Essential Questions To Ask During A DUI Lawyer Consultation

Welcome back to our channel and thanks so much for joining me today. I want to give you a framework for you interviewing your DUI lawyer during the free initial consultation. I’m talking about, you know, you’re trying to decide whether to hire this lawyer, another lawyer. You might be interviewing several lawyers, and there’s several questions you need to ask and you need to think of it as an interview. And perhaps the most important question is you need to find out what their experience is in taking DUI matters to trial and winning them. That’s the key. So ask them questions like, first of all, what percentage of your file load this year and in the last five years, for example, is impaired driving cases. How many cases have you taken to trial last five years and this year? How many have you want won? How many charter applications have you filed this year? This will give you an idea of whether they focus on DUI and impaired driving and whether they’re actually good trial lawyers because you need to find out their winning percentage of cases they take a trial. I mean, literally, top criminal trial lawyers who are focused on DUI, first of all, you love someone with experience of 20 years plus, you love someone who has a file load of at least taking on 50 to 100 DUI files a year. They’ve done that for a number of years. And they did many trials for you per year like 10, 20, 30, 40 trials in a year even type thing and whether they filed in one charter application. So that’s the most important thing. Once you get beyond that, you’re going to talk a little bit about your case. So you’ll tell me a little bit about the facts your case. Now the thing is, I’m assuming that you don’t have the disclosure, this is just a free initial consultation. I’m going to give you a couple of trick questions to ask and clients always ask this to me at an initial consultation, What are my chances of winning? Well, first of all, you can’t give those odds. Any lawyer who gives you those odds at that meeting and run out of their office, because without having the disclosure, the police reports in front of you they can give you some ideas based on  your scenario but really they can’t give odds. The next trick question to ask is, ask them if they can guarantee a win. If they can get things done? If they say yes, run out of their office, because that’s just a sales tactic. You’ve got to be very aware of that you cannot give someone odds of winning without reviewing disclosure. You can talk generally about their case you can give them some ideas. Maybe they’ve raised a few issues and you can discuss with them. Second of all, you’re going to want to find out what your penalties are or your potential penalties, what type of defense strategies they apply, maybe then you get some ideas about your defense based on what you’re telling. So these are things you’re going to want to want to go over with them but they need to make you feel comfortable with them, make you know that they have the experience, expertise and courtroom savvy to be able to win your case. That’s the type of questions you need to focus on ultimately. 

And of course, let’s talk about legal fees. You want to get your legal fees in writing. I recommend that when you hire an impaired driving lawyer you don’t get into one of these hourly rate where they’re endless hourly hours of $350, $400, $550, $600 an hour. They have no idea how long the case is going to take. You want a set fee, get a block fee, I recommend asking for a block fee if it goes to trial, so you know exactly what you’re facing,  the down payment, that’s the retainer get that up front and that gets applied to the trial and get a set fee for if the case resolves by way of guilty plea or withdrawal or to the trial. That way you’ll know exactly what you’re facing. 

When you come out of that meeting. You should be comfortable with that person. You should know that they’re an expert in this area that they do many cases and they have a high percentage where they focus on impaired driving, then you can be comfortable with hiring that lawyer. Those are the questions you need to have answered that meeting. As think of it as an interview. You’re interviewing that lawyer to determine if that person, if he or she is the best possible option for you to have representation at your trial and in your impaired driving case. Thank you so much for joining me today.