Trusts and Estates

• Estate Planning
• Wills
  Caveats and will contests in which interested persons seek to challenge the legitimacy of a putative will or to defend a will against the challenge of other persons.

Finance Law

• Debt Collection
  Claims alleging improper tactics by collection companies, in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”), a federal statute.