Mr Perrella has over 20 years’ experience as a criminal lawyer. After 10 years working as a prosecutor, firstly for the Commonwealth of Australia and secondly, the State of Western Australia Mr Perrella developed first-hand knowledge and experience about:

How and when to make a successful public interest submission. A “public interest submission” is a formal request for the prosecution to exercise their discretion to discontinue the prosecution of a charge without the need for a trial. A discontinuance of a charge without the need for a trial is the best outcome possible. There is a particular art to drafting these submissions. We take great pride in our very high success rate with public interest submissions.

How a prosecution case is pieced together and how to identify weaknesses or crucial deficiencies in the prosecution case well before the case gets to trial. This enables us to develop a strongly effective defence strategy at trial – especially in jury trials in the superior courts.

First-hand experience as a former prosecutor in preparing witnesses for trial, particularly civilian, police and expert witnesses and certain classes of vulnerable witnesses (for example in sexual assault cases). This knowledge gives us an advantage, which other defence lawyers don’t have, when cross examining such witnesses at trial.

How the prosecution policy applies to charging practices and whether a charge in a Prosecution Notice (the charge sheet) or Indictment (superior court charge sheet) is improper, defective or capable of being dismissed by a Magistrate or a Judge prior to any trial.