Articles Posted in Driver’s License Restoration

My team and I spend most of our time handling driver’s license restoration and clearance appeal cases. In any week, we’ll screen loads people who call us about getting their driving privileges restored. If we could take the cases of all the people who contact us and are willing to pay, we’d be swimming in money. We can’t do that, however, and one of the most common reasons right now is because of recreational marijuana. Ever since it was legalized in Michigan, it has become a real problem in the driver’s license restoration world.

I explored this in a recent article entitled “Using Recreational Marijuana will kill a Michigan Driver’s License Restoration Case.” This topic is so important, however, that we need to look at it again. Recently, Ann, our senior assistant, expressed her frustration about recreational pot. She noted that a lot of people who manage to quit drinking suddenly take up smoking weed. It used to be that our biggest “problem” with potential clients was that some of them simply hadn’t completely quit drinking. Now, it’s that they use marijuana.

Within the more than 650 driver’s license restoration articles I have written and published, a lot focus on sobriety. In so many of them, I point out how some people misunderstand the meaning of sobriety. They think that they can win a license appeal by saying things like they had reduced how often or how much they drank. What is most often lacking is a firm and stated commitment to complete abstinence from alcohol. At least with booze, it’s simple: No means no, as in none.

As Michigan driver’s license restoration lawyers, my team and I pride ourselves on being honest. We play by the rules, yet guarantee to win every first time license appeal case we take. We do that “fair and square.” A recent license restoration caller to our office paid us a very high compliment about our honesty, and it is the inspiration for this piece. She said that after having spent quite a bit of time on this blog and our site, she was impressed by how clear we are about requiring our clients to be genuinely sober. Even so, she wondered if we really meant all of it.

She found out, once she called our office. We asked her a series of questions to determine whether or not she really had quit drinking. At the end of the conversation, she offered her assessment of our firm, and even suggested we use it as a “jingle” of sorts: We’re not just truth speakers, we’re truth seekers. Specifically, she expressed a pleasant surprise that our questions over the phone mirrored what we had written about making sure that anyone we represent really has quit drinking, and doesn’t use any other substances, either.

A few days later, I mentioned this to my wife while we were having dinner. I then reminded her of an anecdote I bring up every once in a while in my articles. One time, some years ago, I had to refer a good friend of mine to a longtime colleague for a liquor license matter. When I called my lawyer pal, we chatted for a bit, caught up on each other’s lives. I then told him that he was my first choice because I knew him to be a genuinely good and honest man. He thanked me, and then laughed, observing that being honest had cost him a lot of money over the course of his career.

If our firm takes your driver’s license restoration or clearance appeal case, we guarantee to win it. That’s easy for us to say, because we won’t take a case that we can’t make into a winner. In order to have a chance at success, a person must have honestly quit drinking, and there is always a story leading up to and following that decision. Because that “story” really becomes the foundation every person’s restoration or clearance case, my team and I then need to present it in a way that will win. In this article, we’re going to look at role of your story in winning back your driver’s license.

There is more to winning a license appeal, though, than just having quit drinking. A person not only has to prove he or she has quit drinking, they must also prove themselves to be a safe bet to never drink again. Under the rules governing license appeals, these proofs must be “clear and convincing evidence.” A person just can’t file a case and merely claim to have quit drinking; he or she must convince the Secretary of State that it’s true, and that he or she is also genuinely committed to never drinking again. This is where the “story” part comes in, since nobody ever quits drinking because it’s working out so well.

Instead, people quit drinking because of all the trouble it has caused in their lives. In the real world, most sober people look back and agree that they waited longer than they should have to end their relationship with alcohol. The decision to stop for good is usually preceded by any number of unsuccessful attempts to control, limit or otherwise manage one’s drinking. It’s only after someone learns, through experience, that such tactics don’t work that they’ll finally throw in the towel.

Because we are a Michigan driver’s license restoration law firm that guarantees to win every regular restoration and clearance appeal case we take, we know, from first-hand experience, the joy our clients feel when they can legally drive again. For most people, regaining their independence is something for which they’ve worked long and hard, and therein lies the real “secret” of our success. We guarantee to win every case we take because we will only accept representation for someone who is sober, and whose case can therefore be made into a winner.

I have written rather extensively about our guarantee, noting, in some articles, how it really serves as both a protection for the client, because he or she will only pay us once for the security of knowing they’ll win, and for us, because once we take a case, we are obligated to stick with it until the person does, in fact, win. Under the terms of our guarantee, if a person doesn’t win the first time, then we have to re-do his or her case until it does. To be blunt about it, we count on earning our money by winning the first time around, NOT having to do the whole thing all over again, for free, as “warranty work.”

That obligation is a complete disincentive for us to take a case on behalf of someone who isn’t genuinely sober, or who hasn’t been sober long enough, or who’s case can’t, for whatever other reason(s), be made into a winner. This not only protects us from getting involved in such a mess, it also protects a client from forking over his or her money and not being guaranteed a successful result. It’s always nice when someone contacts our firm and is ready to pay, but our guarantee is a safeguard that prevents us from ever getting tempted to take a case for a payday unless we’re sure we can win it.

As Michigan driver’s license restoration lawyers who guarantee to win every license appeal case we take, my team and DON’T have a lot of experience losing. However, because many of our clients hire us after having either lost a “do-it-yourself” case, or having used some lawyer who didn’t concentrate in license restorations, like we do, we also get to read a lot of losing decisions, and see why their cases failed. Over the course of more than 30 years, we’ve noticed a few patterns, and, 2, in particular, that are at the heart of almost every denial. That’s what we’ll examine in this article.

After having quite literally read more denial orders than we could ever count, we have seen how one of these 2 reasons underlies virtually every lost appeal. The first issue, and the absolute key to winning a license appeal, is that a person must have honestly quit drinking and has to be genuinely sober. In addition, he or she must also have the ability and commitment to remain sober for good. To be clear, this isn’t about merely saying that one no longer drinks, but rather about actually having quit and having a bona fide intention to remain abstinent forever.

The second issue, which is every bit as important as the first, but is also entirely dependent upon and flows from it, is that a person must prove that he or she has given up alcohol (and all other substances, including recreational marijuana) and has the resolve and tools necessary to remain sober permanently. As we’ll see, the whole purpose of Michigan driver’s license appeal process is to verify that a person has, in fact, quit drinking, and is a safe bet to never drink again. This, as noted, requires more than just saying so….

In our capacity as Michigan driver’s license restoration lawyers, we receive a ton of emails from people who want to be able to legally drive again. Many of these senders point out that they have been eligible for some time to file a license appeal. However, there is a lot more that’s required to win a driver’s license restoration or clearance case than merely being “eligible.” In this article, we’re going to look at what a person must prove to the Michigan Secretary of State in order to win back his or her driving privileges.

The license appeal process is governed by rules, and they control everything about the process, including how long a person has to wait to file an appeal, the kind of evidence that must be submitted when it’s filed, and exactly what he or she must prove in order to win. The rules do not take into account how much a person may “need” a license, nor do they contemplate how long a person has gone without one. Of course, it’s the need to drive again that usually motivates someone to look into restoring his or her driving privileges in the first place, but to win them back, a person must meet the standards set by those rules.

As we’ll see, the whole goal of the license appeal process is to keep anyone off the road who presents even the slightest risk to ever drive drunk again. Because there are so many variables involved in attempting such a calculation, the rules strip it down and simplify things by making clear that the people least likely to drive drunk are people who don’t drink, and, accordingly, limiting the return of driving privileges to that group alone. Put another way, the only people who can win a license appeal are those who can prove that they are a safe bet to never drink again.

It’s very hard to get by without a driver’s license. As Michigan driver’s license restoration lawyers, my team and I know this very well. Because we handle over 200 license appeal cases ever year, we really have “heard everything.” One mistaken belief we have to correct all the time is that having completed a DUI sentence and done what was required for probation somehow qualifies a person to win a license appeal. In this article, I want to clarify why merely following the court’s orders and completing probation doesn’t come with a license to drive, and then explain what a person must do to get it back.

In Michigan, the revocation of a person’s license is mandatory after either 2 DUI convictions within 7 years, or 3 within 10 years. As the reader no doubt knows, the terms of probation for 2nd and 3rd offense cases is significantly more demanding than anything he or she received after a 1st offense. In both 2nd and 3rd offense cases, the law requires a person to complete some counseling and/or treatment. In addition, regular testing is almost certain, and sometimes, even attending AA is required by the court. Consequently, it’s not unusual for a person to think all of that is enough to win a Michigan driver’s license restoration appeal.

By itself, however, it is not. Winning a license appeal case is always about proving, above and beyond any kind of counseling or treatment a person may have completed, that he or she has honestly quit drinking and has both the ability and commitment to never drink again. Absent sufficient proof of his or her sobriety, what a person did or did not do as part of his or her DUI sentence doesn’t matter at all. Of course, if someone actually gained tools he or she uses to stay sober through probation, that’s great, and it can be helpful in the context of a license appeal.