WDA’s Felony Resource Attorney Sheri Oertel is available to help with your felony cases.

Sheri Oertel (she/ her) graduated suma cum laude from Washington State University with a major in Business Management & a minor in Human Resources. She graduated top ten and cum laude from the University of Idaho College of Law. She was a prosecutor for 5-6 years, gaining significant insight and training on procedure and various areas of law, as well as performing multiple appeals at every level, including telephonically appearing before both the Appellate and Supreme Court commissioners, and telephonically before a 3-Justice panel in Division 3 and the Washington State Supreme Court. Since 2020 Sheri has been doing public defense. Sheri has taught CLE presentations while she was a defense attorney, and always shared resources and motions with other attorneys. As a defense attorney, she expertly used her legal research and writing skills winning dismissals for Felony Knapstad Motions (without prejudice); Speedy Trial Violation (with prejudice); a Brady Violation (with prejudice); and the Disqualification of the Prosecutor and his entire office. Now as a Felony Resource Attorney for WDA, she is happy to continue to grow all of these skills for the improvement of public defense, and all of those supporting it.

Note: Case assistance is only available to attorneys. WDA cannot provide legal advice or representation directly to those accused of crimes or subject to criminal charges.

You can reach Sheri by calling WDA or emailing sheri@defensenet.org

WDA’s Felony Case Assistance Project: How it works

Sheri can help with your public defense cases in a variety of ways:

• Helping spot issues that may benefit your clients at all stages of their cases;
• Shaping arguments for pre-trial motions and evidentiary issues that may arise during trial;
• Researching substantive and procedural issues;
• Brainstorming trial and sentencing strategies;
• Providing sample motions, forms and practice advisories; and
• Researching and analyzing ethical issues.

Members can also search our resource library for practice advisories and briefs related to felonies.

Please note: if you need assistance with immigration issues, please contact the Immigration Project.