Washington, DC (August 12, 2014) –  Fort Worth, Texas Attorney Michael Heiskell was sworn in to the Board of Directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) at the Association’s 57th annual meeting in Philadelphia on August 2.

Heiskell has been a criminal defense attorney at the law firm of Johnson, Vaughn & Heiskell since 1984. Prior to this, he served as a Galveston County Assistant District Attorney and then as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.

An aggressive trial attorney, Heiskell has been named a "Super Lawyer" by his peers in White Collar Criminal Defense in Texas Monthly Magazine for each year since 2003. He has spoken frequently before the Advanced Criminal Law Course sponsored by the State Bar of Texas and to numerous seminars sponsored by the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Association and the Texas Center for the Judiciary. He has also presented to NACDL, the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Dallas County Criminal Defense Lawyers, San Antonio Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Mexican-American Bar Association, and the Tarrant County Bar Association. He was recently recognized in Texas Lawyer as one of the “Extraordinary Minorities in Texas Law” and was named one of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers from 2012-13.

Heiskell is a Life Member of NACDL and was previously on the Board of Directors in 2013. He has served on NACDL’s Task Force Committee on Familial DNA Testing, as Fifth Circuit co-chair for the White Collar Crime Committee, and as a member of the Audit and Indigent Defense Committees.

Heiskell graduated from Baylor University in 1972 with a B.A. He received his J.D. from Baylor Law School in 1974.

Contacts

Ivan Dominguez, NACDL Senior Director of Public Affairs and Communications, (202) 465-7662 or idominguez@nacdl.org

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is the preeminent organization advancing the mission of the criminal defense bar to ensure justice and due process for persons accused of crime or wrongdoing. A professional bar association founded in 1958, NACDL's many thousands of direct members in 28 countries – and 90 state, provincial and local affiliate organizations totaling up to 40,000 attorneys – include private criminal defense lawyers, public defenders, military defense counsel, law professors and judges committed to preserving fairness and promoting a rational and humane criminal justice system.