Michigan Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
In part 1 of this article, we began a discussion about the importance of our firm’s guarantee to win every Michigan driver’s license restoration or clearance appeal case we take. I began by pointing out that, very much unlike our practice, which concentrates in DUI and license appeal cases, there has been a recent surge of lawyers trying to enter the field claiming to “do” license appeals. I call these “McLicense” operations, because the simple truth is that there are very few real Michigan driver’s license restoration lawyers, like us, who specifically focus in this practice area, much less guarantee their work.
For everything that any lawyer can say about his or her skills, the presence (or lack of) a win guarantee says everything you need to know about whether you should risk your money with him or her. If I was a potential license appeal client and stumbled across some lawyer who couldn’t put their money where their mouth is, I would think, “No guarantee – no way!” Having a guarantee obligates us to stick with every restoration and clearance appeal case until it does win. The simple truth is that we make our money winning all of them the first time, not having to come back and do the whole thing all over again – for free – as “warranty work.”
We then moved on and saw how the written law requires the hearing officers who decide these cases to NOT grant a license appeal unless the person proves 2 main things, by what is specified as clear and convincing evidence: First, that his or her alcohol problem is “under control,” meaning he or she hasn’t a drink for a legally sufficient period of time (our firm generally require a person to have been alcohol (and marijuana) free for at least 18 months before we’ll file a case), and second, that his or her alcohol problem is “likely to remain under control,” meaning that he or she has the ability and commitment to remain alcohol (and substance) free for life.
The inspiration for this article came the other day, as I was doing research for another article, and stumbled across one of these “McLicense” websites. I got to that site trying to look something up, and as luck would have it, nothing on it came close to answering my question. Once again, Google had failed me. Even though the site upon which I landed didn’t provide the information I was looking for, it did direct the reader to check out its companion blog for more information, so I decided to poke around there a bit. When I did, I was disappointed to find that less than 10 articles about Michigan driver’s license restoration had been put up over the several years of its existence.
Sobriety is an important topic in its own right, but our discussion here will focus on the fact that it is THE critical thing needed to win a Michigan driver’s license restoration case. Unfortunately, while most people are familiar with what the terms “sober” and “sobriety” mean, their understanding is often incomplete. Of course, a person is “sober,” in one sense, if he or she is not intoxicated at a given time, but in the larger recovery world, “sober” means a lot more than just that. The importance of this goes beyond mere language, because the key difference between being abstinent from alcohol and truly sober is really the difference between being able to win a license appeal case – or not.
It might help to begin our discussion with the humbling and universally applicable reminder that, “Yes, you are special and unique – just like everyone else.” This really has particular application in the DUI world, because an important part of the role my team and I have to fulfill is very much like being a diplomat, shuttling between our client, where we are mindful of his or her individual circumstances, and the court system, which winds up, at least to some extent, treating everyone the same. Our job is to make sure the court doesn’t lose sight of our client’s individuality, and to make sure the client understands that, at certain points, you’re going to be treated like everyone else, regardless of your particular situation.
There is no other area of law where a lawyer gets a chance to represent someone who is on the same kind of upswing in his or her life as the typical driver’s license restoration client. Most often, in a license appeal case, our client is someone who came to the hard-won realization that he or she needed to quit drinking, and then not only did that, but also made the changes necessary to remain sober thereafter. By the time anyone who has had his or her license revoked for multiple DUI’s finally wins it back, it’s like putting the last piece of the puzzle of life back into place.
The reality is that a lawyer can pretty much challenge almost every bit of evidence, but unless he or she is successful, all that work amounts to nothing more than a waste of time – and the client’s money. To be sure, that can be profitable for the attorney, but beyond jacking up the fees, such fruitless challenges cause the other key parties (namely, the Judge and the prosecutor) to lose patience with a lawyer who either knows, or at least should know better, and also puts the client on a kind of emotional roller-coaster, by getting his or her hopes up, only to ultimately disappoint him or her later on. That’s just plain deceitful.
In all candor, I think that’s a shame. As I said before, whatever business advantage or strategy some lawyer may think there is to avoiding the topic of money, absolutely none of that benefits the consumer. Right now, the words “transparent” and “transparency” are popular, and I can think of no place where they are more relevant than letting someone know how much something is going to cost, especially when it comes to hiring a lawyer. This ties into another thing our firm does differently, and that’s suggest that anyone looking for a lawyer take the time to really look around. The fact is that there is simply no downside to being a wise consumer.
My team and I truly believe that how much you’re going to have to pay for something should always be clearly stated, and legal fees are no exception to that. There is absolutely NO good reason why a person should have to wonder, or wait to ask, how much a lawyer is going to cost for a particular case. Of course, there are reasons why some lawyers are coy about the whole subject of money, but none of them are good, and only serve them, and not the people paying them. The whole “hush-hush” attitude surrounding what a lawyers charges never benefits the client – ever.
The main rule that really controls the whole license appeal process begins with this critical sentence: “The hearing officer shall not order that a license be issued to the petitioner unless the petitioner proves, by clear and convincing evidence, all of the following…” Notice the 5th word in that sentence: it’s “not.” This means that the rule begins by instructing the hearing officer to NOT grant a license appeal unless, as it goes on to say, the person proves his or her case by what is specified as “clear and convincing evidence.”
That said, the first thing a person should be looking for is a lawyer who will provide him or her with honest answers. In the world of DUI cases, it’s what you need to hear, rather than just what you want to hear, that’s most important. Of course it is basic human nature to gravitate toward things that sound “better,” but anyone facing a DUI needs to quickly become a more sophisticated consumer and really check around before he or she hands over their money to some lawyer who makes it sound like he or she has some kind of magic key to make everything just “go away.”