Attorney for DUI

So now you have been released. Do not wait. Now is the time to hire a lawyer who can guide you through the complex and ever changing field of DUI law. The process of preparing your case—the investigation, the motions to suppress evidence, the analysis of evidence, and more—needs to get started right away.

It is difficult to pick a lawyer, not only because there are so many out there, but also because—since you are not a lawyer yourself—you do not know what a good one looks like. What is worse is that many consumers fall prey to myths and misconceptions about lawyers and they wind up picking an attorney who is not qualified to meet their needs. Here are a few of the most common myths.

Myth #1: “All lawyers have the same experience and training.”

We already touched on this myth in chapter 1 but it is worth mentioning again. Even if a lawyer has practiced law for decades, even if he or she has a fantastic resume, even if he or she has argued cases before the Supreme Court, there is no substitute for expertise in DUI law and experience defending clients who have been arrested for DUI.

Myth #2: “If a lawyer advertises that he takes DUI cases it is because he has experience in DUI law.”

This myth is similar to the first, but it is different in an important way. You may know how important it is that the attorney has experience in DUI law, but you might assume that, because an attorney takes DUI cases, he or she has the necessary experience. As a consumer, you know that advertising is often misleading. This is no less true when it comes to advertising for lawyers.

Myth #3: “The State Bar determines whether a lawyer can advertise as a DUI lawyer.”

The reality is that there is no requirement that a lawyer must meet before the State Bar permits a lawyer to advertise as a DUI attorney. The only thing is needed is a license to practice law.

Myth #4: “All law firms will take my case to trial.”

As strange as this may seem, many law firms are not committed to taking your case as far as it needs to go reach the best outcome for you.

Myth #5: “All lawyers carry Malpractice Insurance.”

Malpractice Insurance is not required of attorneys. This means if your lawyer does not carry this coverage and he makes a mistake, you may be out of luck. It a lawyer does not carry malpractice insurance, it does not mean that he or she is confident that it will never be necessary. More likely it means that the lawyer cannot afford it.

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Myth #6: “Calling a Lawyer Referral service or using internet sites that offer to find you a lawyer service is the way to find a competent lawyer.”

Lawyer Referral Services and internet sites are a nice idea, but they are far from perfect. Many do not adequately screen the attorneys they refer clients to.

Myth #7: “Lawyers who have a big ad in the Yellow Pages or a TV commercial must be successful because they can afford this advertising.”

Just because a lawyer is on TV or has a big two-page yellow page ad does not mean he or she is successful or qualified. All it means is he or she shelled out a lot of money to make people think that. TV stations and yellow page companies do not care if the lawyer is competent; all they care about is that the check clears. Is that the way you want to decide who is going to protect you and your family?

Eventually you will want to speak with a number of attorneys who might represent you. This kind of consultation is usually free. The most important thing to remember when speaking with a potential lawyer is not to be afraid to ask questions. The best and most qualified lawyers will welcome your questions and they will take it as a sign that you have done your homework. Remember that when you are interviewing an attorney, the attorney is also interviewing you to see if he or she wants to take your case. A good lawyer would rather represent a truly prepared client, a client who is committed to getting the best legal representation available.

Here are a few questions you should ask in order to make an informed choice of who will represent you.

• “How many years have you been in practice?”

This will tell you much about the attorney’s potential experience. But, also ask what they have done all those years.

• “How much experience do you have representing persons who are charged with DUI?”

You should leave the attorney’s office confident that you have spoken to someone who has real expertise and experience in DUI law.

• “Do you have real experience handling a case like mine?”

You do not want a lawyer who sees your case as a new experience that he or she would like to try. You want someone with the experience necessary to do the job for you.

• “How many cases have you taken to jury trial?”

Your case might need to go to trial in order to get the outcome you deserve and it is imperative that your attorney have trial experience if it is required.

• “Who in the office will actually be handling the case and what are their qualifications?“

Most attorneys work with a team. The lawyer that you might be speaking with might not actually be the person who does the bulk of the work.

• “Are you covered by a legal malpractice insurance policy?”

There is really no two ways about this. Your attorney should have malpractice insurance. Malpractice insurance is just as much insurance for you as it is for your lawyer.

• “Have you ever been disciplined by the State Bar?”

You do not want a lawyer with a long disciplinary rap sheet and you deserve to know if your lawyer has been disciplined in the past.

• “What are all the potential legal costs, including investigators, experts and the like?”

The lawyer should be honest with you about what your case might cost. You want to be secure that the lawyer is not luring you in with promises of unrealistically low fees and costs.

•”What challenges do you see in my case?”

The lawyer should be able to explain to you what he or she sees as the challenges you face and what they could mean for the ultimate result.

• “How will you keep me informed about my case?”

You must feel comfortable with the attorney’s commitment to communicate with you. You should know if you would really be kept informed of developments in your case.

• “What will be the final outcome of my case?”

A good attorney will not promise you a specific result, because it is always impossible to be certain how a case will turn out. Any other answer is dishonest and unethical. A good attorney can only promise to do his or her best job in defending you.

When you look for a potential defense attorney, tell him or her everything that you think is relevant, and then some. Something that you dismissed as a minor detail might make all the difference in your case. Most importantly, be honest. You have nothing to fear. Except in rare cases, if you are talking to an attorney face to face, even before he or she has decided to take your case, you already enjoy attorney-client privilege. This means that nothing you say could ever be used against you. If you ever have any doubt that your communication with the attorney is “privileged,” you should simply ask.

Now you have decided on a lawyer who has offered to take your case. You have paid good money and you have entrusted the lawyer to help you. Now you need to tell your lawyer everything about your case. Everything. A common complaint among defense lawyers is that they learned a critical fact that they needed to know, not from their client, but from the prosecutor or a witness. Withholding information can only increase your chances of being convicted. But no matter what, having found an experienced attorney to represent you, you should rest assured that you are well prepared for the next phase of the process: the trial.

Originally published here.

California DUI attorneys and dui attorneys throughout the country often lose drunk driving cases because of their own mistakes. This article lists those mistakes to be on the lookout for when going through your DUI case.

These mistakes are made by dui lawyers for three main reasons.

Many dui lawyers are too young and inexperienced to know the law and have the necessary skills to effectively represent a defendant. Many times the young attorneys fresh out of law school will immediately begin representing defendants by taking appointments from the public defender’s office.

The unfortunate people who cannot afford to hire their own dui attorney and get stuck with a new lawyer pay a steep price. While these attorneys are not given the most difficult cases such as sexual assault and murder cases, even the most basic disorderly conduct case can have difficult fact patterns and complex legal situations to work through. And DUI cases are unfortunately considered “easy” cases by too many in the justice system. So these young and inexperienced attorneys will be assigned to dui cases even though these cases can be very complex. These attorneys often get rolled by the prosecution, since they lack trial skills and the confidence to play hardball with the prosecutor.

Yet, even attorneys that have more years of experience often lack the skills needed to win. They simply have not put the time in to learn the law or the skills necessary to properly defend their clients.

Many experienced California DUI attorneys have an inappropriate caseload by taking on either too many criminal cases or too few criminal cases. Some attorneys will take each and every case they can get from the public defender’s office and any case that walks in the door. By doing this, they simply do not have the time that is required to handle the case effectively. Their performance in each case will be less than it should be.

Other California DUI attorneys practice criminal and dui law but only as a small percentage of their overall caseload. You may have an attorney with twenty years of experience. But will that really matter if 90% of his caseload is in the area of divorce law. This attorney will have years of experience, but not the experience you need. It is highly unlikely that they will know the law pertaining to your case as well as they should. Nor is it likely that they will they have the criminal trial experience that is required for a criminal case.

Unfortunately many California DUI attorneys are just too lazy or just don’t care. Attorneys are notorious for waiting until the last minute to file motions and to meet other deadlines in a case. They will do just enough to get by. They will never do more than the bare minimum on a case. They have seen hundreds of cases and know how a case will be resolved just upon reading the report. There is no reason to suspect anything other than the typical plea bargain. And that is exactly what they get. They are a prosecutor’s best friend, because they make his job so easy. The prosecutor can get more of what he wants because he knows this defense attorney is just too lazy to fight.

Originally published here.

So now you have been released. Do not wait. Now is the time to hire a lawyer who can guide you through the complex and ever changing field of DUI law. The process of preparing your case—the investigation, the motions to suppress evidence, the analysis of evidence, and more—needs to get started right away.

It is difficult to pick a lawyer, not only because there are so many out there, but also because—since you are not a lawyer yourself—you do not know what a good one looks like. What is worse is that many consumers fall prey to myths and misconceptions about lawyers and they wind up picking an attorney who is not qualified to meet their needs. Here are a few of the most common myths.

Myth #1: “All lawyers have the same experience and training.”

We already touched on this myth in chapter 1 but it is worth mentioning again. Even if a lawyer has practiced law for decades, even if he or she has a fantastic resume, even if he or she has argued cases before the Supreme Court, there is no substitute for expertise in DUI law and experience defending clients who have been arrested for DUI.

Myth #2: “If a lawyer advertises that he takes DUI cases it is because he has experience in DUI law.”

This myth is similar to the first, but it is different in an important way. You may know how important it is that the attorney has experience in DUI law, but you might assume that, because an attorney takes DUI cases, he or she has the necessary experience. As a consumer, you know that advertising is often misleading. This is no less true when it comes to advertising for lawyers.

Myth #3: “The State Bar determines whether a lawyer can advertise as a DUI lawyer.”

The reality is that there is no requirement that a lawyer must meet before the State Bar permits a lawyer to advertise as a DUI attorney. The only thing is needed is a license to practice law.

Myth #4: “All law firms will take my case to trial.”

As strange as this may seem, many law firms are not committed to taking your case as far as it needs to go reach the best outcome for you.

Myth #5: “All lawyers carry Malpractice Insurance.”

Malpractice Insurance is not required of attorneys. This means if your lawyer does not carry this coverage and he makes a mistake, you may be out of luck. It a lawyer does not carry malpractice insurance, it does not mean that he or she is confident that it will never be necessary. More likely it means that the lawyer cannot afford it.

Myth #6: “Calling a Lawyer Referral service or using internet sites that offer to find you a lawyer service is the way to find a competent lawyer.”

Lawyer Referral Services and internet sites are a nice idea, but they are far from perfect. Many do not adequately screen the attorneys they refer clients to.

Myth #7: “Lawyers who have a big ad in the Yellow Pages or a TV commercial must be successful because they can afford this advertising.”

Just because a lawyer is on TV or has a big two-page yellow page ad does not mean he or she is successful or qualified. All it means is he or she shelled out a lot of money to make people think that. TV stations and yellow page companies do not care if the lawyer is competent; all they care about is that the check clears. Is that the way you want to decide who is going to protect you and your family?

Eventually you will want to speak with a number of attorneys who might represent you. This kind of consultation is usually free. The most important thing to remember when speaking with a potential lawyer is not to be afraid to ask questions. The best and most qualified lawyers will welcome your questions and they will take it as a sign that you have done your homework. Remember that when you are interviewing an attorney, the attorney is also interviewing you to see if he or she wants to take your case. A good lawyer would rather represent a truly prepared client, a client who is committed to getting the best legal representation available.

Here are a few questions you should ask in order to make an informed choice of who will represent you.

• “How many years have you been in practice?”

This will tell you much about the attorney’s potential experience. But, also ask what they have done all those years.

• “How much experience do you have representing persons who are charged with DUI?”

You should leave the attorney’s office confident that you have spoken to someone who has real expertise and experience in DUI law.

• “Do you have real experience handling a case like mine?”

You do not want a lawyer who sees your case as a new experience that he or she would like to try. You want someone with the experience necessary to do the job for you.

• “How many cases have you taken to jury trial?”

Your case might need to go to trial in order to get the outcome you deserve and it is imperative that your attorney have trial experience if it is required.

• “Who in the office will actually be handling the case and what are their qualifications?“

Most attorneys work with a team. The lawyer that you might be speaking with might not actually be the person who does the bulk of the work.

• “Are you covered by a legal malpractice insurance policy?”

There is really no two ways about this. Your attorney should have malpractice insurance. Malpractice insurance is just as much insurance for you as it is for your lawyer.

• “Have you ever been disciplined by the State Bar?”

You do not want a lawyer with a long disciplinary rap sheet and you deserve to know if your lawyer has been disciplined in the past.

• “What are all the potential legal costs, including investigators, experts and the like?”

The lawyer should be honest with you about what your case might cost. You want to be secure that the lawyer is not luring you in with promises of unrealistically low fees and costs.

•”What challenges do you see in my case?”

The lawyer should be able to explain to you what he or she sees as the challenges you face and what they could mean for the ultimate result.

• “How will you keep me informed about my case?”

You must feel comfortable with the attorney’s commitment to communicate with you. You should know if you would really be kept informed of developments in your case.

• “What will be the final outcome of my case?”

A good attorney will not promise you a specific result, because it is always impossible to be certain how a case will turn out. Any other answer is dishonest and unethical. A good attorney can only promise to do his or her best job in defending you.

When you look for a potential defense attorney, tell him or her everything that you think is relevant, and then some. Something that you dismissed as a minor detail might make all the difference in your case. Most importantly, be honest. You have nothing to fear. Except in rare cases, if you are talking to an attorney face to face, even before he or she has decided to take your case, you already enjoy attorney-client privilege. This means that nothing you say could ever be used against you. If you ever have any doubt that your communication with the attorney is “privileged,” you should simply ask.

Now you have decided on a lawyer who has offered to take your case. You have paid good money and you have entrusted the lawyer to help you. Now you need to tell your lawyer everything about your case. Everything. A common complaint among defense lawyers is that they learned a critical fact that they needed to know, not from their client, but from the prosecutor or a witness. Withholding information can only increase your chances of being convicted. But no matter what, having found an experienced attorney to represent you, you should rest assured that you are well prepared for the next phase of the process: the trial.

Originally published here.