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Timothy J. Bilecki, Of Counsel
After graduating from Boston College with honors, Mr. Bilecki attended the University of Miami School of Law in Coral Gables, Florida. There, Mr. Bilecki obtained a position clerking at prestigious Miami criminal defense firm, Hirschhorn & Bieber, P.A. It was during this period that Mr. Bilecki was mentored by legendary criminal trial lawyer Joel Hirschhorn, who taught him the fundamentals of taking big cases to trial and winning. After his clerkship, Mr. Bilecki accepted a follow-on clerkship with Miami criminal trial lawyer Michael Mirer. By spending all three years of law school learning from two of the premier criminal defense firms in Miami, Timothy Bilecki had personally worked on nearly one hundred criminal matters and was head and shoulders above his peers regarding the depth and breadth of his criminal trial expertise.
After graduating from the University of Miami School of Law with honors, Mr. Bilecki joined the United States Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, where he immediately made known his desire to be assigned as a criminal defense attorney. Mr. Bilecki was one of only three Judge Advocates hand selected from his Officer Basic Course to be assigned as a Trial Defense Attorney and was assigned to the busiest jurisdiction in the US Army: Fort Hood, Texas.
When he arrived at Fort Hood, Mr. Bilecki and his fellow defense attorneys were outnumbered by government prosecutors nearly seven to one. Undaunted, Mr. Bilecki began utilizing the skills he honed in Miami to take cases to trial...and win. Early in his career, Timothy Bilecki gained a reputation as a heavy hitting defense attorney who would take any case to trial. This reputation also allowed him to obtain some of the best deals possible for his clients who did not wish to take their cases to trial. The tradition of pleading guilty only as a last resort was born, and still forms a bedrock aspect of Mr. Bilecki's practice philosophy today.
After Fort Hood, Mr. Bilecki requested and was transferred to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he served as a Special Assistant United States Attorney (SAUSA). After his service as a SAUSA, he was chosen to fill a field grade position and became the Chief of International & Operational Law for the United States Army, Pacific. In this assignment, Mr. Bilecki spent considerable time traveling throughout Asia and advising on international and host-nation law; he also practiced throughout the Pacific Rim and Asia, providing legal advice to joint commands on foreign contracting, international agreements, foreign criminal jurisdiction, foreign tort claims and host-nation law.
Seeking a return to his passion as a criminal defense trial lawyer, and with strong desire to remain in the Pacific, Timothy Bilecki was hand selected to become the Senior Defense Counsel for the US Army Trial Defense Service, Pacific Rim Region. Mr. Bilecki was charged with the responsibility of establishing and overseeing the first ever US Army legal defense services office in Japan. Immediately upon arrival in Korea, Mr. Bilecki began defending Soldiers throughout the Pacific, trying cases, and winning. He gained great notoriety when he took on and won a politically charged rape case involving a local Filipino victim. This case brought the Secretary of State to Okinawa and caused massive rallies against the US Government and Mr. Bilecki's client both in Japan and the Philippines. Despite this intense media pressure, Mr. Bilecki fought for his client at every stage of the proceedings, including personally traveling to the Philippines and working with the US State Department to track down and depose lost exculpatory witnesses and senior politicians who were pushing the prosecution of the case. After exposing that the case was politically motivated by high-level anti-US military groups in the Philippines, the government agreed to dismiss all charges involving the alleged rape. Shortly after this victory, Timothy Bilecki had a string of consecutive full acquittals, including a military policeman accused of possession of child pornography and child sexual assault, a NCO who confessed to over $30,000 of housing fraud and, in another high profile case, a Soldier charged with a gang-related attempted murder outside of a bar in Itaewon, Korea.
He continued his winning streak, obtaining outstanding results for his clients, and became known as one of the best trial attorneys in the military. Facing a mandatory transition out of criminal defense practice due to his selection for promotion to Major, Mr. Bilecki decided to continue doing what he loved: defending US Service Members as a civilian defense counsel.
