Yan Carlo ‘Yancarlo’ Villa, Midland Criminal Attorney

Yan Carlo 'Yancarlo' Villa is a criminal defense attorney in the Midland office of Dunham & Jones. He represents clients in English and Spanish on misdemeanor and felony charges. Most of his misdemeanor cases involve DWI, drug possession, and family violence, and most of his felony cases involve drug charges or aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He appears most often in Midland, Ector, and Reeves Counties and also covers Crane and Upton Counties. Because he speaks Spanish, he handles cases in the other counties the firm serves as well.

Mr. Villa is from Presidio, Texas. He graduated magna cum laude from Sul Ross State University in 2016 with a B.A. in Political Science, then earned his law degree from St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio. In the summer of 2017 he clerked for Corpus Christi criminal defense attorney Scott Lemanski. In 2018 he worked in the criminal law clinic at the Center for Legal and Social Justice in San Antonio, handling misdemeanor and appellate cases, and spent that summer interning for Port Lavaca criminal defense attorney Jane Lane.

Licensed in Texas in 2020, Mr. Villa has served as first or second chair in more than a dozen jury trials and has handled hundreds of cases. He is a member of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.

Mr. Villa makes no judgment calls on a case until he has seen the evidence. Once he has reviewed the discovery, he meets with the client to go over the strengths and weaknesses and talk through the options, and he weighs the case the way a jury would.

He started law school planning to become a prosecutor. Conversations with his family and with lawyers on both sides of the courtroom changed his course, and defense work changed how he sees the people he represents: more often than not, they are regular people who had a moment of weakness. When someone is charged with a crime, the State, the police, and often the community stand against them. Mr. Villa believes every person is entitled to a real defense, especially when the accusation is serious and unpopular.

Outside of work, he enjoys karaoke and baking and takes real pride in his double chocolate chip cakes and key lime pies. He once joined a public reading of the Declaration of Independence in Midland County dressed as Benjamin Franklin.

Yan Carlo 'Yancarlo' Villa
Criminal Defense Attorney - Dunham & Jones
St. Mary's University School of Law | Sul Ross State University
Licensed in Texas Since 2020 | English and Spanish

Yan Carlo 'Yancarlo' Villa, Attorney at Law