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Paul D. Cramm

What Is The Biggest Mistake People Make When Hiring An Attorney For Their DUI?


The biggest mistake people make when hiring an attorney is making a quick decision and hiring the very first person they talk to or the first person willing to accept their case without exploring options and asking questions.

Naturally, these people are upset, worried, scared, concerned, and emotional. Thusly, they make a quick, emotional decision. People are prone to hiring the first person who picks up the telephone, especially if they don’t have to talk to an answering machine or a secretary.

People are inclined to hire the first lawyer they talk to. This way, they receive a short-term, immediate sense of relief that things will be okay. They’ve passed the problem off to someone who knows more about it than they do.

This sense of relief is very short lived, particularly if the person they handed the problem off to is not well-equipped to handle it.

The biggest mistake people make is not taking the time to engage with the attorneys to make sure they have adequate knowledge and experience.

Will The Courts Go Easy On The Person If It Was His First Time, Or Is This The Kind Of Case For Which He Should Really Hire An Attorney?

The client must always fight his first DUI as hard as possible.

I’ve seen cases in which people enter with a second-offense DUI. These people might have their case files from the DUI they had two or three years ago, showing that they signed a diversion contract. In this case file, it could note that there was a game-changing legal issue that the person or the person’s lawyer never identified and never perused. This means they took diversion in a case that they could have and probably should have won. They will never again be eligible to divert a case after this first offense.

Two or three years later, this person might be coming home from a friend’s wedding reception or the office Christmas party. He might get stopped again by the police and ultimately face a DUI charge.

If the person had litigated his first offense thoroughly and aggressively and found a way to win it, then this second offense would be treated like the first. People must realize that it’s just as important to fight the first offense as it is to fight the last one. They don’t want that DUI guilty plea or diversion, especially if their case is winnable.

Is There Anything Else A Person Might Want To Keep In Mind When Hiring An Attorney For DUI?

The most important thing is to take time, make time and meet the lawyers at their office face to face. A person needs to meet at least three lawyers before they reach for their pocket book and offer to pay any one of them.

Can a Person Match What His Friend Said At His DUI To Be Successful Like Their Friend Was?

It’s certainly possible, but it’s not a certainty. Many subtle factors determine the ultimate outcome of the case.

A friend may have refused the intoxilyzer test at the station, hired a good lawyer, gone to trial, and been found not guilty. However, this person could tell his friends wrongly that he refused the intoxilyzer because a person is found not guilty if he refuses to take the test.

Alternately, the person who was found not guilty might have been very good at performing the field sobriety tests on video; the person might have been not overly impaired, imbalanced, or uncoordinated. However, perhaps the new client might have been very drunk with a lower tolerance, making himself look very sloppy and horrible during the field tests. Although the person refused the breath test at the police station, just like his friend, his results are quite different.

The second person has probably provided much more damaging evidence on the field video than his friend, who looked much better during the field testing process.

Therefore, many subtle intricacies enter into the case beyond the simple factors of whether a person had an accident, whether the person agreed to take the breath test, and whether it was his first or second offense. Certainly, these are important issues. But many equally important issues enter into the equation that many people don’t realize create the real difference in the outcome of the case.

For more information on Common Mistakes Choosing A Lawyer, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you’re seeking by calling (913) 322-3265 today.

Paul D. Cramm

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