Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
In my capacity as a Michigan driver’s license restoration lawyer, I guarantee to win every case I take. To make that happen, I will only take a case for someone who has honestly quit drinking. It has never been my goal to compete with any other lawyer on price, or really at any level, beyond striving to be the very best in my field. We don’t just “do” license clearance and restoration appeals – they are the very focus of our practice.
This goes hand in hand with my deep, 25-plus year interest in the addiction and alcohol issues, so much so that a number of years ago, I went back to the University classroom and completed a post-graduate program of addiction studies so that I might formally sharpen my clinical knowledge and expertise in things like how people recover from problems with alcohol and drugs. Whatever else, I understand addiction and recovery from every angle – from the inside looking out, the outside looking in, and from the clinical side and the legal side, as well.
In the course of any given month, I appear and conduct (and win) more license appeal hearings before the Michigan Secretary of State’s Administrative Hearing Section (AHS) than most lawyers will ever handle in the course of their entire career. I don’t check other lawyer’s prices, but I have been told that my fees are higher than some others. While I try to keep my fees reasonable, I believe that I am the poster-boy for the idea that you get what you pay for.
There are some lawyers who charge more than I do, although I can honestly say that many times, I’ve been called in to clean up after some of those guys have lost a case, thus proving the idea that while you never get what you don’t pay for, just paying a lot doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting the best; instead, it just means you paid too much. When it comes to winning back your driver’s license, you must understand that there is an additional cost to losing beyond the money:
If you lose your appeal, you cannot file another for a full year. Beyond that, you’ll have to fix all the mistakes that caused you to lose the first time. At least with me, a client has the certainty of knowing that they’ll only pay me once and they will get back on the road.
The quality of service from my office is on a whole different level than what I suspect anyone else provides. In general, I think a lot of the hype around “better service” is a bunch of BS. When I order something online, I’m concerned about service only to the extent that the right product (meaning one that I selected) is sent to me quickly and correctly. I don’t care if my order is processed by a robot, some guy in a tank top and shorts, or some guy in a tuxedo and white gloves.
License restoration cases, however, are different. My first meeting with a new client takes about 3 hours (often, a bit more) in my office. And let me be perfectly candid: I’m a really nice guy and consider my practice an opportunity to help people, but I’m still in business to make money, so I don’t keep these appointments long just so we can talk baseball, or anything like that.
In that same way, as far as my guarantee goes, I don’t make my money having to re-do a case a second time; I make my money winning them the first time, meaning I’m as invested in a successful outcome as my client. I am thorough in a way that takes time. There are no shortcuts to lasting success.
There are certain products in this world that are among the best in their particular market. Just about everybody knows that Bose is always top-of-the line for sound, along with being about the most expensive. Bosch appliances are priced well above other brands, but in terms of quality, are pretty much without competition. These manufacturers concentrate on producing the very best product possible without the constraints of making sure they fall into some kind of middling price range.
I do the same thing. This involves more than just me, however; my staff does more license appeal stuff than anyone’s. I have literally been thanked by lawyers for the direction they’ve received from my senior assistant or my paralegal when they got stuck on some license restoration issues or other, and called my office for help. You’ll probably find some of those operations advertising prices less than mine.
There’s another marketing phrase that’s relevant here, although I think it falls a bit short: Results matter. Of course they do. That goes without saying. You can’t do better than my guarantee, but winning results are better when the journey to them is comfortable and smooth.
If you needed surgery to remove something, who wouldn’t pick a doctor with a nice staff and a warm bedside manner and who explained everything, instead of some crusty jerk who did the job, but was a dick the whole time? In my office, we speak like real people.
My clients come to understand the whole license appeal process, and therefore are better participants in it. This level of service and attention to detail is necessary if you’re going to file and win more than 100 license clearance and restoration appeals each year., like I do.
I think you can get a good feel for who I am by reading my blog. I pour my heart into my articles, and you can “hear” my voice within them. I explain, often in painstaking detail, just about every facet of license restorations within these pages. That’s the representation you get when you hire us. I promise that no-one ever walks out of our office with unanswered questions (although I bet more than a few have said something, “Man, that guy can talk, huh?). We’re the explainers, because when I’m the customer or the client, I’m the guy who wants a clear explanation. We treat others as we would want to be treated.
And we win. We always win.
Because we handle so many license appeals, we am intimately familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the hearing officers who decide them. This is important, because even if your case had been well prepared, your lawyer needs to know what information is important to the hearing officer assigned to your case, and what particular areas of concern he or she has.
Some of the hearing officers want the lawyer to ask all or most of the questions, while others want the lawyer to kind of set things up and then “step aside” for them to ask most of the questions. You should be paying for your lawyer’s experience with the specific hearing officer assigned to decide your case. If not, then you’re paying tuition for him or her to get it.
Back when I was a kid and growing up on Detroit’s east side, and because my family was solidly working-class (dad was a mailman, mom a secretary with the State of Michigan), there wasn’t a lot of money. I drove cars that one might politely call “beaters.” Because it wasn’t in our family budget for me to have any kind of new car, and because my beaters were just that – beaters, car repairs were a normal part of my life.
There was a service station near my house run by a guy named “Frank,” and Frank was an honest guy and a great mechanic whose work was first rate, but he charged more than most other places in the area. He ran a nice, clean place. Even though every buck mattered to us, my dad would always take our cars to Frank because we knew that whatever the situation, we’d get an honest diagnosis and the right repair to it.
Frank was neat, and his work never sloppy. We never considered going anywhere but Frank’s because we knew that we’d get the best work possible. The extra money was well worth the peace of mind.
In that way, I’m Frank. I don’t use what other lawyers charge as a frame of reference because I know that no one puts anywhere near the number of hours into a license case that I do. If you need a Michigan driver’s license clearance or restoration and you’re genuinely sober, I will get you back on the road.
If you want to know more, you can spend some time reading through the more than 500 driver’s license restoration articles on my blog and/or you can call our office at either 248-986-9700, or 586-465-1980 anytime during regular business hours. We can be reached M-F, from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. (EST).
We’ll be glad to answer your questions or explain any part of the process you’d like. We do all of the consultation stuff over the phone. When you’re ready to move forward and you want the best representation and experience possible, along with a guaranteed win, we’re here to help.