Who Is Brian Steel? Everything to Know About the Lawyer Who Helped Lil Durk Beat the Feds

After three days of deliberation, a jury acquitted Lil Durk, real name Durk Banks, on all five charges in the murder-for-hire case tied to the 2022 Los Angeles shooting that killed Saviay'a Robinson, Quando Rondo's cousin.

According to reports, Durk—who was facing five separate charges, including conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and use of interstate facilities to commit murder-for-hire resulting in death—was visibly emotional as the jury read the not guilty verdicts. Standing at the defense table was a figure who had become central to public awareness around the trial: lawyer Brian Steel.

Steel has spent decades making his mark in Atlanta courtrooms. But he entered the public consciousness in 2024, when he served as lead attorney in Young Thug's YSL RICO trial. Now he's pulled off something even more remarkable: Steel, alongside the lead attorney Drew Findling, helped Lil Durk beat the feds—who win convictions in more than 90 percent of cases.

During his time at Fordham, Steel was convinced he was going to be a tax attorney. But a law professor let him take part in the 1990 retrial of Michael Quartararo, one of four Long Island teenagers accused of murdering a 13-year-old boy in 1979. Working the case— interviewing witnesses and sitting with Quartararo—Steel became convinced he was innocent, and was stunned when the jury found him guilty again.

"After I saw that happen, I really couldn't shake it," Steel told Billboard. "I thought to myself, 'Figuring out whether IBM and Siemens should do a merger for tax purposes, that's important stuff, but maybe it's not what I should be doing before I die. Maybe I can help some people out.'"

Steel worked at the Fulton County Public Defender's Office before moving into private practice. In 1997 he opened The Steel Law Firm alongside his wife, Colette Resnik Steel, who is also a criminal defense attorney. The firm's work covers a wide gamut, from RICO prosecutions and money laundering to murder.

His clients obviously aren't all rappers. He's represented judges, FBI agents, doctors, elected officials and corporations. In 2024 he defended Jackie Johnson, the former Brunswick Judicial Circuit district attorney accused of using her influence to protect the men who killed Ahmaud Arbery in 2020. A judge dismissed the case in February 2025, ruling the indictment was flawed, before it ever reached the jury.

Steel has been named a Georgia Super Lawyer every year since 2004 and was a 2017 finalist for the Fulton County Daily Report's Attorney of the Year. But he's mostly kept a low profile, working out of the same office he’s been working out of for years.

In the early 2010s, Steel got a phone call from someone managing Young Thug, a young rapper was starting to break out but wasn't a superstar yet. He got caught up with something and needed a lawyer, and Steel had come highly recommended. It ended up being a minor matter that Steel helped fix, but it was the beginning.

In 2022, Thug was arrested on RICO charges alongside Gunna and 26 other associates tied to YSL—which prosecutors alleged was a street gang and which Williams has always maintained is a record label. What followed was a multiyear odyssey that became the longest trial in Georgia history.

Steel’s services were again called up. And as the case dragged on, with no end in sight, his profiled also rose. Public awareness around Steel peaked on June 10, 2024, when Judge Ural Glanville held him in contempt after he declined to reveal how he'd learned of an alleged secret meeting involving prosecutors, the judge himself and witness Kenneth Copeland, aka Lil Woody. The moment went viral: Steel removed his blazer as Glanville told a nearby deputy to take him into custody. Glanville sentenced him to 20 days in the Fulton County Jail, to be served over 10 consecutive weekends.

Steel never spent a night behind bars. He was granted bond while he appealed, and on Oct. 22 the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously reversed the order, ruling that because Glanville was himself involved in the dispute, due process required him to step aside and let another judge hear it.

More consequentially, the contempt fight set off the chain of events that got Glanville recused from the case in July. That paved the way for his replacement, Judge Paige Reese Whitaker, who grew visibly frustrated with the prosecution, at one point calling its case "haphazard."

There were signs Whitaker was open to a mistrial—including one involving a "#FreeQua" tweet—that led the defense to think they could negotiate a favorable deal. When negotiations stalled (the state's offer would have carried no prison time but came with conditions Thug wouldn't accept), the defense gambled and entered a non-negotiated plea. That meant Whitaker would hear both sides and decide the sentence herself.

Thug pleaded nolo contendere to the two headline charges—conspiracy to violate the RICO Act and leading a criminal street gang—meaning he wasn't admitting guilt but was accepting the consequences. He pleaded guilty to six other gang, gun and drug counts. Whitaker handed down 40 years: the first five in prison, commuted to time served, followed by 15 years' probation and a list of special conditions, with 20 years of backloaded prison time hanging over him if he violates them.

And like that, Thug was a free man.

Durk was arrested by the feds on murder-for-hire charges in October 2024. Nearly a year and a half later, in March 2026, Steel joined his defense, working alongside Drew Findling. Thug says that was his doing. In a September post on X, he wrote:

"I sent Brian to get with him and take the case. Stop making me the bad guy and pray harder for him cause I am."

Durk's defense was led by Findling, who has represented hip-hop figures including Cardi B and Lil Baby. (He also got an OTF chain after Durk was acquitted.) Marissa Goldberg and Christy O'Connor were also on the team.

The trial centered on the August 2022 killing of Saviay'a "Lul Pab" Robinson. Prosecutors alleged that Durk ordered Kacey "OTF Jam" Hester, Kayvon "OTF Vonnie" Grant and Keith "Flacka" Jones to kill rival rapper Quando Rondo as payback for the November 2020 murder of King Von, who was fatally shot in Atlanta by Timothy "Lul Timm" Leeks during a fight with Rondo's entourage. Robinson, Rondo's cousin, died instead. The jury rejected the government's case.

The defense argued that Vonnie was the actual mastermind, and much of its effort went toward muddying the testimony of him, Jam, and Flacka, who all testified against Durk and pinned him as the one who orchestrated the hit. At one point Steel called Jam untrustworthy, pointing to his history.

"He's been incarcerated more in his lifespan than he's been out. The man is not human," Steel said.

He went on to allege that the FBI had offered Jam a deal to implicate Durk, and called the cooperating witness a “serial killer.”

The gamble largely paid off. On July 2, a jury acquitted Combs of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, the counts that carried the real exposure, and convicted him only on two lesser Mann Act counts of transporting people for prostitution.

At sentencing on Oct. 3, Steel pleaded with Judge Arun Subramanian for leniency.

"I am honored to practice in this majestic courthouse. I sit here with tears in my eyes, I can't believe we're here. Sean has impacted America in such a positive manner," Steel said. He went on to say: "On occasion he would hit the woman he loved. He loved Ms. [Cassie] Ventura. I have been with Sean more than my family since I met him. He has taken responsibility," Steel said. "He would have pled guilty to the Mann Act, but they wouldn't offer that."

Subramanian sentenced Combs to 50 months —just over four years—plus a $500,000 fine and five years of supervised release, with credit for the roughly 13 months he'd already served. Prosecutors had asked for more than 11 years.