Hiring a New York DWI Lawyer

Your life is on the line when you’ve been charged with a DWI. And if you don’t have the right lawyer to represent you, you’re taking a big risk on your rights and potentially your freedom. But with a long list of lawyers serving New York State, how do you know which is the best for you? First, you must find out whether your attorney is a DWI specialist.

When you are on the hunt for your DWI lawyer, you are the interviewer. Here are some of the questions you’ll want to ask:

1. How many years of experience do you and your staff have representing DWI cases?
2. Ask them to show you credentials, such as past DWI cases and what law school he or she attended.
3. Do you have access to technical expert witnesses in police procedures and blood/breath analysis?
4. What is your Martindale-Hubbell rating with the International Directory of Attorneys? The highest rating is AV (very high to preeminent).
5. Are you a member or board certified by the National College for DUI Defense?
6. Find out if there have been any State Bar complaints about the attorney.

You’ll also want to closely examine the attorney’s actual results if they publish their claimed results. For example, if their clients BAC level was under 0.8 and the plea was to DWI, their client just plead guilty to a charge when they were not over the legal limit! You don’t even need to have a lawyer to plead yourself guilty.

In addition to these points, you’ll also want to examine their performance figures. Don’t just let the attorney tout numbers – ask them to show the numbers that he or she is claiming.

During your research, find out if the attorney has ever lectured or been published any works in the DWI field. If a lawyer is unskilled or inexperienced, most likely he or she will not be asked to host a lecture or write a book on DWI.

Finally, don’t be afraid to discuss fees. When it comes to your defense, you have a right to know the cost. At Anelli Xavier, we provide an immediate consultation absolutely free where we’ll go over any questions that you may have about our fees or how we can defend your DWI case.