Jake Arbes

About this office:

For more than 25 years attorney Jake Arbes has been assisting clients charged with serious state and federal criminal offenses. Although Mr. Arbes's practice is centered in Georgia, he has handled high profile post conviction criminal cases all over the country. He successfully represented a banker who was allowed to withdraw his guilty plea in a politically charged Iran Contra case. He was appellate co-counsel for a defendant in one of the largest bankruptcy frauds in history, a case that took more than nine months to try in Florida. Most recently, Mr. Arbes won federal parole for an inmate in California who served more than 30 years for murdering a DEA agent. The inmate had repeatedly been denied parole until Mr. Arbes took his case. Mr. Arbes has handled hundreds of post conviction cases involving state parole, sentence reduction, appeals, habeas corpus, prison designations and transfers. Mr. Arbes received his college degree from Harvard, his graduate degree from Princeton, and his law degree from New York University where he participated in the prestigious Root Tilden Snow program. He clerked for a federal appellate judge on the Eleventh (formerly Fifth) Circuit and was a federal prosecutor in the Northern District of Georgia where he was awarded a commendation from the Justice Department for his work. He served as Chairman of the Criminal Law Section of the Atlanta Bar Association, Vice-President of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and was a founding member of the Georgia Innocence project. He was named a "Super Lawyer" by Atlanta Magazine and a "Preeminent Lawyer" by Martindale Hubbell, which also gave him the highest ranking possible for his ability and ethics. He has written part of a book on criminal appeals in Georgia and has given many speeches on various post conviction topics. Mr. Arbes is well known and respected for his dedication to his clients.

Mr. Arbes is a member of the State Bar of Georgia, and has been admitted to practice before most federal circuit courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He is also a member of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Lawyers Club of Atlanta.