Noah B. Collier

Noah firmly believes in protecting the rights of the accused, and strives to provide the best legal representation possible to each of his clients.

What that looks like in a traffic and criminal practice. Most of the people Weiland Button represents are not career defendants. They are drivers, students, commercial drivers, and service members who are in a criminal courtroom for the first time and did not expect to be. A Virginia reckless driving charge is a Class 1 misdemeanor, the same class as DUI and assault and battery, and the people it catches are frequently the most surprised to learn that.

• Wake Forest University
• Regent University School of Law
• Admitted to the Virginia Bar

At Regent:

• Trial Advocacy Board, competing in criminal defense competitions
• Business Manager, Alternative Dispute Resolution Board

Competitive criminal defense trial competitions, which is where Noah developed his interest in trial practice.

What that format actually is: a simulated trial argued in front of judges, on a closed record, under time limits. Competitors examine and cross-examine witnesses, make and meet objections in real time, and argue evidence questions on their feet.

What it builds: familiarity with the rules of evidence, witness examination technique, and the specific skill of adjusting when a case does not go the way it was prepared.

What it is not: a substitute for trial experience. It is where trial skills start, not where they finish. Noah practices at a firm where John Weiland and Mark Button have been trying these cases for years, and that is the more honest description of the resource behind your case than anything a law school competition record can claim.

Noah served as a judicial intern in the Norfolk Circuit Court before joining Weiland Button.

What that is: an internship in a trial court, spent watching a large volume of cases move through it and doing legal research for the court. It is a good way to learn how a courtroom actually runs, as opposed to how it is described.

Why Circuit Court is relevant to a traffic practice. Virginia traffic and misdemeanor cases start in General District Court. But a Class 1 misdemeanor conviction there can be appealed to Circuit Court, where you get an entirely new trial and may request a jury. Circuit Court is also where felonies are tried. Knowing how that court operates matters in a reckless driving case in a way that is not obvious from outside.

What an internship is not. It is not an advantage with any judge, and it is not knowledge of how a court will rule on your case. Anyone who tells you they can predict what a judge will do is guessing, and everyone in the building has a duty to the court that outranks any advantage they might claim over it.

Before joining Weiland Button, Noah worked as a legal intern at a constitutional law firm.

Why that overlaps with criminal defense. Criminal defense is substantially constitutional law applied to a traffic stop:

• Fourth Amendment: whether the stop was lawful, whether it was extended beyond its purpose, whether the search was justified, and whether consent was voluntary. In a possession case this is frequently the entire case, because the evidence is the substance.
• Fifth Amendment: the right against self-incrimination, and double jeopardy
• Sixth Amendment: the right to counsel and to confront the witnesses against you, which in a speeding case means the officer
• Fourteenth Amendment: due process

The practical version. These are not abstractions. Whether the officer had a basis to stop you, whether the dog arrived before or after the ticket was written, and whether you were asked or told to consent are the questions that decide cases, and they are constitutional questions.

He was a summer associate at a boutique civil litigation firm. Some of it transfers, and it is worth being precise about which parts, because this gets overstated.

What genuinely transfers:

• Motion practice. Writing and arguing a legal position carries directly into suppression motions.
• Organizing and presenting evidence clearly to a fact-finder
• Document review, and the discipline of reading everything rather than the summary

What does not transfer, and this matters. Criminal discovery in Virginia is far narrower than civil discovery. It is governed by Rule 3A:11, and it is not the open exchange civil litigators are used to. There are no depositions as of right in a Virginia criminal case. You do not get to depose the officer before trial. Anyone describing civil discovery skills as a tool for taking apart a criminal prosecution is describing a procedure that does not exist here.

Which is why the preparation happens differently: records requests, calibration certificates, body and dash camera footage, and cross-examination at the hearing itself. The first time the officer answers your questions is usually on the stand.

Your case is heard where the stop or the offense occurred, not where you live and not where you were going. On the interstates this catches people constantly, because county lines fall between exits and the courthouse can be an hour from the mile marker.

Weiland Button appears across Central and Eastern Virginia, in the courts listed on this site. Check the court named on your summons and bring it to the consultation.

What actually varies between courts: docket days, how cases are called, and local procedure. What does not vary: the Code of Virginia. The statute is the same in Emporia as it is in Henrico, and your case turns on the facts and the law, not on geography.

If you are from out of state, that is common here and it is not a disadvantage. What matters is whether the charge requires an appearance. Reckless driving does, because it is a criminal charge and cannot be prepaid. A speeding infraction is different. Which one you have is on the summons.

• Speeding, at all levels
• Reckless driving
• Failure to obey a highway sign
• Improper lane change
• Following too closely
• Driving on a suspended license
• Driving without a valid license
• Hit and run

The most useful thing to work out first is which of these is a crime. Speeding is a traffic infraction. Reckless driving is a Class 1 misdemeanor. Driving on a suspended license is a Class 1 misdemeanor. Hit and run can be either, and the line is $1,000 in property damage, which a bumper clears easily.

If you are not sure what you are charged with, that is the normal position, not an embarrassing one. The code section on the summons answers it, and it is frequently not what people assume.

• DUI/DWI
• Drug possession
• Assault and battery
• Petty larceny
• Underage possession of alcohol
• Public intoxication
• Eluding

Two things worth raising at the first conversation, because they change the analysis more than the sentence does:

• Some resolutions are once in a lifetime. Virginia’s first offender deferrals under § 18.2-251 for drugs and § 4.1-305(F) for underage alcohol can each be used one time. Spending one on a small charge forecloses it on a larger one later.
• Collateral consequences do not track the sentence. A CDL, a security clearance, a professional license, or immigration status may care enormously about a charge the court treats as routine.

• Bring the summons. The code section on it determines everything.
• Do not prepay anything. Prepaying is a guilty plea and it enters a conviction. For reckless driving it is not even an option.
• Do not discuss the case with police or anyone else without counsel. In most of these offenses, what you said is the strongest evidence against you.
• Preserve what decays. Dashcam footage, phone data, and photographs overwrite on their own schedule.
• Get a speedometer calibration if this is a speed case, and pull your DMV transcript
• Write down what you remember, now
• Do not miss the court date. A failure to appear produces a capias, which does not expire and surfaces at a traffic stop in another state years later.
• Say so early if you hold a CDL, a security clearance, a professional license, or a visa, or if you are not a U.S. citizen

Results depend on the specific facts of each case. Prior outcomes do not guarantee or predict a similar result in any other matter.

Schedule a free consultation with Noah Collier and the Weiland Button team.