Articles Posted in Driver’s License Restoration

Our firm guarantees to win every first time Michigan Driver’s License restoration and clearance appeal case we take. For everything that a lawyer can say about experience and success, having a license restoration guarantee says even more. For anyone filing a license restoration or clearance appeal, the ONLY thing that matters is winning. When all is said and done, you either get your license back (or get a clearance of the Michigan hold on your driving record) – or not. And let’s face it, “or not” is a complete waste of your time and money.

License restoration win guaranteeOur license restoration guarantee is simple and straightforward. There is no “fine print.” If we take your license restoration or clearance appeal case, we guarantee to win it. If not, we will continue to represent you before the Michigan Secretary of State, without further charge, until we do. The only exception happens if a person lies, or otherwise withholds relevant information from us that results in his or her denial. My team and I question every client and potential client thoroughly, so voiding our guarantee would require a lot more than just an innocent oversight on anyone’s part.

There is, however, an important “catch” before our guarantee applies. It’s this: You have to be sober for us to take your case. We ONLY represent people who are genuinely clean and sober. This, of course, means that you must have honestly quit drinking. It also means that you must be abstinent from any and all other substances – including recreational marijuana. A person cannot be “clean and sober” but also use recreational marijuana. This has become a big problem since its legalization in Michigan. One thing my team and I have learned is that a lot of people don’t fully understand just what “sober” really means.

This blog is THE biggest and best source of real-world information about Michigan criminal, DUI and driver’s license restoration cases. In its 13 years online, I have written and published over 1300 articles here. For most of that time, I have put up 2 new articles every week, on Mondays and Fridays. Starting now, and at least for a while, however, that will change. For the time being will only be putting up 1 installment per week. I might even have to skip a week here or there, at least temporarily Here’s why:

Criminal, DUI and driver's license restoration blog schedule changeOur firm is in the midst of readying our new website to go live. My team and I very excited for its upcoming debut. While everything on our current site is legally accurate, the way people consume information has changed over the years. When it first went online, we were in a minority of lawyers to even have a website. Nowadays, people want to be able to find what they’re looking for quickly. Launching our new and improved site will make it easier for people to do just that.

Over time, the people have moved from using desktops to laptops, and now, to mobile devices. When our current site launched, the iPhone was a novelty. In the intervening years, mobile devices have become the norm. Today, over 75% of our online visitors use a phone or tablet to get to us. We need this update to improve the user’s experience. Our site needs to be easier to navigate, and the content needs to be broken down into much smaller chunks.

Although there is a lot that goes into a Michigan driver’s license restoration appeal, 3 things are really critical. In this article, we’re going to briefly examine each of them, in turn. These 3 things are essential to winning a license restoration appeal case. That said, there are also a few other requirements that need to be met before a case can go forward. While anyone can file a case, unless someone is legally eligible, the whole thing will be rejected. The date of a person’s eligibility is entirely dependent on his or her DUI and driving record.

<img src="Driver's License.jpg" alt="Driver's license issued after driver's license restoration appeal. ">A person must also be sober, and be able to prove it, in order to have any chance of winning. Our firm generally requires someone to have at least 18 months of clean time before we’ll consider filing a case. “Clean time” means complete abstinence from alcohol and all other substances. In essence, a person must show that he or she is alcohol and drug-free, and has both the ability and commitment to never drink or use anything anything again – including recreational marijuana.

A Michigan driver’s license restoration appeal starts with the substance use evaluation (SUE). Actually, in our office, the process begins with us preparing our client to undergo the evaluation. As we do that, we complete a form of our own creation called a “substance use evaluation checklist.” That form, along with other information, is provided to our evaluator to make sure that every relevant detail is properly disclosed and gets listed. This is very important, because an insufficient evaluation is one of the main reasons people wind up getting denied. Let me explain…

How much should you pay for a license restoration lawyer? Obviously, it should be no more than you have to, but it should be at least enough to win your case. The problem with this question is that cost is one of the least useful ways to find and hire a lawyer. This is especially true in license appeal cases. Unfortunately, it is also true that one of the most common questions my team and I get asked is, “How much do you charge?”

<img src="lawyer at scales of justice.jpg" alt="How much should you pay for a Michigan driver's license restoration lawyer. ">The most important element of this whole discussion is value. Value means what you get for your money. In a license appeal case, it means winning back the ability to drive again, legally. Let’s be very clear on this point – NOTHING else matters besides winning. There is no value in a free lawyer who loses, any more than there is any value in the most expensive lawyer who doesn’t win, either. In other kinds of cases, a person pays legal fees for the lawyer’s best efforts. The hope is that the attorney’s experience and skill will produce the desired result. That doesn’t apply to license appeal cases.

At least not with our firm. We guarantee to win every first time restoration license appeal and clearance appeal case we take. In all other kinds of cases, it is understood that there can be no guarantees. What this means, then, is that the primary consideration when hiring a lawyer for a license appeal should be a guaranteed win. In that context, the only calculation that really matters is NOT having paid too much to get one’s license back.

Every driver’s license restoration appeal case is unique. Our firm has literally handled thousands of them, and we know that no two are the same. We’re reminded of this every time a caller wants to tell us about someone else’s case. Often, this happens when we explain the requirement that a person be sober to win a license appeal. That’s when someone will say something like, “I know a guy who got his license back, and he still drinks.”

<img src="colored pencils.jpg" alt="Every license restoration appeal case is unique. ">That kind of statement completely misses the point. License appeals are all about proving one’s sobriety. That’s not to say no-one has ever lied his or her way through the process, but our firm wants nothing to do with any case like that. The whole goal of a license appeal is for the Secretary of State to screen out those people who present any risk to ever drink again. For as unique as each and every driver’s license restoration case is, however, what makes that so generally falls into 1 of 3 broader categories:

First, there’s a person’s background, and his or her history of DUI’s and other troubles. Some people come to us with only 2 prior DUI’s, while others have 3, 4, or even more – and sometimes way more. Some people rack up multiple DUI’s quickly, while others have years and years between some or all of them. Often enough, people will run into other problems with the law, as well, due to their troubled relationship to alcohol. This, of course, tends to reflect the length of a person’s problematic drinking behavior.

As Michigan criminal, DUI and driver’s license restoration lawyers, every case we take begins with a consultation, and all of them start with a phone call. In a recent conversation I had with Ann, our senior assistant, I mentioned I had recently read that a lot of people facing a criminal or Michigan DUI charge feel intimidated to pick up the phone and call a lawyer. What Ann said in response was so simple, yet brilliant, that it became the inspiration for this article: “The worst part about not calling a lawyer is not calling.”

 <img src="nervous woman.jpg" alt="Call about a Michigan DUI charge. ">We’ll come back to that statement shortly, because as our talk progressed, it became clear that I was not seeing the full picture of what she meant. I had thought, at least up until that moment, that the main reason people would be afraid to call (or otherwise contact) an attorney was a fear of being “hounded.” I can relate to that, because it’s the very reason I don’t want to give out my contact information online. Plenty of sites offer something like a “free quote,” but the catch is that you must provide a phone number and/or email, first. Then, they never leave you alone….

It turns out there is more to people’s reluctance to call a lawyer than just that. I know that a lot of lawyers can be jerks, but we’re not. However, someone facing a Michigan DUI charge who finds us online doesn’t know that. He or she has no clue that we’re down-to-earth, friendly, and just genuinely nice people. What Ann made clear to me is that there is more than just the fear of being “chased” after providing contact details that makes a person hesitant to call. Unfortunately, it’s largely being put off by the smug attitude of some in the legal profession.

We can win your license restoration appeal. Our firm guarantees to win every initial restoration and clearance appeal case we take. Our system has been refined over decades. It works so well that your results are guaranteed. This not only protects the client from losing his or her money, it protects us from ever taking a case that we can’t make into a winner. If we ever do lose, our guarantee obligates us to stick with the case until the person does win. The “guarantee” part means without further legal fees. That makes us as invested as our clients in their success.

<img src="Lawyer with a wrench .jpg" alt="We have a system to win your license restoration case. ">It’s a simple proposition: Follow our directions, and we’ll win your license restoration case – guaranteed. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who just have a knack for getting in their own way. They make things harder than they need to be. We encounter this when speaking with someone who wants their license back, but insists on doing it “their way.” That won’t fly with the Secretary of State, and it doesn’t work for us, either. In fact, the point of this article will be a variation on the theme “my way or the highway.” Think of it more as “either our way, or NO highway.”

A recent caller to our office inspired this installment. As we spoke with her, it seemed like we could win her case. She had been sober for a number of years, and might have made a good license restoration client. However, she could not accept the fact that there was no way for us to “speed up” the legal process. Because her child would start school soon, she felt a sudden sense of urgency to get her license back right away. We explained that we could expedite things on our end, but that the Secretary of State works on its own schedule.

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.

<img src="marijuana joint.jpg" alt="Marijuana will derail a license restoration. ">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.

If you need a lawyer for either a criminal or DUI charge, or you need legal representation to get your driver’s license back, then you should be looking for an answer to these questions: “Why should I hire you?” and “What can you do for me?” A person should always have clear answers to those questions. If not, it means he or she plowed ahead without having made an informed choice.

MSJ2-300x267Unfortunately, this happens more than the reader might imagine. In the criminal and DUI world, this is particularly true when people act out of fear. Too many will sign on with the first lawyer who calls them back after-hours, or over the weekend. In license appeal cases, this often happens when a person chooses a lawyer based primarily on price. Neither of those is the right way to secure quality representation. In fact, they reinforce the notions that a good hiring decision should be explainable by answering the questions posed above.

Of course, while the answers to those questions needs to be clear, they also have to make sense. They must be tempered by reality. Anyone facing a criminal or DUI charge would love to hear that some lawyer has the special and unique ability to make his or her problems go away. However, that’s not how things work in the real world. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop some law offices from tying to sell themselves that way. Accordingly, the first order of business for anyone who is a potential consumer of legal services is to first filter through the marketing hype.

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.

<img src="trust-truth.jpg" alt="We’re honest license restoration lawyers. ">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.

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