Jeralyn Merritt - Legal Career

Legal Career

In 1974 Merritt was admitted to the Bar in Colorado, established her own law firm, and in 1981 she was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. She is also a member of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar. From 1996 to 2007, she served as a member of the LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell Legal Advisory Board.

In 1996 and 1997 she served as one of six principal trial lawyers for Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing case, after the court venue moved to Denver. In 1995 she received the first annual Marshall Stern Legislative Achievement Award, from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), for which she has served as a member of the Board of Directors (1995–2001), secretary (2002–2003) and treasurer (2003–2004), as the vice-chair of NACDL's Innocence Project from 1998 to 2002 and on other committees. In 2008 she received the Al Horn Award from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), "a Lifetime achievement award for advancing the cause of justice and extraordinary support of NORML."

After giving up her practice for a year and a half in order to work on the McVeigh defense team, since 1997, Merritt has continued her own criminal defense practice emphasizing federal drug and white collar crimes and has served as a legal analyst for and commentator on television news programs. From 1997 to 1999, she served as a television legal analyst for MSNBC, and, from 1996 to 2008, as a guest legal commentator on television for NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, Court TV and Fox News, presenting her perspective as a criminal defense attorney on contemporary legal cases being covered on national media news programs. Merritt is also a specialist in the use of the internet as a legal research resource and presents seminars and speeches on its use in investigation, on handwriting analysis, and on other matters pertaining to her legal specialties.