Drug charges in Central Florida call for narrow focus and someone who has stood on the other side of the courtroom. FL Drug Defense Group answers both. The Orlando firm takes drug cases and only drug cases: possession, sale, trafficking, search and seizure disputes, and drug court or diversion placements. FL Drug Defense Group is run by Matthew J. Olszewski, who spent years prosecuting drug offenses before switching sides, so every file lands with someone who already knows how the state builds these cases and where those cases come apart.

Prosecutorial background and trial experience

That prosecutorial background is worth pausing on. Olszewski coordinated the Florida Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutor program, a role in which he trained prosecutors and law enforcement officers across the state. Knowing exactly how an officer is taught to write up a traffic stop, or how a prosecutor is coached to present a search, is directly useful when the defense is arguing that a stop was pretextual or that evidence should be suppressed. The site puts a concrete number on his courtroom history: more than 100 criminal trials. For a defendant weighing whether their lawyer will fold at the first plea offer or push a case to a jury, trial volume is a more honest measure than any tagline.

Training role across Florida law enforcement

The practice areas are organized by offense, which makes the site easy to navigate for someone trying to figure out where their own situation fits. Possession sits apart from sales and trafficking, with subcategories underneath, and there is a separate page covering search and seizure challenges. Trafficking carries mandatory minimums in Florida, and a firm that gives it its own dedicated section rather than burying it under a general drug-crimes umbrella understands that the stakes differ wildly between a small possession charge and a weight-based trafficking count. Alongside the practice pages sit an attorney profile, a blog, and a set of FAQ videos. Video answers to common questions are a genuine addition. Most people facing a first arrest have no idea what the steps even are, and a short clip is less intimidating than a wall of legal text.

Practice areas organized by offense type

FL Drug Defense Group covers Orange, Osceola, and Seminole counties, the three that make up most of metro Orlando, so the geographic reach matches where the firm's courthouse experience would be concentrated. Spanish-language service is available during business hours, and free case evaluations run by phone around the clock. Free consultations are common enough in criminal defense that they barely register as a differentiator, but the 24/7 phone line has practical value: drug arrests do not keep office hours, and the first 48 hours often shape everything that follows.

Coverage of Orange, Osceola, Seminole counties

A Yelp page exists for FL Drug Defense Group but returned no review count or star rating at the time of this review, so there is no public score to point to for this specific entity. The closest external data is a related practice, FL DUI Group, run by the same attorney, which carries 4.5 stars across 99 reviews on BirdEye. That is a solid showing and does speak to Olszewski's client handling, but it is a different practice under a different name, and treating it as a direct proxy requires a leap any careful reader should take consciously.

External ratings from related practice only

The firm's own site leans on testimonial quotes attributed to AVVO reviews, and it advertises an AVVO rating of 10.0. AVVO's 10.0 is a peer-and-credential measure, but the number appears on the firm's own pages, and a search did not independently confirm an aggregate review count behind it. Self-published praise is the weakest form of evidence, even when the underlying claim is plausible.

AVVO rating appears on firm's own pages

The credentials on record for FL Drug Defense Group are concrete in the ways most likely to count in court. A former drug prosecutor, a documented statewide training role, a stated trial count above 100, and an exclusive focus on drug offenses add up to a defensible reason to make that first call. The hesitation is that the public, third-party record for FL Drug Defense Group specifically is sparse compared to what the firm's own marketing implies. A defendant comparing options would be relying largely on the firm's word and on the track record of a sibling practice.

Verify recent outcomes during consultation

The published evidence points toward genuine competence, but anyone doing due diligence should go into that evaluation knowing the external verification picture is incomplete. The right move is to arrive at the consultation with pointed questions about recent case outcomes and, where possible, to track down former clients independently through bar association referrals or local defense attorney networks.