The sheer volume of phone book and internet advertisements point to a simple conclusion: DWIs are the new cash cow of the legal world. Lawyers previously labeled as ambulance chasers have been replaced with every lawyer battling over who should be proclaimed King of the DWI market. Everybody makes money after a DWI arrest: the tow truck driving, the impound lot, the police agency who can report the arrest for federal funding, the Department of Public Safety, the courts that receive money through court costs, and of course, us.
Like many lawyers, we have handled hundreds and hundreds of DWI cases. Our lawyers and our DWI paralegal have gone through the same training and certification programs as the police officers. We have attended almost every training seminar imaginable relating to the different aspects of DWI detection and proof. We have won numerous jury trials, we have enjoyed a good success rate of dismissals and reductions, and have appealed DWI cases all the way up to the Court of Criminal Appeals.
You may have reached this page through an advertisement, you just spent the past paragraph hearing us toot our own horn, so the question you may ask is: how are we any different?
1. We take fewer cases.
Clients are owed a duty of absolute loyalty from their attorney. Because of the number of DWI cases that are in court every day, your performance on the field sobriety tests is being gauged against the norm of how other people have performed. When an attorney walks in to negotiate with a prosecutor and carries a stack of DWI videos to review, we believe that it is human nature for each person's performance to be ranked and compared to the others in that stack. Having to compete already with the rest of the public, a client shouldn't have to compete against his lawyers' other clients in obtaining the best resolution possible.
2. Most of our clients have never been in trouble before and this is the most serious thing that has ever happened to them.
As a result, we spent a great deal of time explaining the court process, defending against possible professional license implications, and doing legal research to attack the initial basis for the stop. Additionally, they are willing to allocate the resources for additional investigative work, expert witness involvement, and to take the case to trial. When you represent a doctor or lawyer accused of DWI, their expectations are often far more demanding than a person who just wants to pay the fine and be done with it.
3. We handle serious cases.
A doctor performing thousands of Lasik surgeries has a different practice than a brain surgeon who performs far fewer. Not only are we well trained in attacking the junk science that passes for field sobriety testing, we are well versed in the defense of intoxication manslaughter and homicide cases where the mastery of the rules of evidence and the code of criminal procedure are far more demanding.
4. We help people with substance abuse problems.
Not every person arrested for DWI has a substance abuse problem, but for some people, an arrest was an intervention long-overdue. We believe in developing a treatment plan together with our clients at the beginning of the case alongside our defense of criminal charges. People with substance abuse problems can still be absolutely innocent. In our commitment to representing the whole person, we try to use the arrest as a transformative experience.
5. It's better to win before you even get to trial.
We have no control over how you looked on the hidden camera mounted on the police officer's dashboard. We can analyze why the police officer decided to pull you over, ask you to get out of your car, and perform field sobriety tests. Many of our successful hearings culminate from extensive legal research which bolsters our initial contention that the arrest was invalid or the detention unnecessarily prolonged. If the trial court or the ALR judge agrees, the case is dismissed before any evaluation of your performance on field sobriety testing even begins.