Allen Criminal Defense Lawyers
Direct-to-attorney criminal defense for Allen arrests and Collin County criminal-court matters. Co-founders Reggie and Njeri London handle every retained case personally — from arraignment through trial or appeal — from our Frisco office, 14 miles from Allen.
L and L Law Group represents clients arrested in Allen, Texas and clients facing charges in the Collin County Courthouse on the full Texas Penal Code and Health & Safety Code spectrum. Founding partners Reggie London (Texas Bar No. 24043514, former Dallas County Assistant District Attorney) and Njeri London (Texas Bar No. 24043266, admitted TXND, TXED, 5th Circuit) personally handle every Allen matter. Our office is in Frisco, 14 miles from Allen (20 minutes). Free 24/7 consultation: (972) 370-5060.
Common Allen criminal charges we defend
Allen is one of the few cities in this part of North Texas where the filing question answers itself. Census Bureau place-within-county tabulations put all 113,746 Allen residents counted in 2024 inside Collin County, with no portion of the city falling into any adjoining county. There is no split-filing problem here, no second prosecutor who might have received the file, and no second sheriff who might be holding a relative. From the first hour, one office is charging the case and one county has custody.
What that certainty does not buy you is a case that stays in Allen. The city keeps one narrow slice of criminal jurisdiction and sends everything else to McKinney.
Allen's jurisdiction stops at Class C
The Allen Municipal Court at 301 Century Parkway hears Class C misdemeanors and city ordinance violations issued inside Allen city limits, and nothing above that. Its clerks answer at 214.509.4380, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Once an allegation is charged above Class C, the file leaves the building for good. It does not come back to Allen for a plea, for trial, or for sentencing, and the city court has no say in how it ends.
Where each level of Allen case is filed
| Level of charge | Filed with | Where that office sits |
|---|---|---|
| Class C misdemeanor or city ordinance violation | Allen Municipal Court | Allen, 301 Century Parkway |
| Class A or Class B misdemeanor | Collin County County Court at Law Clerk, seven statutory courts | McKinney |
| Any felony | Collin County district courts, fifteen of them, the 199th through the 494th | McKinney |
| Appeal from a Class C conviction | Collin County County Court at Law Clerk | McKinney |
The prosecutor is the same in every row but the first. The Collin County Criminal District Attorney works from 2100 Bloomdale Road, Suite 100 in McKinney, phone (972) 548-4323, on the same Bloomdale Road courts campus that houses the county courts. Charging decisions and court settings for an Allen case are made there. That is the whole trade in Allen: nobody has to work out which county holds the file, and almost everybody has to drive to reach it.
Three groups Allen will not let resolve a citation remotely
Allen Municipal Court lists four ways to handle a citation: online, by mail, in person, or through a lawyer. Three categories are carved out of that list. Juveniles, anyone cited for an alcohol or tobacco offense, and anyone charged with family violence must appear in person. If your paperwork puts you in one of those groups, planning around a submission you are not eligible to make only burns the window.
That window is 20 working days. The court asks a person who receives a citation to make contact inside that period and state how they intend to handle the case. Read the obligation precisely, because it is narrower than it sounds: what is due inside 20 working days is a declared route, not a finished case. And these are working days rather than calendar days, so the count is not the one a phone calendar will hand you.
Custody, and a first appearance that happens inside the jail
Allen operates its own city jail, and the municipal court page links out to an Allen City Jail page maintained by the police department. County-level custody for Collin County is the Collin County Detention Facility at 4300 Community Ave. in McKinney, phone (972) 547-5100. The point at which an Allen arrestee moves from the first to the second is not something to assume from where the arrest happened, so confirm which building actually holds a person before anyone drives out with bond money.
Collin County also puts the first judicial step in an unusual place. Arraignments and magistrations for county arrestees are conducted inside the detention facility itself, by an Arraignment Section that sits within the Sheriff's Detention Bureau. That facility runs property, bond and release counters on site, and the public can post bonds there. So the earliest and most time-sensitive part of a felony or Class A case happens at 4300 Community Ave., while the rest of it happens at the Bloomdale Road campus. Two addresses, two errands, both of them in McKinney.
Structured supervision, and the plea that comes first
Collin County runs a DWI and drug court out of County Court at Law No. 7. It is a court-supervised treatment program aimed at high-risk impaired drivers and substance-abuse cases, and because an Allen case is a Collin County case, it is already inside the right system. The structure is what deserves attention before anyone asks to be considered for it. Participants plead guilty, and are then monitored for program compliance inside a structured treatment regimen rather than serving a conventional sentence. The plea is the entry condition, not the fallback if the program goes badly.
Ordinary community supervision runs through the Collin County Community Supervision and Corrections Department. The county's own instruction is to complete CSCD paperwork ahead of time and bring it to the CSCD office after the court hearing, which means part of the administrative work of a probation outcome lands before anyone knows there is one. Court-ordered financial obligations can be paid online, with justice of the peace court payments and bond payments excluded from that.
Whether a structured option is reachable on a particular file turns on the level of the charge and the history behind it, and those are threshold questions rather than afterthoughts. The level is also what decides which of the offices above is holding the case. Start from the level your paperwork actually alleges, and from the charges we defend at each one.
Allen criminal defense FAQs
Does an Allen criminal case ever get filed in a county other than Collin?
No. Census Bureau place-within-county tabulations put all 113,746 Allen residents counted in 2024 inside Collin County, with no portion of the city falling into an adjoining county. That settles a question that costs people days in cities built across a county line: there is one prosecutor, one sheriff, one clerk's office and one set of courts, and you can know which ones on the first afternoon. What it does not settle is where those offices are. Above Class C, all of them sit in McKinney rather than in Allen.
My citation says Allen Municipal Court. What am I actually supposed to do first?
Contact the court and tell it how you intend to handle the case. Allen Municipal Court asks for that contact within 20 working days of a person receiving the citation, and it lists four routes: online, by mail, in person, or through a lawyer. The obligation inside that window is to declare a route, not to finish the case. The court is at 301 Century Parkway and the clerks answer at 214.509.4380, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Working days are not calendar days, so count them that way.
Can I handle an Allen citation online or by mail instead of appearing?
Often, but Allen Municipal Court carves out three groups. Juveniles, anyone cited for an alcohol or tobacco offense, and anyone charged with family violence must appear in person. For those cases the court's four handling options narrow to one. If your paperwork puts you in one of those categories, put the setting on the calendar early rather than discovering the requirement after a remote submission has already eaten part of your 20 working days. The categories track the type of charge and the age of the person cited, not the amount of the fine.
My Allen charge is a Class A misdemeanor. Which court hears it?
One of Collin County's seven statutory County Courts at Law, filed through the Collin County County Court at Law Clerk. Allen Municipal Court has no role in it at all: that court's jurisdiction reaches Class C misdemeanors and city ordinance violations issued inside city limits, and a Class A or Class B allegation sits above that line by definition. The clerk's office, the prosecutor at 2100 Bloomdale Road and the courtroom are all in McKinney. If the charging paperwork is unclear about what level was actually filed, the district attorney's office answers at (972) 548-4323.
Where does an Allen felony case go?
To the Collin County district courts, which sit at the county seat of McKinney. Collin County has fifteen of them, running from the 199th through the 494th, and the county's published description of district court jurisdiction includes felony criminal cases. Nothing about a felony allegation stays in Allen. The charging decision comes out of the Collin County Criminal District Attorney's office at 2100 Bloomdale Road, Suite 100, the same Bloomdale Road courts campus that houses the county courts, so prosecutor and courtroom are effectively neighbors and both are outside the city where the case began.
If a case goes against me in Allen Municipal Court, where does the appeal go?
Up and out of the city. Class C appeals taken from municipal courts such as Allen's are filed with the Collin County County Court at Law Clerk, the same office that files Class A and Class B misdemeanors. So the appellate step lands in the county system in McKinney rather than staying with the court that heard the matter. That is a reason to treat the municipal setting as a genuine decision point. The next room is not down the hall; it is a different clerk's office, in a different city, on a county docket.
More Allen questions
A relative was arrested in Allen. Which jail are they in?
Confirm it before anyone drives. Allen operates its own city jail, and the municipal court page links out to an Allen City Jail page maintained by the police department. County-level custody for Collin County is the Collin County Detention Facility at 4300 Community Ave. in McKinney, reachable at (972) 547-5100. Which of the two buildings holds someone at a given hour is not safe to infer from where the arrest happened. Call the county facility first and work backward from the answer rather than guessing at the nearer address.
Where does the first appearance happen after a Collin County arrest?
Inside the jail. Arraignments and magistrations for Collin County arrestees are conducted at the Collin County Detention Facility by an Arraignment Section that sits within the Sheriff's Detention Bureau, rather than at a separate courthouse counter. The same facility operates property, bond and release counters on site, and the public can post bonds there. For families that means 4300 Community Ave. in McKinney is where the earliest and most time-sensitive part of the process takes place, at a different address from the Bloomdale Road campus where the case is later heard.
Is there a DWI or drug court in Collin County, and could an Allen case reach it?
Collin County runs a DWI and drug court out of County Court at Law No. 7. It is a court-supervised treatment program aimed at high-risk impaired drivers and substance-abuse cases, and since an Allen case is a Collin County case, it is already in the right system. The structure is the part to weigh carefully: participants plead guilty, and are then monitored for program compliance inside a structured treatment regimen rather than serving a conventional sentence. How that compares with the alternatives on a Texas DWI charge deserves a deliberate decision, because the plea comes first.
Who supervises probation on a Collin County case, and is there paperwork to do in advance?
The Collin County Community Supervision and Corrections Department, which is the county probation department. There is paperwork, and the county's instruction is to complete it ahead of time and bring it to the CSCD office after the court hearing rather than filling it out on the spot. So part of the administrative work of a probation outcome has to happen before anyone knows whether there will be one. Court-ordered financial obligations can be paid online, with two exceptions the county names: justice of the peace court payments and bond payments.
Can an Allen charge come off my record later?
That depends far more on how the case ended than on what it was called at the beginning. Texas treats erasing a record and sealing it from public view as two separate remedies with different requirements, and which one is even available is set by the disposition rather than by the charge on the front page. Because of that, the record question belongs in the conversation while the case is still being decided, not after. Our Texas expunction and record-clearing page sets out which endings open which route.
What should I know about the Allen Police Department itself?
It works out of 205 W. McDermott Drive and answers at 214.509.4200, and it is a recognized Texas Law Enforcement Best Practices agency under the Texas Police Chiefs Association program. The city reported in February 2026 that Chief Dye announced a 22.6 percent drop in crime for 2025, which the city characterized as the lowest crime rate among the largest cities in Texas. The department is also building a new headquarters: the City Council approved $67.7 million for the final build phase, bringing the total budget to $97.1 million, with opening set for early 2027.
Arrested in Allen?
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Call (972) 370-5060Why an Allen charge is heard in McKinney, not Allen
Allen sits entirely within Collin County, which sends its serious cases out of town for prosecution. Felonies and Class A and B misdemeanors arising here are filed by the Collin County District Attorney and heard at the Russell A. Steindam Courts Building in McKinney, the county seat, with pretrial detention handled at the Collin County Detention Facility. For a resident, that means the courthouse, the prosecutors, and the jail are a short drive north rather than down the street. Knowing that the file moves to McKinney from the start shapes how we approach bond, scheduling, and early contact with the prosecution assigned to the case.
Not everything leaves the city, though. The Allen Municipal Court keeps Class C misdemeanors local, handling traffic citations, city-ordinance violations, and similar fine-only matters separately from the county system in McKinney. That division matters because the two tracks move at different speeds and carry very different stakes: a fine-only citation resolved at the municipal level is a world apart from a Class B or felony filing routed to the county. We help clients understand which court actually holds their matter, since walking into the wrong building or assuming the wrong process can cost time and leverage early on.
Enforcement here concentrates on two corridors that carry most of the city's traffic. US-75, the Central Expressway, runs the length of Allen north to south, and SH-121, the Sam Rayburn Tollway, cuts across its southern edge near Plano. Stops along these routes feed a steady share of the DWI, drug, and traffic-related cases we see from Allen. The city's busiest gathering points add their own context: the Allen Event Center draws concert and game-day crowds, Watters Creek pulls steady weekend foot traffic, and one of the state's largest high-school programs fills stadium nights with people coming and going.
For someone arrested in Allen, the practical takeaway is to plan around a case that lives in McKinney while the citation in hand may not. We track which court each charge belongs to, prepare for Collin County's filing process and detention practices, and account for where the stop happened along US-75 or SH-121. Early, organized attention to those local mechanics is how our team keeps a case from drifting in the gap between a fast-growing suburb and the county court that ultimately decides it.
About the Authors
Criminal Charges We Defend in Allen
L&L Law Group represents clients throughout Allen and Collin County against the full range of Texas criminal charges. These are the charges our defense team handles most often — or call (972) 370-5060 for a free, confidential consultation.