BusinessTN

Prominent Memphis criminal defense attorney Leslie Ballin wouldn't mind if he never had to talk about the Mary Winkler case ever again. His client, Winkler, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the 2006 shooting death of her husband, Church of Christ minister Matthew Winkler, while he slept at the couple's residence in Selmer. Once facing life in prison, Winkler was instead set free on probation.

"I gave a talk maybe a month ago, and my comment in the beginning was that 'I hope this is the last time that I talk about the Winkler case,'" Ballin told BusinessTN in a September interview. "I'll be damned if a week later I got a call from [another group] that wants me to come in another month and talk about it."

Ballin does have other notable and more recent cases. As of that September interview, Ballin was looking forward to arguing the "golden bb" defense (a.k.a. the "one shot in a million" defense) on behalf of a late 30-ish housewife (Linda Abbott) that from some distance shot a .22-calibur rifle at her horribly drunk husband who was doing doughnuts in the family pickup in their backyard and almost miraculously hit him in the temple. Ballin also counted among his late September clients a young, clean-cut, late 20s, white male accused of beating his beautiful wife to death on Thanksgiving 2007 and putting her in the garage overnight where she eventually bled to death internally. On the very day of the BusinessTN interview, Ballin concluded a case involving a local law enforcement officer (Wayne Logan) who had raped his mistresses' eight-year-old daughter that the mistress had offered up voluntarily and who participated in the act. Ballin ended up securing for his client, who was facing 37 years at 100% (the amount of time that must be served before parole eligibility), an eight-year sentence at 30%. "My comment to him was I don't care what the truth is, this is too good to pass up," he says, adding, somewhat gloomily, "You've just got to dress up and go play the game."

Ballin is joined in his practice, Ballin, Ballin & Fishman, by another member of BusinessTN's Best Lawyers list, his 77-year old father Marvin Ballin, who in the weeks prior to that interview had tried a murder case by himself and ended up with a verdict of reckless homicide. "He hasn't slowed down a bit," Leslie Ballin says. Another member of the firm is Leslie's son Blake, who has now been with the firm four years. What's the proud father's assessment of the next Ballin's skill set? "He is already I think a better lawyer than I am," Leslie says. That's pretty good.