At a sentencing hearing in federal court, we convinced the Court to keep our client out of prison and sentence him to probation instead. Under the Sentencing Guidelines, he was facing a prison term of approximately three years. To avoid prison in a federal case is extraordinary. We were able to achieve this result due to our client's excellent progress on pretrial release and also our persuasive sentencing arguments. The Court, for the first time ever in the District of Maine, varied from the Guidelines by setting a lower "marijuana equivalency" ratio for MDMA ("ecstasy"), reducing the ratio from 500:1 to 200:1.