Griffen & Stevens didn’t start as a personal injury firm, and it still isn’t only one — but a dedicated injury attorney with a genuinely unusual niche, a full results page, and a U.S. News Tier 1 ranking mean the injury side is no afterthought.
AN AWESOME ATTORNEYS EDITORIAL PROFILE
ATTORNEY ADVERTISING NOTICE. This profile was researched and written independently by Awesome Attorneys’ editorial team. It was not paid for, commissioned, or reviewed prior to publication by the firm profiled. All case results, recoveries, and recognitions described below are attributed to their sources. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter. This article is for general information only and is not legal advice; reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship.
GRIFFEN & STEVENS LAW FIRM, PLLC — At a Glance
| FOUNDED | 2011, by Bruce S. Griffen and Ryan J. Stevens, in downtown Flagstaff |
| STRUCTURE | Dual practice — criminal defense and personal injury on genuinely substantial, near-equal footing, not a criminal firm with incidental injury work |
| INJURY ATTORNEY | Gunter Ziwey, nearly 20 years in personal injury and wrongful death matters, including an unusual practice representing injured German nationals in coordination with the German General Consulate in Los Angeles |
| FOUNDER CREDENTIAL | Bruce Griffen is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers (2009–2021), a body limited to roughly one percent of lawyers in any state |
| RECOGNITION | Rated “Best Law Firms — Tier 1” by U.S. News & World Report |
| OFFICE | 609 N. Humphreys St., Flagstaff, serving Northern Arizona |
| FEE MODEL | Contingency for personal injury matters (per the firm) |
Sources: flagstaff-lawyer.com (firm website), Avvo, Yelp, Lawyers.com. Compiled July 2026.
A Third-Generation Arizonan and a Trial Lawyer, Together Since 2011
Bruce S. Griffen is a third-generation native Arizonan who has lived in Flagstaff since graduating from Northern Arizona University in 1974 and Pepperdine School of Law in 1978 — a legal career now in its fifth decade. He is a member of every state and federal court in Arizona and the United States Supreme Court, a founding and former board member of Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, and a former member of the Arizona State Bar’s Criminal Rules Committee. In 2009, the Board of Governors of the State Bar of Arizona presented him the Tom Karas Criminal Justice Award, given to a defense practitioner who has advanced criminal-justice principles with integrity and tenacity; that same year, he was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, a body the organization describes as limited to roughly one percent of lawyers in any state, and he held that fellowship through 2021.
Ryan J. Stevens, the firm’s co-founder, is described in the firm’s own materials as an award-winning trial attorney with success in high-profile jury trials. The two combined their practices into Griffen & Stevens Law Firm, PLLC in 2011, based in a converted building on Flagstaff’s Heritage Square.
Not an Afterthought: A Dedicated Attorney and an Unusual Niche
What separates Griffen & Stevens from a criminal-defense firm that merely accepts the occasional injury case is Gunter Ziwey, a personal injury attorney with nearly two decades of experience in automobile, motorcycle, bicycle, and pedestrian accidents, dog bite injuries, premises liability, and slip-and-fall matters before joining the firm. Ziwey has also developed a genuinely distinctive practice niche: he works in close coordination with the German General Consulate in Los Angeles and has represented numerous German nationals injured in motor vehicle, motorcycle, or aviation accidents while in the United States — a specialization not replicated anywhere else in this series.
Attorney Ian van Schilfgaarde also handles matters at the firm and is named favorably in multiple published client reviews. Outside the office, both Griffen and Ziwey are competitive distance runners; Ziwey serves on the Board of Directors of Team Run Flagstaff and is active in the city’s running community.
What the Firm Handles
On the injury side, the firm pursues car, truck, and motorcycle collision cases, along with wrongful death claims for families of fatal-accident victims, describing itself as willing to take a case to jury trial when an insurer will not offer fair value. On the criminal side — the firm’s founding practice — it handles the full range of drug crimes, DUI defense, civil rights and appeals, federal and felony defense, and other criminal matters across Northern Arizona.
Insurance Policy Limits, Recovered Repeatedly
The firm publishes a dedicated personal injury case-results page, distinct from many smaller Northern Arizona firms. Its published results skew toward policy-limits recoveries — cases resolved for the maximum available insurance coverage — rather than headline jury verdicts, consistent with a firm handling a broad range of case sizes rather than only catastrophic matters.
| RESULT | TYPE | MATTER (AS REPORTED BY THE FIRM) |
|---|---|---|
| Policy limits | Settlement | A pedestrian jogging through a crosswalk was struck by a vehicle that ran a red light; the firm recovered the maximum available insurance policy limits. |
| Policy limits | Settlement | A motorcyclist was seriously injured after a vehicle pulled out in front of him; the firm recovered the maximum available insurance policy limits. |
| Policy limits | Settlement | A motor vehicle accident involving a complicated contributory-negligence dispute; the firm recovered the maximum available insurance policy limits. |
Source: flagstaff-lawyer.com, Personal Injury Case Results page, retrieved July 2026. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
The firm’s site notes that these results, like all case outcomes, depend on the specific facts and circumstances of each matter, and that prior results do not imply or guarantee a similar outcome in any other case.
What Clients Report
Published reviews of the firm are largely favorable and specific: one client described being charged with 85-mph speeding — a criminal offense in Arizona — and credited Stevens with a responsive, well-informed defense; another credited Ian van Schilfgaarde by name for quick, high-quality work on their case; a third specifically praised Gunter Ziwey’s handling of a personal injury matter as “outstanding.”
One published review is notably negative and worth including here in the interest of a complete picture: a 2023 Avvo reviewer stated that Griffen dropped their case roughly two months before trial without completing trial preparation and declined to refund remaining fees, describing him as unresponsive. That review sits alongside seven five-star reviews and one other critical review on Griffen’s Avvo profile (an overall 4.5 out of 5 across eight reviews) — Awesome Attorneys has not independently verified either account and presents both because a single review set, positive or negative, is not the full record.
“I highly recommend Mr. Ziwey and Griffen & Stevens. They are outstanding.”
— Client review, published via flagstaff-lawyer.com
Running, Youth Organizations, and Flagstaff’s Legal Community
Bruce Griffen has raised his family in Flagstaff since the 1970s and, per the firm’s materials, has generously donated his time to local youth organizations over that period, without a single named program specified in the sources reviewed. Gunter Ziwey’s Board of Directors role with Team Run Flagstaff, the city’s competitive and community running organization, is the firm’s most specific, named community involvement located during this research pass — a genuine, checkable civic commitment rather than a general claim.
Peer Standing
Griffen & Stevens Law Firm carries a U.S. News & World Report “Best Law Firms — Tier 1” rating, and Bruce Griffen’s American College of Trial Lawyers fellowship (2009–2021) and 2009 Tom Karas Criminal Justice Award are both genuine, individually-earned peer or institutional honors — the Tom Karas award specifically recognized for criminal defense work, and the trial-lawyers fellowship open to only about one percent of a state’s attorneys. Awesome Attorneys did not locate a State Bar of Arizona Board of Legal Specialization certification for any attorney at the firm in personal injury specifically; this profile does not use the word “specialist” for any attorney here on that basis.
The Arizona Backdrop, in Plain English
Readers weighing a serious injury claim in Flagstaff or Northern Arizona should understand the rules that shape a case like the policy-limits recoveries above. What follows is general information, not legal advice.
The two-year clock. Arizona’s statute of limitations for personal injury claims is generally two years from the date of the accident (A.R.S. § 12-542).
Fault is shared, not all-or-nothing. Arizona follows pure comparative negligence (A.R.S. § 12-2505) — directly relevant to the firm’s published “complicated contributory negligence” case result, since a claimant’s own partial fault reduces, rather than eliminates, recovery.
Policy limits are a real ceiling. A settlement “at policy limits” means the insurer paid the maximum available under the at-fault driver’s coverage; recovering beyond that amount generally requires pursuing the at-fault party’s own assets or the claimant’s own underinsured-motorist coverage.
Suing the government is faster and stricter. Claims against a public entity require a formal notice of claim within 180 days (A.R.S. § 12-821.01) and suit within one year (A.R.S. § 12-821).
The Awesome Attorneys Assessment
Griffen & Stevens earns its place in this series on the strength of Gunter Ziwey’s dedicated, nearly-20-year injury practice and its genuinely unusual German-nationals niche, backed by a U.S. News Tier 1 rating and a founder with real, individually-earned trial-lawyer credentials — a combination that distinguishes it from firms where personal injury is a token add-on to a criminal-defense practice, the pattern this series has excluded firms for elsewhere.
The honest trade-off is the 2023 negative review describing a dropped case shortly before trial — a serious complaint that sits alongside a strong overall rating and should prompt any prospective client to ask directly about case-management practices and fee-refund policies before signing on, particularly for a matter approaching a trial date. For a Flagstaff-area injury claim, particularly one with an international or cross-border element, Griffen & Stevens’ dedicated injury attorney and dual-practice trial experience make it worth an interview.
Methodology & Sourcing
This profile was researched and written independently by Awesome Attorneys’ editorial team in July 2026. Primary source: the firm’s own published website (flagstaff-lawyer.com), including its attorney-biography and case-results pages. Secondary sources: Avvo (including its published client-review data), Yelp, and Lawyers.com. Griffen & Stevens did not commission, pay for, or pre-approve this article. All figures and case outcomes are attributed to the firm’s own reporting; past results do not guarantee or predict future outcomes. This article is general information, not legal advice.
© 2026 Awesome Attorneys. Independent editorial. Sponsored placements on Awesome Attorneys are always clearly labeled; this is not one.
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Facts, figures, and claims in this profile were independently researched from public sources as described in the Methodology & Sourcing section and are current only as of the research date; they are subject to change without notice, and readers should confirm any detail directly with the firm before relying on it. This notice supplements, and does not replace, the Attorney Advertising Notice at the top of this profile.