Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
Perhaps the first thing anyone looking for a DUI lawyer should know is that cost does not equal value. In other words, it’s very easy to wind up paying WAY too much in legal fees for ordinary representation and unexceptional results in a DUI case. On the flip side, you will NEVER get what you don’t pay for, either, and there are no bargains when it comes to quality. This is especially true regarding legal representation.
In a very real way, figuring out what you should expect to spend for a good lawyer is very much about learning how to filter out BS, and there is certainly a lot of it out there. If you google anything about legal fees in DUI cases (which is probably how you found this article), you will almost immediately find yourself inundated with messages that practically scream “I’m the best, so I charge the most,” along with the shrieks of alarmists who try to convince you to “Call NOW!”
Relax, and don’t make that mistake. There is absolutely zero downside to taking the time to do your homework and go about finding a DUI lawyer like a smart consumer, and anyone who suggests differently should be avoided like the plague. As you look around, though, remember that because all lawyers (myself included) are in business to make money, you also need to “read between the lines,” so to speak, and always be aware of the ever-present self interest in everything you encounter.
For all the things to look for in a DUI attorney (and others to avoid), there is one question you should always know the answer to about any lawyer you’re considering hiring: “Do you get to this court regularly?” In this article, we’re going to explore why this so important. Before we get to that, however, let’s define what is meant by “DUI lawyer” and see how that’s different from some lawyer who just “does” DUI cases.
The court system, for its part, is essentially hard-wired to read every possible risk factor into an OWI arrest. As I’ll show later, there is an explanation for this, but it’s cold comfort for anyone who simply screws up one night and then winds up feeling treated like an out-of-control alcoholic. I always point out that success in a DUI case is best measured by what does NOT happen to you. At the end of the day, the fact remains that most people who get a DUI will learn from it, never get another, and therefore don’t need all kinds of classes and counseling.
In the real world, the best possible outcome in a DUI case is to knock it out before it goes anywhere in court. While very few DUI cases actually go to trial and win (the overall percent, based on arrests for regular DUI charges, meaning OWI and OWVI, is well below 0.2% (that’s zero-point-two percent)), plenty of them do get dismissed because they do NOT survive a challenge to the evidence. This can only happen, however, if the lawyer first obtains, and then carefully analyzes the evidence, and ultimately finds something useful.
This is probably most consequential in the context of a 2nd offense DUI case more than any other. Despite the competing marketing pitches of different lawyers, the real truth is that a 2nd offense straddles the polar extremes between a 1st offense and a 3rd offense. In the real world, a 1st offense can, with proper handling very often be treated as more of a “mistake” rather than anything else, while a 3rd offense, by contrast, is always perceived and should be treated as a very serious matter.
The best thing that can happen to a person experiencing problems with alcohol is getting to the point where he or she does see a connection between their drinking and many (or all) of the problems in their life, and then decide to do something about it. As I pointed out in the first part of this article, most people start off by trying to cut down or otherwise manage their drinking. Although this strategy never works, it is the failure of those attempts that provides exactly the lesson some people need to help them move to the next step – the decision to give up alcohol altogether.
The idea that there might be something “off” with a person’s relationship to alcohol usually starts with an initial thought that his or her drinking needs to be reigned in a bit. By the time somebody starts thinking that way, or otherwise considering the possibility that his or her drinking has grown troublesome, it almost certainly has. This kind of thinking follows a process, because nobody goes from believing everything is fine one day to suddenly concluding that they have a major drinking problem the next.
This is really the opposite message of the fear-based legal marketers you have probably already encountered. For all the things that can be said about that approach (and make no mistake, lawyers use it because it does work to bring in clients), the fact is, reacting fearfully is not any kind of “intelligent” or proper way to handle a DUI case. Better outcomes are the result of experience and the application of careful and deliberate planning, rather than unfocused emotional reaction. Remember, success in a DUI case is always best measured by what does NOT happen to you.
Although I don’t want to focus too much on Sobriety Court, there is another facet to this worth mentioning before we move on – kind of the flip side of the coin, so to speak. While it is required that a person admits to needing some kind of help with his or her drinking in order to get into sobriety court, there are plenty of people who aren’t interested in anything like that or who otherwise maintain that they don’t have any problem and are merely seen by the system as being in denial.
This led us to explore the things that either will, or are very likely to happen to someone convicted of a 2nd or 3rd offense charge, including driver’s licenses sanctions, as well as the potential consequences to anyone who holds a professional license, or for whom a repeat offense DUI will have an adverse impact on his or her employment. I pointed out that, by operation of law, anyone convicted of a repeat offense DUI in Michigan is labeled a “habitual alcohol offender,” and is presumed to have an alcohol problem.