About Louis A. Casadia, Criminal Trial Attorney

What It Means to Be a Certified Criminal Trial Attorney

New Jersey’s Supreme Court runs its own attorney certification program under Court Rule 1:39. Through its Board on Attorney Certification, the Court certifies attorneys in a handful of fields, including criminal trial law. To earn the designation, a lawyer must demonstrate substantial trial experience, come through peer review by the judges and attorneys who have watched them work, and pass a written examination in the field. Louis earned the certification in 2022, while he was still trying cases as a prosecutor, and he carries it into every case he defends now.

The certification matters for a practical reason. It is an independent signal, from the court system itself, that a lawyer actually tries cases rather than only negotiating them. Prosecutors know which defense lawyers are prepared to pick a jury and which are not, and that reputation shapes the conversation in every case, including the many that resolve before trial.

Seven Years as a New Jersey Prosecutor

Before opening LACE Law, Louis spent over seven years as an Assistant Prosecutor in two South Jersey counties. From 2016 to 2019, he served at the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office, where he worked in the juvenile unit and on a trial team, litigating both bench and jury trials. From 2019 to 2023, he served at the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office, where he worked in the Special Victims Unit, litigating sex crimes and major crimes and trying felony cases to verdict.

As a former prosecutor, Louis knows how criminal cases are built, because he built them. He worked alongside detectives, presented cases to grand juries, evaluated search warrants, and stood before South Jersey juries. When he reads discovery now, he reads it the way the person who assembled it would: where the report is thin, which witness the State may struggle to produce, which stop or search invites a motion to suppress. That is the file review every LACE Law client gets from the lawyer himself.

His Special Victims Unit years matter most on the hardest charges. If you are accused of a sex offense or an offense against a child, you are facing the most serious kind of prosecution New Jersey brings, and you deserve a defense lawyer who has seen exactly how those cases are investigated, charged, and tried.

Trained Inside the Criminal Courts

Louis began his legal career where he still spends his days: in New Jersey’s criminal courtrooms. After law school, he served as the judicial law clerk to the Honorable John C. Porto in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Criminal Part, in Cape May County, from 2015 to 2016. He prepared legal memoranda on criminal procedure issues, assisted the judge in court on every list day, and handled the county’s DWI municipal court appeals for the year. That appellate DWI (DUI) work is still an important part of LACE Law’s defense services.

Even before he was sworn in, Louis had spent years inside the same courthouses where he now defends. Starting in 2011, he interned with the Superior Court of Atlantic County on its bail team and a trial team, served as a judicial intern to the Honorable Kyran Connor working on post-conviction relief motions, and interned at the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office, where he briefed and argued motions and bail hearings as a law student. He also trained at two private firms, Kolsby, Gordon, Robin, Shore & Bezar in Philadelphia and the Law Offices of Joseph A. Levin in Atlantic City, where he helped manage video evidence and develop trial strategy.

Education

Louis earned his law degree, magna cum laude, from the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law in Philadelphia in 2015, graduating in the top ten percent of his class. He was a member of the Drexel Law Review and received the CALI Award for the top grade in Federal Criminal Law.

His path there was through South Jersey. He started at Atlantic Cape Community College in Mays Landing, earning his associate degree cum laude in 2010, then earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Stockton University in 2011, summa cum laude, with a 4.0 grade point average. Every campus sits within an hour of the courts he practices in today.

Facing charges in South Jersey? Call LACE Law at (609) 225-4065 for a free 30-minute consultation.

Awards and Recognition

Super Lawyers named Louis to the Rising Stars list for 2025 and 2026. The selection methodology is described at superlawyers.com. He was also named to the Top 40 Under 40 list for criminal defense for 2024 by The National Trial Lawyers; that organization’s selection process is described at thenationaltriallawyers.org. In law school, he received the CALI Excellence for the Future Award in Federal Criminal Law (2014).

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Podcast, Media, and Writing

Louis hosts the Boardwalk Esquire Podcast, where he talks through New Jersey criminal law and the cases that shaped South Jersey. In a February 2025 episode, he interviewed defense attorney James Leonard about the Eastbound Strangler investigation, the unsolved 2006 deaths of four women in Atlantic City, drawing on his own prosecutorial background to explain how investigations of that scale actually work. Episodes and show notes are on the podcast page.

Local press has covered his work, including a Hammonton Gazette feature on his decision to leave the prosecutor’s office and open a defense practice in his hometown. He also writes for the firm’s blog; his 2024 piece, What the Heck is a Geo-Fence Warrant and Why Should I Care?, walks through how police use location data from your phone. The firm’s video library answers common criminal defense questions on camera, in plain English.

Trial Work Covered by the Press

News outlets across New Jersey have reported Louis’s courtroom work for nearly a decade. The cases below are matters of public record from his service as an Assistant Prosecutor, drawn from press coverage. Every case is different, and past outcomes do not predict future results.

South Jersey Roots

Louis was born and raised in Hammonton and graduated from St. Joseph’s High School. He lives in Hammonton today with his wife, an educator, and their two children. From 2020 to 2023 he coached high school students in the Vincent J. Apruzzese High School Mock Trial Competition, teaching the next generation of South Jersey advocates how to try a case. Away from the courthouse, he is an avid 3D printing hobbyist.

The roots are part of the practice. When your lawyer grew up here, studied here, prosecuted here, and raised a family here, the courts, the prosecutors, and the local stakes are not abstractions. They are home.

How Louis Handles a Criminal Case

Louis focuses his practice on New Jersey criminal defense. He defends indictable felony charges, including drug offenses, weapons and firearms charges, domestic violence, violent crimes, and sex offenses, along with DWI, municipal court matters such as traffic tickets and ordinance violations, juvenile delinquency, restraining orders, expungements, underage gambling, and firearm rights appeals. He appears regularly in the Superior Court of Atlantic County in Mays Landing, Atlantic City Municipal Court, Hammonton Municipal Court, and municipal and Superior Courts across Cape May, Cumberland, Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, Ocean, and Salem Counties.

At LACE Law, when you call, you get the attorney. Louis reviews every file himself: police reports, body camera footage, lab work, the search warrant, the stop. He explains the charges and the real stakes in plain English, tells you the truth about what is hard in your case, and pursues every available path: dismissal, reduction, diversion, or trial. Spanish-language service is available for clients who prefer it.