I have a good friend in California who is in a world of hurt.  He has a CCW and volunteers as armed security for his church.  A couple of weeks ago, some High School kid was horsing around at church with a plastic water bottle. My friend grabbed it and popped it in the kid's face.  The kid's mother then called the Sheriff's Office and had my friend arrested for child endangerment.  They hauled my friend off to jail, booked, and released him.  At the same time the court issued a temporary restraining order against him.  A condition of his TRO required him to neither OWN or possess any firearms.  He had to SELL all his firearms to his cousin to prevent violating his TRO.  His church has turned their back on him.

Now he is waiting for his court date in May.  I am unclear as to what charges he actually has against him as he is overwhelmed by the whole situation.  He is 50 years old, a solid blue collar guy, never arrested, or accused of any crime.  He needs legal help badly.  He contacted an attorney who told him he needed to put down a $10,000 retainer just for a case review - definitely a dirt bag.  I will help him out with legal expenses, but since I am in Idaho I have no good way to vet an attorney in California.

I need a recommendation for a good attorney for this kind of case who practices in San Joaquin County.

Hopefully someone here has a good recommendation for me to talk to.

If he gets a GoFundMe I'll donate to it.

Thanks for the support - primary concern right now is finding a good attorney before he has to go to court.

In my self-defense case, they were able to help out around the time I was arrested and the immediate aftermath of that without a retainer, and did do a free consult afterwards, but after that wanted a retainer.  It was $10k, and this was over a decade ago.  Not scumbags, but one of the leading firms that deal with gun and defensive issues in the region, and also involved in a ton of RKBA lawsuits.

A $10k retainer does not seem unreasonable to me.  Court battles are expensive.  After I finally got the dismissals I wanted, my legal costs, to include paying the bail bondsman, came just shy of $100k.  I finally paid it all off last month.  If I had gone to trial, it would have cost a lot more than that.

Eric Schweitzer is a Central Valley criminal defense attorney. Initial case consultations should be free. His phone number is (559) 206-2322. His website is https://www.avoidjail.net/

Mr. Schweitzer is familiar with Californian gun laws. Some Californians may recognize him as the attorney for Pheng Yang, a man accused of acquiring large-capacity magazines, even though he acquired the magazines during "Freedom Week," when it was not illegal. Mr. Schweitzer successfully got the case dismissed, and then obtained an order of factual innocence from the court.

Thanks for the info on Schweizer.