McKinney is the county seat of Collin County, which means most criminal cases that begin in McKinney — and most of the felony cases that begin anywhere else in the county — pass through the courthouses sitting along Bloomdale Road. Kent Starr’s office is at 5900 S Lake Forest Drive, roughly five minutes from the Collin County Courthouse complex at 2100 Bloomdale Road. After thirty years of practice in North Texas, Kent has stood in front of most of the judges who hear cases here and has tried matters from misdemeanor county-court dockets through first-degree felony jury trials in district court.
The 199th District Court is one of the principal felony trial courts in Collin County. Its docket moves quickly, and pretrial motion practice tends to be precise rather than expansive — judges expect clean filings and prepared lawyers. The older Russell A. Steindam Courts Building, named in honor of a fallen Collin County deputy, continues to host certain dockets and remains part of the county’s working courthouse footprint. Knowing which building hears which kind of matter, which clerks process which kind of filing, and which prosecutors handle which kind of case is the unglamorous half of effective local representation. It is also the half that takes years to learn.
McKinney itself has changed faster in the last decade than almost any city in Texas. The Texas Demographic Center has repeatedly listed it among the state’s fastest-growing cities, and that growth shows up in the courthouse the same way it shows up on US-380 and US-75: more drivers, more traffic stops, more first-time arrests, more felony allegations against people who had never been inside a courthouse before they were charged. Kent regularly represents McKinney residents and commuters facing DWI defense in Collin County, drug-related charges, and the broader range of felony allegations covered by the firm’s criminal law practice. For clients in custody, the firm coordinates with vetted bail bond resources for Collin County arrests so release work begins before the family arrives at the jail.
Geography matters in McKinney in a way that surprises some clients. US-380 — Virginia Parkway through the eastern part of the city, then University Drive farther west — is heavily patrolled by McKinney PD and the Texas Department of Public Safety, particularly on weekend nights. The Central Expressway corridor (US-75) carries the long-haul commuter traffic between Dallas and southern Oklahoma, and the stretch through McKinney sees consistent stops for moving violations that escalate into search-and-seize, possession, and DWI cases. Stops at the Eldorado Parkway and Wilmeth Road exits are common enough that Kent could draw the on-ramps from memory.
The historic McKinney Square — the 19th-century courthouse and the surrounding blocks of the original downtown — anchors a different kind of case. The bars, restaurants, and event venues around the Square produce their share of public-intoxication, assault, and DWI allegations. Kent has handled enough of these matters to know which McKinney PD officers tend to testify, which testimony tends to hold up in cross-examination, and which fact patterns county prosecutors are willing to negotiate.
Kent’s credentials matter most when the case is unusual. Federal exposure attached to a McKinney arrest — federal drug allegations from a search that cooperated with state authorities, wire-fraud allegations involving a McKinney-based business, conspiracy indictments naming multiple co-defendants — moves into the Eastern District of Texas, with the firm’s federal criminal defense practice drawing on Kent’s Fifth Circuit oral arguments and Oxford-trained background in international and appellate law. Where post-conviction relief comes into play, expunction and nondisclosure work for eligible Collin County dispositions can clear records that still appear on commercial background checks years later.
What does not change between McKinney’s traffic stops, its felony trials, and its post-conviction work is who actually does the work at Starr Law P.C. Kent is a solo practitioner. Clients work with Kent — the lawyer they hired — not a junior associate sitting in for the cross-examination at trial. He speaks Spanish and Portuguese in addition to English, offers free initial consultations, and is reachable around the clock for emergency arrests. He represents clients across Collin, Dallas, Tarrant, Denton, Rockwall, Kaufman, Ellis, Johnson, and Parker Counties.
If you have been arrested in McKinney, charged with a Collin County felony, or contacted by an investigator about a case that has not yet been filed, call (214) 982-1408 for a free, confidential consultation with Kent.
Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Every case is evaluated on its own facts.
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