Taite Westendorf

Taite has devoted his entire legal career to the practice of criminal defense. Prior to co-founding Westendorf & Khalaf, Taite worked as a supervising attorney in the largest Public Defender’s office in the state (Virginia Beach). His career has been defined by taking on a variety of tough high stakes cases. In a state where a fraction of felony cases go to trial (and less than 1% go to jury trial), Taite has taken over one hundred felony cases to trial and has won not guilty verdicts following jury trials for murder, rape, robbery, abduction, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, malicious wounding, burglary, larceny, abduction, possession of a firearm by convicted felon, sexual battery, and others. Taite has worked on almost every kind of criminal case imaginable and his vast experience with serious charges gives him a unique ability to tailor strategic plans for success in your case no matter what the charge. In addition to his trial work, Taite has extensive appeals experience and has argued dozens of times before the Court of Appeals of Virginia and the Supreme Court of Virginia. While in the Public Defender’s Office, he ran the internship program and is proud to have mentored, supervised, and trained many attorneys who are currently public defenders, prosecutors, and members of the private bar.