Introduction

Allan Marain has successfully defended clients in countless cases involving marijuana charges. These cases have ranged from nickel bags in municipal court, to many pounds of marijuana involving jury trials in the Superior Court of New Jersey.

Trial Experience

Allan has been a member of the New Jersey and federal bars since 1976. During most of that time, he was in private practice. Criminal defense, especially as it relates to drug charges, has always been a predominant feature of that practice. Between 1989 and 1997, Allan served as a staff attorney with the Office of the Public Defender, Middlesex Trial Region. In that nine-year period, his exclusive assignment was criminal defense. He tried numerous indictments in the Superior Court of New Jersey, usually in front of juries. Law & Politics Magazine, and the publishers of New Jersey Monthly, have included Allan Marain on its list of New Jersey “Super Lawyers” in 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.

Bar Admissions

Allan is admitted to practice before all New Jersey State Courts, and before the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Also the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the United States Tax Court, and the United States Supreme Court.

Activities in Professional Organizations

Allan is a member of the Legal Committee of NORML (National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws).  He has attended annual NORML annual legal seminars in Key West, Florida, since 2001, most recently attending in December 2009.  He registered for the 2010 seminar but was unable to attend due to hospitalization of his significant other. Allan helped found NORML-NJ. He was one of its incorporators, and now serves as its Legal Defense Coordinator. He also serves as an advisory director for the Coalition for Medical Marijuana in New Jersey.

Allan belongs to the New Jersey State Bar Association. He is a past chair of its Criminal Law Section as well as of its Municipal Court Practice Section. In 2006, Allan delivered a lecture to the Annual Meeting of the New Jersey State Bar Association, in Atlantic City. His topic was, Courtroom Challenges to Laboratory Identification of Marijuana. As a Senior Instructor with Garden State Continuing Legal Education Services, Allan lectures to lawyers throughout New Jersey on defense of persons charged with marijuana and marijuana-related offenses. Allan appears regularly as a guest lecturer in criminology courses at Rutgers University.

Allan is also a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey.  He completed a three-year term as trustee of the Middlesex County Bar Association.  He is on the Middlesex County Assignment Judge's Criminal Lawyers Committee. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of James Publishing Incorporated, publisher of Relentless Criminal Cross Examination and numerous other litigation texts. The February 2005 "New Jersey Lawyers Magazine," published by the New Jersey State Bar Association, featured Allan's article entitled, "Expungement of Criminal Proceedings."

Academic Information

Allan was graduated with honors in 1976 from Seton Hall University School of Law. He is a Senior Instructor with Garden State Continuing Legal Education Services, where he has co-presented its seminar to New Jersey attorneys, "Defending a Marijuana Case in Municipal Court." He has been a guest lecturer at Seton Hall Law School and at Rutgers University. He has also instructed the Skills and Methods Course in Criminal Law for the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education.

Personal Information

Allan Marain’s hobbies include reading, mathematics, philosophy, sociology, computers, aviation, movies, and physics. He also likes animals and music. He enjoys playing chess, checkers, bridge, hearts, scrabble, backgammon, and monopoly.

Allan’s readings include both fiction and non-fiction. His non-fiction readings typically relate to the hobbies listed above. Allan’s fiction readings include humor, science fiction, and courtroom dramas. His two favorite science fiction authors (now both deceased) are Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.

His three favorite courtroom novels are The Caine Mutiny, by Herman Wouk; To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee; and Anatomy of a Murder, by Robert Traver. John Grisham novels are not among Allan’s favorites. He finds too much fantasizing in them. It’s not that Allan has anything against fantasizing as such. For example, he’s a real Batman fan, and he enjoyed all three Terminator movies. But what he dislikes is fantasizing in something that tries to present itself as plausible.

Allan has a commercial pilot’s license and is a Certified Flight Instructor. His most recent aviation project was to obtain proficiency with Bendix/King KLN89B Global Positioning System (GPS) navigating equipment. He flew regularly from Central Jersey Regional Airport (47N) in Manville, New Jersey. Allan grounded himself in 2002 when he found that he lacked time to fly regularly and thus maintain sufficient proficiency. However, he maintains his flight instruction certificate and occasionally lectures on instrument flying. He looks forward to resuming his flying at some future date.

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