What to Look for When Hiring a DUI or Criminal Defense Attorney
When a potential client asks me about my qualifications, I usually tell them:
- I am certified as a Specialist in Criminal Law by the Arizona State Bar.
- I am certified as a Specialist in DUI Defense by the National College for DUI (authorized and recognized by the American Bar Association).
- I am one of thirteen members of the Board of Regents (the Board of Directors) of the National College for DUI Defense, a criminal defense organization with over 1600 members nationwide (in fact, I am the Assistant Dean this year).
- I have represented clients at over 200 jury trials.
- I have an AV-Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell.
- I have been named to Best Lawyers in America since 2013.
Of course, I explain why each of those is important as I go, and I’ll explain how this illustrates what you should look for in an attorney in a moment. But I share this because I saw a billboard this week with this single, simple message: Do your research. The billboard invited people to research the firm being advertised, implying that they would conclude that the advertiser was their best choice. Coincidentally, I saw it shortly after meeting with a potential client who had been convicted of a felony in trial and was unhappy with their attorney, not just because they lost, but because the attorney filed no pretrial motions asking to suppress evidence or dismiss the charges, when there were colorable issues with the case, and the lawyer had “let the prosecutor do whatever they wanted” at trial by not making any objections. I didn’t know the attorney (not that I know every defense attorney in the state, but I know most of those who have a heavy motion practice, and most of those who have a good reputation in the defense community). I asked him how he had found his attorney, and he told me he wasn’t sure – some family member might have found him online? The law firm the attorney worked for listed him as the head of their DUI department. Beyond that, he couldn’t really provide any reasons he had chosen his attorney. If I had seen the billboard first, I would have told him, “It sounds to me like you didn’t do enough research before you hired your attorney.”
What to Look for When You Hire an Attorney
I. Litigation Experience
Almost every lawyer I know has won their first trial. When a jury can tell a lawyer is young, nervous, and struggling, juries pull for them. But those aren’t qualities you are looking for when you are facing jail time or your career is on the line. I have been practicing 38 years, Liz Farkas has been practicing 14 years, and my partner, Ryan Huffman, has been practicing for 8 years. We are in court almost every day. There is never a month in which one of us isn’t in trial or in court litigating pretrial motions at an evidentiary hearing, and it’s not unusual for at least two of us to be litigating cases in different courts at the same time.
Like anything in life, you learn how to win trials and motion hearings in court through experience. You can plan how you will handle unfavorable evidence coming in during the trial. You can anticipate objections that the prosecution will make that you will need to overcome. But every case will take a bizarre twist you can’t plan for at some point – a law enforcement officer will claim that a test they give is always right, even when not given correctly; a judge will make a ruling letting in clearly inadmissible evidence; a prosecutor will make an argument completely unsupported by the evidence. Cases are won and lost based on how you handle issues like this in real time.
If it’s the first time you have encountered a completely unexpected issue, you have to figure out the correct objection, argument and remedy in the moment. But it may be too late to fix the problem by the time you have figured out what to argue. The more often you encounter the unexpected, however, the more prepared you are to deal with it, and the easier it is to immediately make an appropriate objection. You can then either cite the court to the controlling caselaw or ask for time to do that. Of course, it helps to be able to call two other lawyers in your office with years of experience if you need help working through an issue.
So, the fact that I have picked juries and tried 220 cases gives me a leg up on lawyers with less experience. It’s not that I never get thrown curveballs in my cases, but it is hard to throw an issue at me that I haven’t seen before, and I don’t panic when it happens.
Of course, not every case needs to go to trial. Sometimes you can convince a prosecutor to give you a great plea. But often you can’t. My clients hire me to get the best result possible, and frequently the only way to achieve that is to go into court and show a judge that the arrest was illegal or evidence was seized unconstitutionally. You can’t just have a talk with the prosecutor; you have to go into court and fight.
When you are choosing a lawyer to represent you, ask how they would handle your case. Ask how often they handle the type of case you have. Ask how often they litigate pretrial motions to suppress evidence or dismiss charges. The number of wins they have had is less important than how frequently they are in court litigating issues (a willingness to fight to get evidence suppressed for clients, even if they don’t have a clearly winning issue, is a good trait for an attorney to have). Ask how many jury trials they have litigated. These questions should help you gauge the experience level of the attorney you are considering hiring.
II. Certifications, Accolades, and Credentials Based on Peer Recognition
When someone asks me about a lawyer in any area of private practice that I don’t know, the first thing I do is look at their website to see what credentials and accolades they list. If they are certified as a specialist in the area of law they practice, that is meaningful. I am certified as a specialist in criminal law by the Arizona State Bar and as a specialist in DUI defense by the National College of DUI Defense. The certification process is similar in both instances. You submit an application that includes providing the names of judges and lawyers as references. You document substantial involvement in defending these cases. You demonstrate your in-court experience, listing the jury trials and evidentiary hearings you have litigated. You also have to demonstrate your out-of-court experience. For example, I list that I have been asked to teach at legal conferences by state bar and defense lawyer organizations in twenty states. You then take a test that has an appreciable failure rate. If you pass, you have to go through a recertification process every five years, documenting that you are continuing to try cases and litigate motions and provide new names of judges and lawyers as references.
You can tell when someone is passionate about what they do when they demonstrate their commitment by volunteering their time. If someone serves on a State Bar committee or as an officer of a defense attorney association, that is significant. Not just because they are donating their time to something they believe in, but because they were selected by their peers to serve on that committee in the first place. I have served on several State Bar Committees, been the President of Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice (a state-wide organization with over 600 members), and am the Vice Dean of the National College for DUI Defense (a nationwide organization with over 1,600 members). I can tell you that the selection of board members and officers in the boards I have been a part of is always a thoughtful and painstaking process. You are truly selected to serve in that capacity based on your reputation and skill as an attorney.
Finally, most lawyers advertise accolades that they have received. Using this to determine the best attorney for you is tricky. There are a huge number of pay-to-play organizations out there. You pay X dollars, and you receive the title of being a “top attorney,” a plaque stating as much, and a badge to display on your website. If I see badges from these organizations on an attorney’s website, it is a big red flag to me, because they are paying to make themselves look like they have been recognized by their peers, when they haven’t been.
The achievements that are most significant to me are having an AV-Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubble, being named to Best Lawyers in America every year since 2014, and being named to Superlawyers (dumb name, I know) eighteen years in a row. Inclusion in these groups is based on input not only from judges and lawyers you select as references, but also by judges and lawyers in the community polled at random. You receive these recognitions because your peers – lawyers and judges – think that highly of your work.
If an attorney lists that they have been selected as a “top attorney” in some capacity, ask them how they earned that designation. If the answer is anything other than they were selected by their peers – lawyers and judges – for that recognition, take it for what it is worth.
III. Your Initial Meeting with an Attorney
There seems to be a new trend where people are calling a law office the morning after they were arrested and hiring the law firm over the phone on the spot. I can’t understand why anyone would do that. Criminal convictions have serious consequences. You could lose your driving privileges. You could go to jail. You could lose a professional license you need for work. It could affect your custody rights or time with your children.
You need to feel comfortable with your attorney – that they will represent you competently and fight for the best result. There is no way to make that determination without meeting with the attorney and having them evaluate your case. Being comfortable with your lawyer is critical because at some point you will have to rely on their advice about how to proceed in your case – to explain the merits of a plea being offered, to help you weigh the pros and cons of going to trial.
All lawyers need to attend lectures and workshops to learn how to communicate with judges and juries – no one is born a great lawyer. But to be a great lawyer, you must have the confidence that you can walk into court and persuade a judge or jury that the position that you are advocating is correct. You need to be comfortable arguing to jurors and be willing to challenge a judge who is wrong. It’s no surprise then that some lawyers have huge egos. What is surprising is that some lawyers are egotistical to the point where they feel they know best and don’t listen to their clients. They are short, brusque, and even dismissive with their clients. So, when you are talking to a potential lawyer, don’t just evaluate their skills as an attorney. Look to see if you will be comfortable working with them throughout your case.
If you follow the recommendations listed above, you can feel confident that you will have done your research before you hire a lawyer to represent you.
