Choosing a DUI Lawyer

When someone is arrested on a drunk driving charge, one of the first things they think about is do I need to hire a lawyer to represent me in court and how do I go about hiring the right lawyer? The first and probably the most important thing you need to understand is that not all lawyers are created equal. What do I mean by that statement?

Just because a person is a lawyer does not necessarily mean they are the right lawyer for your case. Say for instance if you needed to hire a lawyer to represent you against tax evasion charges from the IRS, you most certainly are not going to hire a divorce lawyer to handle your case just because they quoted you a low price, that would be crazy.

The same thing holds true when it comes to choosing a DUI lawyer to represent you in court. Just because a person is a lawyer, doesn’t mean they know the DUI laws in your state or for that matter have ever defended someone in court against a DUI charge.

In this series we are going to cover the various types of lawyers you will more than likely come into contact with during your search and the things you need to be aware of when it comes to these different types of lawyers. Lets start by talking about Public Defenders.

Public Defenders

Not everyone will be eligible to have a public defender represent them in their DUI case, you have to qualify financially to be eligible to have the option to have a public defender represent you in court. There are some problems with having a public defender represent you that you need to be aware of before you decide to go this route.

The reason most public defenders are in the job they are in is because they were not able to get hired by say a law firm that specializes in DUI defense. It does not mean that these people are not smart, far from it. It just means that they were probably not smart enough to get hired by a law firm or do not possess the business knowledge required to open their own practice.

There are of course a lot of lawyer’s who decide early on in their careers that they want to serve the public and they feel that becoming a public defender is a good option. Which is fine, it’s the career path they chose, I think a lot of them would make a different choice knowing what they know now about being a public defender.

Public defenders specialize in nothing! A public defender will handle all types of cases, they may represent a person against a murder charge one day and a DUI charge the next. There is just no way for these people to become experts in any area of law when they are forced to bounce from one unrelated case to the next.

Public defenders are very overworked and have no time to spend on your case coming up with a solid defense strategy. The court system is not paying these individuals to have the charges against you dismissed or lowered. The courts do not provide public defenders with any additional funding to be able to mount a successful defense.

If the public defender is extremely busy, which all of them are, you may never actually get to meet your public defender in person until the day of your trial. If you are eligible for a public defender and decide to go this route, be prepared to come up with your own defense strategy and present it to your public defender before you trial date, if you get the chance. Like I said, they have no time for you.

Public defenders are basically there to hold your hand and walk you through the court system. In most cases, the only thing they will do for you is to plead you guilty.

The bottom line is that public defenders are really just a general law practitioner who is extremely overworked without the money or competence. If you decide to go with a public defender in your DUI case, don’t expect to see any reduction in the charges against you or for that matter to have the charges against you dismissed, it’s just not going to happen.