The Legal Elite
Top Criminal Defense Lawyer
Murray Janus
Bremner, Janus, Cook and Marcus

by Lisa Antonelli Bacon

It’s no piece of cake being a criminal defense lawyer. No branch of the law captures the public’s empathy or outrage as consistently as criminal law. In criminal defense, an attorney carries the day for his or her client. Often, there’s little to show for it but the ire of the righteous. From F. Lee Bailey in the Boston Strangler cases to Robert Shapiro in the O.J. Simpson trial, defense attorneys frequently have been tarred with the same brush as their defendants.

Murray Janus is no stranger to disdain. "One of my clients was accosted by two of her carpool friends," says Janus, a partner at Bremner, Janus, Cook and Marcus. "They said, ‘Did you know your attorney is representing that child?’" That child is accused of causing the deaths of three friends in an alleged drunken driving accident in Chesterfield County that made page one news for weeks. The bad buzz doesn’t soften his contention that everyone, no matter how heinous the allegation, is entitled to a zealous defense.

Whether it’s a society murder or an ecological disaster, Janus doesn’t run from high profile criminal cases. Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney David Hicks regards Janus as altruistic, in his own way. "He’s fearless, and he never backs down. People think when Murray represents an unpopular person, he’s not the good guy. But it’s not about the person; it’s about the law. Murray loves the law."

When Janus recounts his most significant cases, he points to losses more than wins. It’s all about guts and good lawyering, even though those aren’t always enough to acquit a defendant. In the mid-70s, when the toxic chemical Kepone was dumped in the James River and virtually destroyed the Virginia seafood industry, Allied Chemical hired Janus. In the cases he tried, Allied was acquitted. Janus was champing at the bit to maintain the defense. But awash in a tsunami of bad publicity and facing a growing number of indictments, the client insisted on a plea of no contest to two charges of criminal pollution. The admission led to a $13 million fine, the highest ever awarded in an environmental case in America at the time. In the mid-80s, when the great-grandson of Reynolds Metals’ founder was charged with the violent rapes of three Richmond women, Janus was at the defense table. His client went to jail. But the case epitomized Janus’ reputation for not shying away from a reviled defendant.

Every defense attorney knows that some losses are as good as a win. In 1978, when a half-dozen elected officials were convicted of bribery-related charges and ejected from U.S. Congress in the history-making ABSCAM trials, Janus got the bagman in the case a minimal sentence of a year and a day. Not a win, but not the loss it could’ve been.

Janus is known to be relentlessly aggressive, but it’s a style that has evolved over 37 years of practice. "I learned early on that you can’t copy anyone else," he says. "You have to have your own style. When you’re 25 or 26, it’s not effective to quote the Bible. You need to have gray hair and be considerably older."

Prosecutor Hicks regards Janus as his best mentor. Hicks worked for Janus in 1992 and 1993 as he prepared for his first run for office and it was Janus’ zeal for the law that kept him in the game. "I learned to love being a lawyer working with Murray. A lot of lawyers lose that. Murray never has."