Adrienne Urrutia Wisenberg has represented clients in nearly 250 direct appeals and habeas corpus proceedings in her 22 years as a criminal defense lawyer. Her extensive practice in the federal appellate and district courts, resulting in approximately 50 oral arguments and 60 published decisions, places her among the nation's most experienced criminal appellate advocates.
In 1989, Mrs. Wisenberg began her legal career as briefing attorney to the Honorable (Late) Judge M.P. 'Rusty' Duncan III, on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals--the highest court in Texas for all criminal matters. When her clerkship ended, Mrs. Wisenberg immediately went into private practice in San Antonio, Texas, defending clients in state and federal courts throughout South Central Texas, in both the trial and appellate arenas. After approximately 20 jury trials in two years, Mrs. Wisenberg joined the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Western District of Texas, where, for 6 years, she concentrated on federal appellate work in front of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
In order to pursue her interest in defending death penalty appeals and habeas cases, Mrs. Wisenberg re-entered private practice in San Antonio, Texas, in 1998. Since then she has investigated, briefed, litigated and argued a half dozen complex federal capital habeas cases, while continuing to develop her non-capital appellate practice, and her sentencing and pre-trial motions practice, as well.
In 2005, the United States Supreme Court's opinion in United States v. Booker brought sweeping changes to the law governing federal sentencing practice. This made Mrs. Wisenberg's extensive knowledge of social history and mitigation investigations, developed in the capital arena, an invaluable resource in the realm of non-capital federal sentencing. Mrs. Wisenberg, who has handled hundreds of sentencing hearings, expanded her federal criminal appellate, habeas and sentencing practice to focus on statutory post-Booker mitigating factors in federal sentencing hearings, sentencing memoranda and objections to presentence reports.
In March 2006, Mrs. Wisenberg merged her practice with the federal white-collar firm of Solomon L. Wisenberg, PLLC to form Wisenberg & Wisenberg, PLLC. With offices in San Antonio (by appointment only) and Washington, D.C., Wisenberg & Wisenberg, PLLC covered all phases of federal criminal practice including pre-indictment investigations and negotiations, trials, sentencing hearings, appeals and federal habeas work. In October 2008, Mrs. Wisenberg joined the Washington, D.C. office of Barnes & Thornburg LLP, where she is Of Counsel in the White Collar Crime Defense Practice Group.
A 1989 graduate of St. Mary's University School of Law, Mrs. Wisenberg is Board Certified in Criminal Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. A former Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation, she speaks, writes and teaches on federal criminal law topics. Mrs. Wisenberg served as Adjunct Professor at St. Mary's University from 1994 to 1997, where she received the Outstanding Public Justice Faculty Award from the St. Mary's University Public Justice Students' Association. In 2005 and 2006, her last two years in San Antonio, Mrs. Wisenberg was voted by her peers as one of San Antonio's best appellate and criminal defense lawyers, in a poll taken by Scene in SA Magazine.
BAR AND COURT ADMISSIONS
State Bar of Texas, 1989
District of Columbia, 2006
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, 1990
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, 2001
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, 2006
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, 2008
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, 2010
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 1991
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, 2006
U.S. Supreme Court, 1992
OTHER PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Fellow, Texas Bar Foundation, 2000-2006
CREDENTIALS
Board Certified — Criminal Law, Texas Board of Legal Specialization; December 1996
Approved for Recertification; December 2006
