How To Find the Right Phoenix DUI Attorney

Part of my prac­tice as a DUI expert wit­ness involves work­ing with Phoenix DUI attor­neys.  Everything from case reviews, to help­ing write reports detail­ing the strengths and weak­nesses of the pros­e­cu­tor and defense attorney’s cases, to expert wit­ness DUI tes­ti­mony. Regardless of how skilled and knowl­edge­able your crim­i­nal defense attor­ney is in DUI defense, many times they need the ser­vices of a prop­erly trained foren­sic sci­en­tist to help not only under­stand the sci­en­tific aspects of the case them­selves, but also to be able to explain the sci­en­tific argu­ments of both the pros­e­cu­tion and defense’s cases to a jury in a way they can eas­ily understand.

I’ve met many Phoenix crim­i­nal defense attor­neys dur­ing my past 11 years as a foren­sics expert.  The process of find­ing the right DUI attor­ney can be daunt­ing, so let me make some suggestions.

1)  Many DUI attor­neys offer free case eval­u­a­tions.  Check with sev­eral attor­neys before you set­tle on the right one.  You are buy­ing a ser­vice.  It’s just like shop­ping for any other big ticket item.  Before I bought my TV I spent weeks research­ing, went to dif­fer­ent stores, and looked at the dis­plays they had setup.  I even brought my own DVD in and asked to have it played at a cer­tain part of the movie to eval­u­ate how well each TV could han­dle a high action scene.

Similarly you should have a list of ques­tions you ask the attor­neys.  It’s basi­cally a job inter­view for them.  If they are too busy to sit down face to face and answer a few per­ti­nent ques­tions about your DUI case, then that might be a good indi­ca­tion they’re too busy to spend the time they need in defend­ing your case.

2)  Many DUIs, includ­ing extreme DUIs, don’t go all the way to trial.  Your attor­ney (or an expert like myself) might find a prob­lem with the state’s case, and a plea bar­gain might be reached, or charges could even be dis­missed.  It’s a good idea to find an attor­ney who has a good work­ing rela­tion­ship with the pros­e­cu­tors in the court sys­tem you are being charged.  These are ques­tions to ask your attor­ney before you pay your retainer.  How well do you get along with the pros­e­cu­tors at Phoenix Municipal Court for exam­ple.  If the response is filled with neg­a­tiv­ity about the pros­e­cu­tors, they prob­a­bly don’t have a good (albeit adver­sar­ial) work­ing rela­tion­ship with that office, and as such as are less likely to get a good plea bar­gain for you.

3)  Do your research.  Don’t just wait for those mid­day and late night TV com­mer­cials adver­tis­ing crim­i­nal defense attor­neys.  If you know some­one who was charged with a sim­i­lar crime, ask them about their expe­ri­ence.  Did they like their attor­ney?  If they didn’t, ask them why.  If they did, put that attor­ney on the list of peo­ple to talk to.  Looking attor­neys up in the phone book and inter­net can work as well, but word of mouth will get you more use­ful information.

4) Select a solo-practitioner or a law firm with sev­eral attor­neys.  There is no right or wrong answer here.  If you select a solo-practitioner, you are almost guar­an­teed to work with the attor­ney who will even­tu­ally end up lit­i­gat­ing your case.  The prob­lem here is sched­ul­ing.  It might take a solo-practitioner longer to be able to fit your case into their sched­ule.  They also might have to have other attor­neys they affil­i­ate with attend trial sta­tus con­fer­ences.  This is a pretty com­mon prac­tice, and you shouldn’t be alarmed or upset by this.  In these cases, your main attor­ney is likely in the mid­dle of another case, and they have briefed another attor­ney on the sta­tus of your case.  The affil­i­ate attor­ney will sim­ply report to the court how things are pro­gress­ing, and when the defense will be ready to proceed.

Selecting a firm with sev­eral lawyers can help expe­dite how fast your case goes to court.  If you really want to get things over with quickly, this might be a good option.  On the other hand, if there are sched­ul­ing con­flicts, you might not have the attor­ney you expect actu­ally lit­i­gate your case.  This isn’t nec­es­sar­ily a bad thing.  The attor­ney who does lit­i­gate your case has cer­tainly been fully briefed by the attor­ney you were work­ing with, and judges gen­er­ally do not like to have cases con­tin­ued too long.  But be aware, if you feel you have a strong per­sonal con­nec­tion with the attor­ney you have been work­ing with, hav­ing a dif­fer­ent attor­ney from the firm show up can be a big disappointment.

Remember to shop around.  Find an Phoenix DUI attor­ney that you feel com­fort­able with, like and seem to click with.  Regardless of what crim­i­nal charge you have (DUI, extreme DUI, super extreme DUI), don’t for­get to also talk to your attor­ney about the ben­e­fits of con­sult­ing with an expert wit­ness.  Even if your attor­ney doesn’t usu­ally, or isn’t very good at, work­ing with an inde­pen­dent expert wit­ness, hav­ing one review your case can open up new avenues of defense, as well as greatly increase the like­li­hood of get­ting a good plea bar­gain and pre­vent your case from going to trial.