Jason A. Seidman spent five years as a prosecutor and attorney for the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s office, attaining a level of know-how that is invaluable to his criminal defense practice — and his clients — today.
“I know how prosecutors think,” he says. “That can be incredibly valuable now, in either trying to get a better plea offer or in trying to find a strategy to win at trial because you know that the prosecutor is thinking like a prosecutor and you can slip some defense attorney strategies in there that they never see coming.”
Mr. Seidman’s current practice focuses on criminal law with a strong emphasis on felony-level cases. He has achieved numerous positive outcomes for clients, including dismissal of a case where his client faced up to 10 years in prison involving a gun that the client didn’t know was in his bag and was detected by airport screening. Mr. Seidman has also been successful at having a number of his clients who were first-time offenders admitted to the state’s Pretrial Intervention Program.
During his time with the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s office, Mr. Seidman had some high-profile achievements. During the first 3½ years of his tenure there, he became a member of the trial team that handled street-level drug-distribution cases in New Brunswick. These cases ranged from possession with intent to distribute marijuana and cocaine all the way up to first-degree distribution and possession with the intent to distribute PCP. In addition to prosecuting drug cases, he also supervised the office’s Drug Court Unit, which aspires to help people beat their habits. He then moved to a trial team that handled all the crimes occurring in Woodbridge Township, Jamesburg, Milltown, Monroe, and Sayreville.
One of the highlights of his days as a prosecutor involved a cold case that was brought back to life by DNA evidence 30 years after the homicide of a 15-year-old prostitute. Mr. Seidman was part of the team that secured the conviction of the killer following a five-week trial that involved 30 witnesses.
Another highlight was his involvement in the investigation and prosecution of a 24-defendant racketeering case involving rival subsets of the Bloods street gang, the G-Shine Bloods and the Nine Trey Bloods, which were engaged in a turf war that resulted in the death of an innocent man killed by a stray bullet.
As that case matured, Mr. Seidman became the legal adviser to the Middlesex County Gangs, Guns and Drugs Task Force, a proactive investigative unit that assists the prosecutors. He spent his last 1½ years in the prosecutor’s office in that capacity.
A New Jersey native, Mr. Seidman comes from a family of lawyers. His mother and grandfather were both prosecutors, and his great-grandfather was a trusts and estates attorney. He received a B.A. in government and law from Lafayette College in 2005 and earned his J.D. from the University of the District of Columbia in 2009.
Asked what he likes most about his work, Mr. Seidman says he simply loves all aspects of litigation. “I like finding issues in cases. I like finding the one spot that nobody else sees and using that to my advantage. I like the competition, the back and forth, but I tend to do it in a subdued way. I’m not a very aggressive guy until I have to be.”
He considers his greatest strength as an attorney to be the level of preparation he invests in all his cases.
“I do not like to be surprised,” he says. “I do not like to lose.”
