In Arizona, if there is a DUI conviction, there are the required minimum fines and fees under Arizona law. Often times, the court will also add on specific court fees, in particular, the city courts may also require the person to pay for their jail incarceration costs. An attorney is going to be able to reduce the fines and fees directly but may also be able to do so indirectly by being able to negotiate a DUI down to something like a wet reckless driving; possibly being able to the get the case dismissed or possibly being able to turn a felony in a misdemeanor. There are ways in which an attorney is extremely helpful especially a knowledgeable attorney but as far as paying off fines and fees goes, everyone pays the same amount if they are convicted depending on what type of charges they are convicted of. There are required minimum fines and fees under Arizona law.
Will the Courts Look Upon Me Unfavorably if I Hire An Attorney?
The only time that the courts really look to see if someone is represented by a private attorney or a public defender is when someone is going to have to spend some time in jail. The court has a description on whether to reduce down or waive jail incarceration costs. Usually a factor that they consider is whether the person is appearing before them with a private attorney; figuring that if a person can afford a private attorney then they can afford to pay their jail incarceration costs. However that is all set by an experienced DUI defense lawyer who can find other ways of reducing the jail incarceration costs or potentially reducing the number of days in jail, possibly getting someone credits for the time they already spent in custody towards their time in jail and possibly reducing down the charge itself, if not able getting the case dismissed completely.
What Are the Qualifications in An Attorney that A Person Should be Looking For?
The person really should do their research; they need to go not only to the attorney’s website but go to some of the other websites that rank attorneys. What is often observed is that attorneys claim that they are DUI attorneys. They claim they are exceptional DUI attorneys but when you look at other websites and you dig a little further, sometimes you see that they don’t even call themselves a DUI attorney. They would call themselves a bankruptcy attorney or a criminal law attorney or a public injury attorney. It’s only on their website that they claim to be a DUI attorney. It takes research seeing what type of awards the person has achieved, seeing how much time he has devoted to DUI defense, seeing some testimonials, seeing what other attorneys and former clients have said about the attorney and seeing what other accomplishments are. If they have been a DUI attorney for a long time, they should have a number of accomplishments listed right on their websites.
I end up talking to a lot of people when I do consultations. I hear people tell that they have gone and talked to other attorneys and it’s been surprising how many times I have never even heard of these other attorneys that they talked to and when you actually go and research them, you find out that they are poorly graded and some of them do not even claim on their own website that they are DUI attorneys or on a website that ranks attorneys called AVVO.com where they enter how much percentage of their representation is towards DUI defense. Some attorneys don’t even put any of their representation towards DUI defense. I recently came across a website of someone who has moved high in Google rankings for DUI defense. Their attorney does not even claim to be a DUI defense attorney and their website is literally filled with lies including having years of experience where literally when you start doing the math on the attorneys that they show that are part of the law firms.
It Is Imperative To Thoroughly Research The Credentials of an Attorney Prior to Retaining Them For a DUI Case
It does not come anywhere close to hundreds of years of experience and they even list on their own website that they have hundreds of years of experience and hundreds of trials that they have performed. They can only claim 8 accomplishments in the last 9 months and at least one of those accomplishments is literally impossible to get in the courts that they are claiming that they got the accomplishment in. So research is really important. Anyone can put anything on the internet. It’s when you get people who have won awards from different associations from different agencies. I currently have probably 15 different awards from maybe about 10 different agencies. When you show that type of consistency, it indicates that there may something to that attorney. This attorney knows what they are doing and this person is regarded as a qualified DUI defense lawyer.
