Before founding Salinas Defense, Andrew served as an Assistant District Attorney at the Kings County District Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, gaining the inside perspective on prosecution that now gives his clients a decisive advantage. He also served as Managing Attorney at a boutique Brooklyn law firm, and as an associate at a prominent Austin criminal defense firm specializing in crimmigration — the intersection of criminal and immigration law — where he handled hundreds of cases ranging from DWI and Assault Family Violence to Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon and Engaging in Organized Crime.

Andrew is an active member of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association (HCCLA), the Houston Hispanic Bar Association (HISBA), the Houston Young Lawyers Association (HYLA), the Houston Trial Lawyers Association (HTLA), the Houston Bar Association (HBA), and the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association (TCDLA).

He earned his B.A. in History with a minor in Rhetoric & Argumentation from Baylor University’s Interdisciplinary Honors Program, and his J.D. from Washington and Lee University School of Law, where he competed and coached in national moot court competitions, clerked for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) in Washington, D.C., and successfully won asylum for a client through the law school’s Immigrant Rights Clinic. His team also filed a federal appellate brief before the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of a stateless client who had fought to remain in the United States for 20 years.

Andrew is bilingual in English and Spanish and is committed to providing every client — regardless of background — with aggressive, no-nonsense representation when it matters most.