Mr Michael Dölp, a lawyer who studied law at the Universities of Kiel, Innsbruck and Göttingen, has dedicated himself to substantive criminal law and criminal procedure law for many years. Until his retirement as a judge at the end of April 2018, he was a member of the 5th Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice for many years, which at the time was responsible for the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen, Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saarland and the Higher Regional Court district of Braunschweig, and today for the states of Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Saarland, Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. During his time in this senate, he has been involved in a number of landmark decisions, for example in the areas of pharmaceuticals law, transplantation law, insider trading, market manipulation and other commercial criminal law (fraud / breach of trust pp), in the area of bribery / taking advantage or other criminal and criminal procedural law. Prior to his time at the Federal Court of Justice, Michael Dölp worked as a judge at the Higher Regional Court of Celle since the early 1990s, primarily in state defence, appeal and fine senates and as presiding judge of large criminal chambers.

He has acquired a wealth of knowledge and experience by handling countless criminal proceedings and presiding over many main hearings - his chairmanship of the criminal proceedings in connection with the ICE accident in Eschede was outstanding. His legal work has also been enriched by his activities as a judge in civil senates at the Higher Regional Court of Celle, including in the senate for competition and antitrust law, as well as his almost three years as Secretary of State for Justice of the State of Schleswig-Holstein, which also led him into political decision-making processes.

Since starting his legal practice in May 2018, lawyer Michael Dölp has represented a large number of clients in and out of court before criminal courts and in appeal instances in various areas of criminal law. He also advises companies in criminal law matters.

Michael Dölp is a founding member of the working group ‘Die Strafjustiz in Niedersachsen’.

Among other things, he spoke at the University of Istanbul in 2014 on the topic of ‘Guaranteeing the right to be heard in criminal proceedings’ and at the 2016 and 2018 Criminal Defence Lawyers' Symposium in Karlsruhe on the topics of “The effects of conviction on the verdict of guilt and sentence” and “Dealing with internal divergences”. In September 2018, Michael Dölp gave a presentation on the public relations work of local courts at an expert seminar at the University of Osnabrück in the presence of Taiwanese judges and members of the Taiwan Ministry of Justice. In 2019, he gave a lecture at the symposium on ‘Deals in Chinese and German criminal proceedings’ at the University of Osnabrück. In 2021, Michael Dölp was involved in developing the basis for a report commissioned by the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, which highlighted the possibilities and limits of complex criminal proceedings. He has also published articles in the specialist journal ‘Neue Zeitschrift für Strafrecht’ and in the Deutsche Richterzeitung.