Attorney
North Wales, Pennsylvania, 19454
Steven F. Fairlie has been designated a Pennsylvania “SuperLawyer” in both Personal Injury and Criminal Defense by Philadelphia Magazine and placed on their lists of the Top 100 Lawyers in Pennsylvania and the Top 100 Lawyers in Philadelphia, The National Trial Lawyers Top 100 Trial Lawyers, Top Rated Attorneys in Pennsylvania as published in The Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the The Legal Intelligencer, The National Association of Distinguished Counsel, The National Advocacy for DUI Defense Top 100 Driving Under the Influence (DUI) Attorneys, and is a holder of Martindale-Hubbell’s prestigious “AV” rating and Platinum Client Champion Award, designating preeminent lawyers based upon legal ability, ethics, and client satisfaction. He has been rated a perfect 10.0/10.0 on AVVO.COM and is one of a just 35 attorneys in Pennsylvania to be named a “Lawyer on the Fast Track” by The Legal Intelligencer in 2006.
He has been named a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America (awarded to less than one-half percent of judges, lawyers, and scholars in America), received the National Academy of Criminal Defense Attorneys Top 10 Attorney Award, and been named a Top 100 Criminal Defense Lawyer by the American Society of Legal Advocates. He is one of just a handful of lawyers across the country to win the America’s Top 100 Awards for Lifetime Achievement, Criminal Defense, and High Stakes Litigators. He has won many other awards for his trial work that are simply too numerous to list here.
In 2016 his book, Pennsylvania DUI Law, was published by LexisNexis. Also in 2016 he appeared on a television program “The American Law Journal” which won an Emmy award for its discussion of OJ, Cosby and “Making of a Murderer.”
He has successfully handled numerous civil (slip and fall, auto accidents, land development litigation, etc.) and criminal trials (narcotics, DUI, capital murder, robbery, rape, etc.). Prior to private practice, he worked on the Narcotics Team and the Major Crimes Team of the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office from 1996 to 2000. He successfully argued for the death penalty in 1999 and was lead prosecutor in a case involving $55 million of cocaine. Subsequently, as a defense attorney, he took the appeal of a client sentenced to death and convinced the prosecutor to vacate the death sentence. He used forensic tire print evidence to prove another client not guilty of attempted murder. In yet another case he uncovered evidence which reduced the offer on a robbery case from 25–50 years down to 2 years probation. He represented one individual charged with 3 separate charges of DUI and had the first case dismissed at the Preliminary Hearing, the second accepted into the A.R.D. program, and the third case dismissed after a trial judge granted suppression of all evidence in the case.
Mr. Fairlie has obtained not-guilty verdicts in major jury trials involving shootings, burglaries, etc. despite positive eyewitness identifications of his clients. On appeal, he has successfully argued for reversal of a death sentence in one case and a sentence of 70 years in another case. Recent successful plea negotiations include 2 1/2 to 5 years in the case of a man who struck his wife in the head with a hammer and strangled her and 6 to 12 years in a First Degree Murder case. In another First Degree Murder case he negotiated a plea to Third Degree Murder and then obtained a sentence of 2-5 years at a contested sentencing hearing. In 2017 he obtained return of $3,000,000.00 worth of allegedly stolen jewelry seized by law enforcement. In 2018 he obtained a Not Guilty jury verdict in the “Bucks County Furry Rape” case.
