ACH traces its origins to 1982, when Cris Arguedas—the acknowledged star of the federal public defender’s office in San Francisco after just two years on the job—teamed up with another Bay Area legal luminary, Berkeley attorney Penny Cooper, in private practice. Their firm soon became one of the top criminal defense law firms in the United States, attracting clients as far away as New York and as high-profile as O.J. Simpson. The next year, Cris—at the tender age of 29—was named one of the five most promising women lawyers in the country by Time magazine. Since then, Cris has repeatedly been singled out by such leading publications as the Wall Street Journal, the National Law Journal, and California Lawyer. She has also served on advisory panels for U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George, and several influential local and federal prosecutors.

The firm scored a major coup in 1984 when it hired Ted Cassman, a young trial attorney and appellate specialist educated at Stanford and U.C. Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law. Known for his exceptional writing and advocacy skills, Ted had spent one year clerking for U.S. District Court Judge Edward J. Schwartz and two years working as a staff attorney in the law offices of Ephraim Margolin, one of the preeminent criminal-defense and appellate lawyers in the United States. Over the next decade, the three-lawyer firm achieved remarkable success at all levels of criminal law, including a victory before the U.S. Supreme Court. Ted, meanwhile, established himself as one of the premier criminal defenders in California, becoming a partner in 1987.

In keeping with its tradition of selecting the best and brightest lawyers, the firm hired Laurel Headley in 1991 after her graduation from the University of San Francisco Law School. A former co-chair of Women Defenders, a statewide criminal-justice group, Laurel quickly established an enviable reputation for her shrewd, meticulous, creative, and compassionate approach to defending every case—and for her superb results for her clients. She became a partner in 1997.

Julie Salamon came to the firm’s attention during her final semester of law school, thanks to her outstanding performance in a trial advocacy class taught by Cris Arguedas. She graduated Order of the Coif from Boalt Hall in 2000 and served as a law clerk for the Honorable David F. Levi of the U.S. District Court in Sacramento before joining the firm in 2002.

In 2005, the firm welcomed two new attorneys. Michael Anderson earned a Ph.D. in demography from U.C. Berkeley before graduating from Boalt Hall School of Law in 2003. He joined the firm after clerking for the Honorable Norma Shapiro in the Eastern District of Philadelphia.

Christy Chandler clerked for the Honorable Thelton Henderson, a United States District Court Judge in San Francisco, after graduating from Stanford Law School. Christy was a San Francisco public defender for five years, and worked on the trial team of the San Francisco City Attorney's office before becoming of counsel to the firm.

2007 brought new attorney Raphael Goldman, who graduated in 2003 from the University of Michigan with a J.D. and a Masters of Public Policy.  He received an Order of the Coif and was an Associate Editor on the Michigan Law Review.