The Criminal Lawyer from Sherman, Texas (Part 1)

My name is Micah Belden and I am a criminal defense lawyer in Sherman, Texas -the city in which I was born and will be buried. I was raised and currently live in Howe, Texas. My father was a farmer and my mom a housewife. We were forced to sell the farm early in life, and I watched my dad labor hard to feed our family. I try to bring his backbreaking work ethic to the practice of criminal law.

I was taken to the Baptist church week in and week out as a kid. Sometimes I went voluntarily. I learned small town values that gave me a moralistic view of the world, and see those morals jumping into my everyday decisions at a surprising rate. I do my best to treat people fairly and demand that others are treated fairly. This led me to be a criminal defense lawyer.

After graduating from Howe, I attended Texas A&M because the school fit my view of the world and was a comfortable place to learn. I love history, and after changing majors a couple times, ended up in the history department where I belonged. I attended virtually all the football games and was somewhat active in Bonfire, and was unfortunately on campus when it fell in 1999. I worked the next day moving logs, and learned to appreciate how fragile life and all we have truly is.

I wanted to become a lawyer to be a difference maker. I was accepted to law school at two top tier schools: SMU and University of Houston. I chose to go off to Houston to save money because I didn’t have any to begin with. It was a great decision because it linked me in with one of the best mock-trial programs in the country (National Champions 2004), and I learned to communicate effectively and be comfortable in the courtroom.

I came straight home after licensing, and quickly started making a name by spending as much time and effort as possible on my criminal cases, helping achieve justice for those who could afford little. I worked my first first-degree felony case down to a misdemeanor-credit-for-time-served deal, and people took notice that I played to win. I attempted numerous seminars on DWI and criminal law, and tried DWI breath cases that most lawyer pled, earning a reputation as a fighter. I was hired by an oilman from Oklahoma on a case in Gainesville, and went to trial in a case that every other lawyer told the him was hopeless. We got a misdemeanor $1000 fine- only from the jury, down from a 2nd degree felony charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.