Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
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:
Our 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.
While many legal web companies offer start-to-finish web designs, I don’t want ANYONE to write our content but me. I stand behind every word on our site, even if there are too just many of them on it right now. That said, updating the website content is an enormous undertaking. So, too, is keeping up my current blog schedule. It requires a lot of time to write and publish 2 articles each week. There is simply no way for me to devote enough time to update the site while still writing 2 new weekly blog articles.
Accordingly, I have to cut back, at least for a while. To split the difference between my long-held schedule of publishing twice-weekly articles on both Monday and Friday, I have chosen to put my once-per-week articles up on Wednesday. They will still focus exclusively on our legal practice areas – criminal cases, DUI cases, and driver’s license restoration appeals.
As part of putting up legal information online, I have to ensure its accuracy. I can absolutely say that writing as much as I have about these areas of law has made me a better lawyer in each one of them. I have reprinted the main rule governing driver’s license restoration appeals so many times that I literally know the relevant part of it by heart.
In almost every DUI article, I link to the primary Operating While Intoxicated law. To be clear, there is no “DUI” in Michigan; it’s technically called “Operating While Intoxicated,” or OWI, for short. I have read that law more times than I can count. In doing so, I have picked up nuances that might have gone unnoticed in the first several hundred readings (I’m serious).
It’s much the same for criminal cases. Because I write about the law so much, I am always reading laws and cases, especially to find select parts to put up. In addition to knowing “the law,” I have to examine how one rule interacts with another. For example, I have written a lot about indecent exposure, which generally does not require sex offender registration. Of course, I know the limited exceptions to that. However, knowing it is one thing, but to put it up in writing, I felt compelled to re-read and quote the actual rule of law. That need for accuracy is a good thing, both for the reader, and for me, as a lawyer.
There are numerous ways for a person to compare criminal, DUI and/or driver’s license restoration lawyers. Our firm’s niche has been to provide the kind of detailed information that can be found on this blog. In addition, my articles allow the reader to gain a sense of who we are, as people. I have tried to maintain a conversational tone in every article I write, and I think I’ve done that. We believe that helping people understand the law and how it works in the real world is important. I have always tried to explain, the best I can, how a person’s criminal, DUI or driver’s license restoration case is likely to play out, and what he or she can expect to happen.
My plan is to get our new site up and running, and then return to putting up 2 articles each week. In all likelihood, we will have the new site go live before every last bit of content is updated. Then, I’ll update the rest over the coming months.
Plans are great, but they don’t always work out. My late mother used to tell me that “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” As part of our site upgrade, I have been recording a few more videos or my “2-Minute Legal” series on YouTube. More will follow. My web folks have instructed me to also add some Instagram posts. I plan to do all those things. As a consequence, I may find that I’m only able to put up 1 new blog article each week for longer than I hope right now. Whatever else, I’m not going to start writing short, crappy posts for quantity. I’d rather be able only to publish 1 good article per week, and be proud of it.
I have become very comfortable examining and explaining the realities of criminal, DUI and driver’s license restoration law through my articles. I have learned, over time, to adapt my writing style to include things like keywords and such for SEO and search purposes. This isn’t free-form writing, but I don’t think the constraints of SEO have cramped my style too much.
It’s not that I fancy myself any kind of special writer. However, I can’t help but think of an interview I once read with the great fiction writer Clive Barker. He said that he didn’t really think there was any such thing as a “writer,” but rather just a guy who writes.
I guess I’ve become that guy.
To anyone who has read this far, look for my next installment on Wednesday, and then every Wednesday thereafter. At least for a while.
In the meantime, if you are looking for a lawyer to help with a criminal, DUI or driver’s license restoration case, be a savvy consumer and read around. Pay attention to how different lawyers explain these areas of the law. Note also how they explain their various approaches to them.
This blog is – and I will make sure that it remains – the best source of genuinely helpful information to be found anywhere. It is, after all, fully searchable, and has more detailed articles in the criminal section, or the DUI and driver’s license restoration sections than can be found any and everywhere else combined.
When you’ve done enough reading, start checking around. You can learn a lot by actually speaking with a live person.
All of our consultations are free, confidential, and done over the phone, right when you call. My team and I are very friendly people who will be glad to answer your questions and explain things. We’ll even be happy to compare notes with anything some other lawyer has told you.
We can be reached Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. (EST) at either 248-986-9700, or 586-465-1980.