Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
Implicit in my use of the title “Michigan Driver’s License Restoration Lawyer” is that I am successful at Restoring Michigan Driver’s Licenses. I have developed a winning system for getting people who have really quit drinking back on the road. As the end of 2012 approaches, I am happy to close it having won over 100 License Appeals in the last 12 months, and with some kind words of gratitude from a Client for whom I have recently won back the ability to drive again:
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas to us all.
I want to thank you and your staff for all your hard work helping me achieve the last major hurdle towards my Freedom.
I do know that I could not have done it without your strategy, experience , and most of all, your reassurance.
I would have wrote sooner but I have been busier than normal this season. Understandably so. I have much to be Grateful for this year.
Please have a safe and wonderful Holiday season this year.
And Jeffrey, I’ll see you in the late spring. Keep a pickin.
Regards,
Richard
Beyond perhaps being the last “Thank You” note I’ll get this year, I chose to reprint this message because in its brevity, it manages to cover everything about why I win all my License Appeals the first time, and back that up with a Guarantee.
My Client begins with an earnest enough holiday greeting, followed immediately by an expression of how he feels like having won his License back is a true Christmas gift when he includes himself in the sentence “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas to us all.” From my perspective as a License Restoration (and Clearance Appeal) Lawyer, being able to help someone win back something so important and meaningful to them, and for which they are so grateful, is about the biggest bit of job satisfaction I can ever imagine, and certainly trumps anything pretty much any Lawyer in any other field will ever experience.
Think about it: If you were a Patent Lawyer, and you obtained a Patent for another Client’s “thingamajig,” how excited would you really be? If you were a Divorce Lawyer, and you got Mr. and Mrs. Jones “unhitched,” how much gratitude do you think you’d get from them? If you were a Slip and Fall kind of Lawyer, and you settled a case for Bungling Bob after he slipped on a banana peel, what more would you get from that other than just another paycheck? All of this put together cannot compare to sharing in the joy a person experiences (and often expresses) when they win back the ability to drive again, legally.
My Client goes on to say, “I want to thank you and your staff for all your hard work.” My Staff is a crucially important part of my Practice. If you hire me, you’re going to get to know them rather well, particularly Ann, my Senior Assistant. I’ve had Lawyers call my Office for some “how to” advice about handling a License Appeal, and without ever having spoken with them myself, have been thanked later for the help the received from Ann. Rolls Royce designs some wonderful cars, but they wouldn’t be wonderful at all if it weren’t for the highly skilled support people who machine the parts and put them together. As the saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. While I’m lucky to have such great help, my Clients get the direct benefit of that, too.
Next, and rather importantly, my Client drops a hint about who he really is, and exactly the kind of person that becomes my Client as he thanks us for “helping me achieve the last major hurdle towards my Freedom.” If you’ve read around this Blog, or my Website, then you probably know I have a first-time win Guarantee. Part and parcel of that, however, is that I require a person to have really quit drinking before I’ll take their case. This means that my Clients are Sober people.
Without exception, anyone who has gotten Sober has made huge changes in their life. The transition from drinker to non-drinker affects almost everything in a person’s life. Anyone who has gone through this knows: Getting Sober means changes in your friendships (this usually means losing the “drinking buddies”), improved relationships with family and friends (the people who really matter), regaining the respect and support of those people, feeling better physically, feeling better about yourself, getting a second wind of motivation (often resulting in the advancement or career or educational goals) and a feeling of profound gratitude for just being Sober. Anyone who has gone through this metamorphosis knows how very different their life is now from how it was in the months before their last drink.
From my side of the desk, the lack of a License is most often the last piece of the puzzle to be put back into place by a person who has lost it because of multiple DUI convictions. Normally, as a person transitions away from drinking, they fix almost everything else in their lives, and then last, but certainly not least, work on getting their License back.
My Client next observes “I do know that I could not have done it without your strategy, experience , and most of all, your reassurance.”
Strategy is important. Every single person’s situation is different. How a person gets to that crucial point in their drinking when they throw down the gauntlet and declare “enough is enough” is their own unique story. Whatever it is that enables them to finally be “sick and tired of being sick and tired” is one thing, and from that common point of meeting, their separate paths diverge again. In other words, everyone has to follow their own road to that “a-ha” moment about their drinking, and form that point, the roads spread out again. Some people follow the path of AA, others don’t…
Even amongst those who go to AA, people take their own roads. Some people follow the suggestions and get s Sponsor, others don’t’. Some people find great value in continually working the steps and going to meetings, while others leave because they feel the program gave them the help they needed, and they feel confident enough in their own Sobriety. The point is that a License Appeal Strategy has to be tailored to the person filing the Appeal. It’s your biography that’s at the center of everything…
Experience is priceless. Anyone can read the “million little rules” governing License Appeals. In the same way, anyone can get a picture book showing 3 relatively simple guitar chords. The directions need only say “position your fingers as shown, strum rhythmically, and change chords smoothly.” Experience (and a natural inclination, or what one might call “talent”) is what separates those who do it right, and do if rather effortlessly, from those whose attempts can best be described as “painful.” It is precisely that experience that allows me to carefully “prep” a Client for their Hearing based upon the specific Hearing Officer who will be deciding their case. That alone can be the difference between an Appeal that prevails, and one that is ultimately denied. In my case, I put over 2 decades of experience at my Client’s disposal. Beyond my Guaranteed win and my success rate, the raw numbers tell a story: In the last 2 years alone, I’ve won more than 200 cases. That’s 200 people just like you who are now back on the road, legally.
In that sense, all the reassurance in the world can’t compare to a real life Guarantee. For all the wins I could summarize, and all the testimonials I could put up from the last 2 years alone, without an actual Guarantee to back it up, it’s just words. The Guarantee is everything. If you are Sober, I’ll get you back on the road. Forget all the stories about everyone else, because if you don’t win, it couldn’t matter less if someone else did. If you lose, you won’t be driving, and that’s all that matters. I Guarantee that won’t happen.
Underlying my Guarantee is the requirement that you be Sober as a condition of my taking your case. This separates me from every other Lawyer, and I’m often told that this was a deciding factor in my Client’s decision to hire me. My Sobriety requirement establishes a clear standard by which I will accept cases. In other words, it takes more than just money to hire me. I’m not here, with my hand out, ready to take just any old case for someone who is willing to pay me Fee. Sure, you’ve got to be able to pay for the services you’re seeking, but you’ve also got to be Sober before I’ll get involved. No one else does that; then again, no one else offers a first-time win Guarantee, either, and that’s precisely why. To my mind, that’s the single most important thing about me, my Clients, why I win their License Appeals, and why I Guarantee it.
Near the end of his message, my Client states “I have much to be grateful for this year.” As I noted, this gratitude is the best job satisfaction any Lawyer can have. Most Lawyers are in the “misery business.” Most Lawyers do things like taking sides in lawsuits, or representing people getting a divorce. They write Wills for people in contemplation of dying and they defend people facing Criminal charges. None of that brings much inherent job satisfaction, and the gratitude expressed by those kinds of Clients is far more polite than it is profound.
Not me. I get the most profound gratitude and the highest job satisfaction of any Lawyer I know. Ask yourself this: how much would you like to be the person who can write their Lawyer a note of thanks for winning their License back, and be a able to say “I have much to be grateful for this year?”
If you’ve quit drinking and you’re ready to get back on the road, I can get you there. All you need to do is give me a call, and we can get the ball rolling.