Joe St. Louis Named Dean of the National College for DUI Defense
Joseph P. St. Louis has begun his one-year term as Dean of the National College for DUI Defense (NCDD), the nonprofit organization that has provided advanced training to more than 1,700 DUI defense attorneys across the United States and Canada since 1994. The managing partner of St. Louis Huffman Law in Tucson, St. Louis has devoted nearly four decades to DUI, DUI homicide, and criminal defense, and he has served on the College's Board of Regents since 2014. He is board certified in both Criminal Law by the State Bar of Arizona and DUI Defense by the NCDD, and he has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America for DUI Defense every year since 2013.
During his term, St. Louis will oversee the College's educational programming and faculty development, with a focus on expanding access to rigorous, science-based DUI defense training for attorneys throughout North America, including the under-resourced public defender offices he has long championed. He opened his tenure with an acceptance speech on why this work is a calling, what the College has meant to his career, and the servant leadership he intends to bring to the role.
St. Louis's full acceptance speech follows below.
Full Acceptance Speech
I posted on social media about a great result one of the lawyers in my office achieved. I got the usual attaboy responses (actually it was about a female lawyer, so in this case, attagirl responses). But not all of the responses were positive. One woman responded to my post by saying "I could never do that"
She was, of course, virtue signaling. She was saying: I am a good person; you are a bad person. You get all of your clients off and put dangerous people back out on the streets and endanger everyone. (Ever notice how the people who look down on us also think we win every case? Not sure how that works.) But defending drinking driver cases for many years has taught me one thing: When she says: "I could never do that," she's right. Just not in the way she thinks.
Why are we DUI defense attorneys? Well, it's fun to win motions hearings, and it's fun to win trials. But it takes an awful lot of work to become skilled enough to make that happen consistently. So, if you become a DUI defense attorney it's because it's a calling. You do it because you need to get people second chances in life. Because you are driven to do it. It's not really a choice. If you are doing this because you think it's an easy way to make money or because you think being a defense attorney will win you the adoration of the public – boy, are you in for a surprise.
You have to be tough to do what we do. You have to be strong. Prosecutors don't like us. They think their officers are always right. They believe our clients are guilty of everything that they are accused of – and more. Judges don't like us. When they rule in our favor, they get reversed, so they rule against us. We slow everything down by not pleading our clients guilty. We take up their time by making them do evidentiary hearings and multi-day trials. The public doesn't trust us. They think we are conmen and conwomen. That we are slick salespeople trying to convince them to let guilty people off.
To be a DUI defense attorney you need two things. You need an inner strength that lets you ignore the noise and rise above the obstacles we face. Strength that lets you overcome the odds that are stacked against us. You also need the knowledge and skill it takes to challenge the state's evidence and persuade a jury.
I'm lucky. I have always had unconditional love and support in my home life. First from my parents, Bill and Kathyleen St. Louis, then from my wife Tania and our amazing children, Renee and Jack. I couldn't do this and wouldn't be here without them. But I have also found love and support being a member of the College. Love isn't too strong a word. Many of my closest friends are people I have met during my time in NCDD.
But NCDD isn't all about relationships. That's a perk. If you could see a comparison of me as a lawyer before joining NCDD and after coming to these seminars, you wouldn't recognize the before guy. You wouldn't say to yourself, that guy's going to have a national reputation as a DUI defense attorney. What I have learned in coming to NCDD's seminars has changed my approach to practicing law. It changed how I approach my cases, changed how I talk to juries, changed how I cross-examine experts. And I promise you, it will do the same for you.
Defending DUI cases is hard work, and you deserve to have the best quality training and education to learn your craft. And you won't get it from your state bar. I don't know what your experience has been with state bar sponsored CLEs. Early in my career I went to my state bar's day long criminal law seminar. The agenda was basically a prosecutor speaking, then a judge, then some combination of prosecutors and judges, throughout the day.
I remember distinctly one prosecutor gave an ethics presentation and basically doing nothing other than mouthing platitudes. Some of the seasoned defense attorneys attending started literally shouting him down from the audience. In response, he gave us this pearl of wisdom: "Well, don't plead your clients guilty if they didn't commit the crime." At 4:00 p.m., before the last speaker, about three quarters of the room cleared out, and the lone defense attorney on the agenda spoke.
I received the message my state bar was sending loud and clear: The people who organized that CLE didn't care about me. They weren't trying to teach me my craft, and I wasn't going to learn it by attending state-sponsored CLEs. Throughout my career, I have only been to a handful of state-sponsored CLEs, other than ones I have spoken at.
Which brings me to the College. In 1994, 10 of the best DUI defense attorneys in the country got together to address the lack of quality education for DUI practitioners. They created the National College for DUI Defense. They were: Doug Cowan, Larry Taylor, John Henry Hingson, Reese Joye, Phil Price, James Farragher Campbell, Gary Trichter, Flem Whited, John Tarantino and William "Bubba" Head.
Because NCDD was always meant to be an educational institution, they named it a college instead of an association. We have a Board of Regents instead of a Board of Directors. Instead of a Chairperson of the Board, we have a Dean. And now I've been asked to fill that role.
Over 20 years ago, I went to my first NCDD seminar and I was hooked. This organization was completely focused on teaching me how to try DUI cases, and how to win them. Just to get to meet the best DUI lawyers in the country and learn from them left me a little star struck. And now many of them are friends and mentors.
After I became a Regent, I helped to organize and put on a seminar on metrology, the science of measurement. Along with Ted Vosk from Washington. There were several lawyers and experts speaking that I had never met before – including Peter Johnson from California and Howard Stein from Washington. These were the top guys challenging the lack of science behind DUI cases, and I was meeting them the night before the conference started at a dinner.
I don't have a background in science. I learned everything I know about forensic testing because I knew that lab analysts weren't answering my questions. They were sliding things by me, taking me down rabbit holes and hiding things in the answers they gave and I didn't know enough to stop them from doing that. And that pissed me off. So, I dug in, went through training after training, spent countless hours working with experts and convincing them to teach me the science.
When I met the lawyers who would be teaching metrology, I was nervous that they would see me as someone who didn't belong at that table, let alone running the show. But as the dinner went on, and as we talked and told the stories of our cases, I relaxed. Sitting around that table, I realized that we were all fighting the same fight, we were all dealing with the same issues, all dealing with basically the judges and prosecutors in our cases. These were my people. This was my tribe. This was where I belonged. And this is where you belong, too.
In my time in the College, I have learned from the best defense attorneys in the Country. Not some of the best. The absolute best. I picked up approaches and arguments from Gary Trichter and the late Steve Jones that I use in every case I try, no matter what the charge is. And trust me – if you can try a DUI case, you can try any type of case. Andrew Mishlove gave me the chance to attend a training with Josh Karton that completely changed my approach to how I communicate with juries. Now Kim Benjamin and Paco Duarte, Andrew Mishlove and I try to do the same at Andrew's Serious Science seminar every year. This year we have Josh Karton joining us, so it feels like I'm coming full circle.
In the years that I've been with the College it has grown and our approach to teaching has evolved. We used to put on four conferences a year, but other than the breakout sessions at the Summer Session, they were all seminars in strictly a lecture format. Now we have many small, hands-on, specialty seminars where you can learn by doing. We started with metrology, but Andrew took the best parts of that conference, expanded them, and turned it into Serious Science – where you create your own blood sample, test it, and spend three days working on talking to juries about science. We have the field sobriety testing trainings, where you go through the same training as police officers. Bell Island, who will be the Dean next year, runs a breath testing seminar every year that is hands on.
And next January we will continue what Bruce Edge started, by devoting the Winter Session to AI and technology. The entire second half of day two will be a bring your laptop hands on training where Kim Benjamin and David Katz will walk you through how to use AI in your practice. Speaking of Bruce, he's done an amazing job this year, and left me big shoes to fill.
NCDD is where I belong. But, more importantly, NCDD is where you belong. Everyone on this Board is here for you. Everyone in the College is here for you. If you have a question you can get an answer in minutes on the list serv. Anytime I have emailed anyone in the College with a question or asked for a motion I have always received a response. I have never had any college member not call me back if I needed help. We are all here for each other. We are all here for you.
I listened to a podcast recently where a four-star general was talking about servant leadership. He talked about how being asked to lead is an honor, and it's a privilege that you have to earn every day. I believe that, and you have my commitment that I will approach my responsibilities as the Dean by practicing servant leadership. If I can help you, call me. If there is something I can do better, tell me. Along with everyone else on the Board, we want to do everything we can to help you in your practice, to help you be the best attorney you can be and to help you win your cases. I am excited about what lies ahead, and I am honored to have the opportunity to lead an organization that means so much to me.
And so, the lady who responded to my post was right when she said: "I could never do that." She doesn't have the knowledge, the skill or the determination to do this work. But you do. And you get people second chances in life because of it.
