Joseph Rigney
The law is the family business. “I became a lawyer because it’s in my blood,” Joseph Rigney says. “My dad’s an attorney. Two of my uncles are attorneys. My sister’s currently going to law school. I found that this was the best path for me to help people with their problems in a personal and professional way.”
He grew up in Chesapeake, took his degree cum laude at Virginia Tech, and went west for law school at the University of Colorado. He was admitted in Colorado in 2018 and in Virginia in 2024, and he came to defense work the way several of his colleagues here did — as a former prosecutor, having carried the burden of proof himself and learned where cases come apart. He now handles personal injury and criminal defense, including traffic, and tries both civil and criminal cases in the courts of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Hampton and Newport News.
Ask him what helping people actually means and the answer is refreshingly procedural rather than sentimental: “taking their questions, their problems, their concerns and looking at it through the lens of the legal system and the laws and the courts and the other side, and letting them know what to expect.” Most people who walk into a law office have never done this before. Telling them what happens next, in order, is most of the job.
“I make sure my clients are cared for and have everything they need to get better and move on with their lives after an injury.”
JOSEPH’S HIGHLIGHTS
Criminal defense and traffic, from reckless driving to homicide. A Norfolk native, Cole was a Public Defender here before private practice, and has tried jury cases from assault and battery to murder.
AREAS OF PRACTICE
- Personal Injury
- Criminal Defense
- Traffic Law
- Litigation
BAR ADMISSIONS
- Colorado 2018
- Virginia 2024
EDUCATION
- Virginia Tech (B.A., cum laude)
- Colorado Law (J.D.)
Joseph belongs to the Norfolk and Portsmouth Bar Association and supports the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. But the most telling thing about him isn’t a board seat — it’s a pattern that shows up over and over in what his clients write, and it is unusual enough to be worth naming.
He calls people back. Not eventually — quickly, and including people who are never going to be clients. One writes that he rang back in under an hour. Another that Joseph spent fifteen minutes on the phone explaining how to proceed and protect himself, and then charged nothing for it. Another that the matter wasn’t even the sort of case this firm takes, and Joseph called anyway and pointed him somewhere useful. Another that when he couldn’t take the case, he handed over his number in case questions came up later.
None of that generates a fee. It is simply what he does, repeatedly, to strangers, and it lines up exactly with the way he describes the job in his own words above.
Away from the office he’ll tell you what he’d be doing instead: “I would probably be a firefighter. I like helping people, but I also like being a bit of a hero.”
“When you sign up with the Decker Law Firm, you’re not just getting one of the lawyers, you’re getting all of them.”
PROFESSIONAL AND CIVIC ASSOCIATIONS
- Norfolk Bar Association
- Portsmouth Bar Association
- National Multiple Sclerosis Society
IF YOU NEED HELP, TALK TO JOSEPH TODAY
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