Few accusations land harder than a sex crime or child abuse charge, and someone facing one in Seattle usually wants a lawyer who has stood in that exact courtroom before. That narrow corner of criminal defense is the whole reason Marshall & Saunders exists. The Seattle firm has worked these cases since 1997 and turns away most other criminal work to stay on them: child molestation and sexual abuse allegations, rape and statutory rape, child pornography charges, communication with a minor for immoral purposes, and the internet sting operations that increasingly produce those arrests.

That list keeps expanding in a way that tells you what kind of practice Marshall & Saunders runs. The firm handles shaken baby syndrome and child physical abuse cases, domestic violence and assault, protection order violations, and Title IX proceedings, which pulls campus discipline into the same orbit as the criminal courts. It also takes appeals at the state level and federal habeas corpus, and defends the civil damages suits that often trail a criminal accusation. A person dealing with one allegation frequently finds themselves dealing with several of these at once, and a firm built around the whole cluster is in a different position than one picking up a sex crime case between DUIs and property disputes.

The geographic reach is concrete. Marshall & Saunders represents clients across Washington State, naming King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Kitsap counties specifically, and appears in federal court. For someone north in Everett or south in Tacoma, this is worth knowing: a Seattle address does not always mean a lawyer who shows up in the surrounding county courthouses. Marshall & Saunders pitches itself as a statewide defense option, and the county-by-county naming is more credible than a vague claim to cover the whole map.

The attorneys and what they bring

Marshall & Saunders puts three attorneys forward. David S. Marshall has more than 25 years in practice, has been recognized by Super Lawyers, and carries an Avvo rating. Joshua R. Saunders is credited with handling more than 3,000 cases, a volume figure that, taken at face value, points to a lawyer who spends real time in courtrooms instead of behind a desk. Kristina L. Selset brings 28 years and graduated with honors from the University of Washington, the local school whose graduates fill the very courts where these cases are tried.

Stacked together, those numbers become the firm's headline claims: 100 years of combined defense experience, more than 1,000 clients defended, and over 250 criminal trials conducted. The trial count is the figure worth pausing on. Plenty of defense lawyers resolve nearly everything through plea bargaining and rarely face a jury, so 250-plus trials suggests a team at Marshall & Saunders that will go the distance when a case calls for it. These are the firm's own figures, and a prospective client cannot independently verify them from the site alone, but they are specific enough that court records could verify them for anyone inclined to look.

One claim sits a notch above the rest. Marshall & Saunders describes itself as the only Washington law firm focused exclusively on these offense types. That is a strong assertion, and it comes from the firm's own description rather than an outside finding, so it deserves some caution. Exclusivity is hard to confirm and easy to overstate in a state this size, and a careful reader should hold that line at arm's length until they have tested it.

On the practical side, Marshall & Saunders is upfront that it bills hourly, which is the honest way to handle defense work where the hours genuinely cannot be predicted at the outset, even if a flat fee feels more comfortable to a worried client. Consultations come in three forms: in person, over Zoom, or by phone. For someone who would rather not walk into a downtown law office while an accusation is fresh, the remote options remove a real barrier.

Outside reputation

The outside reputation picture is where things get sparse, and it would be dishonest to paper over it. Marshall & Saunders has a Yelp listing, but no review count or star rating surfaces in search results, so there is no public chorus to weigh. A Better Business Bureau profile exists, though the firm is not BBB Accredited and carries no displayed rating there either. Marshall & Saunders also appears in the HG.org attorney directory. No Google, Trustpilot, or comparable platform totals turned up. For a practice running since 1997, that is a quiet footprint, and it leaves a prospective client leaning on individual attorney recognitions, Marshall's Super Lawyers and Avvo standing in particular, more than on any visible body of client feedback.

Why that gap is hard to read deserves a word. This is precisely the area of law where clients do not post reviews. A person who beat a child pornography charge or quietly resolved a domestic violence case is not eager to attach their name to a public testimonial, and that reticence is entirely rational. So the absence of Yelp stars here is not the same signal it would be for a restaurant or a plumber. It does, however, mean an outsider has less third-party evidence to draw on than they might want, and no amount of credentialing fully closes that gap.

What is genuinely strong about Marshall & Saunders is the focus itself. A defendant in a child abuse or sex offense case is not shopping for general competence; they need someone who knows how internet sting evidence gets challenged, how shaken baby medical testimony gets contested, how Title IX timelines interact with parallel criminal exposure. The stated concentration on exactly those problems, paired with named attorneys carrying decades of work and recognitions that can be looked up, is the real substance behind the pitch. The appellate and habeas corpus work shows a willingness at Marshall & Saunders to keep fighting after a trial loss, which not every defense firm offers.

The case for Marshall & Saunders rests on depth in a narrow and high-stakes specialty, transparent billing, and verifiable attorney credentials. The case against leaning on Marshall & Saunders without scrutiny is that almost everything persuasive comes from the firm's own telling, and the independent record a careful client would normally consult before entrusting a defense of this magnitude is mostly not there to be read. That is a real limitation, even if the practice area goes a long way toward explaining it.

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