DUI - The Court's Location is very Important

When someone contacts our firm about a DUI charge, the first thing we'll ask is “where is your case?” For Michigan DUI lawyers like us, the importance of "where" is that a case is "local."

To my team and I, local means the Greater-Detroit or Metro-Detroit area. This includes Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb, and the surrounding counties. 

Every lawyer has his or her own take on how to best handle DUI cases. We believe that in order to provide the highest possible level of service, it’s important to limit our DUI practice. We keep it local, and don't handle Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) charges outside of the Greater-Detroit area. 

Some lawyers feel comfortable offering their services statewide. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, we believe that the repeat experience we get by keeping it local can't be beat. We appear in front of the same Judges and prosecutors, day-in and day-out. As a result, we have become and remain extremely familiar with how things are best done in our local courts.

This doesn’t mean that an attorney has to have an office down the street from the courthouse. However, if you need to hire a DUI lawyer, you are better off with one who is familiar with the court where your case is going to be decided. As a rule of thumb, if a lawyer needs directions to get to the courthouse, then he or she is not any kind of "regular" in it.

Our firm lives by this motto: If we don't go there regularly, then we won't go there at all.

In Michigan, the court system is primarily divided up by county.

There is a Supreme Court and a Court of Appeals that have state-wide jurisdiction. The real heart and soul of the Michigan judicial system, however, are the county circuit courts and the local district courts that operate under them. 

Thus, in Oakland County, the Oakland County Circuit Court in Pontiac is the “superior” court at the top. Beneath are all of the local district courts. This includes places like Bloomfield Hills, Rochester/Rochester Hills, Novi, Troy, Royal Oak and the other municipalities.

The same applies in Macomb and Wayne Counties.

There is always a hierarchy of courts from toughest to most lenient, even at the local level. This means that within each of the various counties, every district court is unique. In any given case, a person could wind up getting a better break in one court over the another. This is also true between different Judges in the same courthouse..

My team and I make things better for our clients because we know how to work with (and, sometimes, work around) these variables.

What really matters is whether or not your lawyer knows how best to handle your DUI case in the court where it will be decided. That comes from experience. We learn what's best in a given court by handling DUI cases there over and over again. This is why my team and I keep it local. That enables us to keep all the negative consequences and legal penalties to a minimum in the courts where we appear. 

When somebody hires us for their DUI case, they're buying our experience, NOT paying our tuition to learn how things are done in some court where we don't appear regularly.

Not surprisingly, there is a strong correlation between how lenient or tough a particular court is in DUI cases and how well it's liked. Every DUI attorney has courts he or she likes more than others. You can be sure the least-liked are the "toughest," and the most liked are more lenient. 

It’s a given that DUI lawyers and their clients prefer to be in a court more likely to give them a break. Who would want to walk out of a court where they feel like they got pounded? 

There’s nothing to be done about where a case is brought. However, there is a lot that can be done once it has started, no matter where that is.

My team and I will put every shred of evidence under the microscope. If there is a way out of a DUI then we'll leave no stone un-turned in the quest to get the charge dismissed. This is especially important if the case has been brought in a "tough" court. 

If the evidence is strong enough to survive a proper legal challenge, then my team and I know what to do next. We also know what not to do.

Understanding how to best proceed before the Judge assigned to your case is absolutely critical. We can bring about the best result in your DUI case because we know - through experience - what will fly and what won't with each Judge. Whatever else, testing the Judge's patience is not a helpful tactic.

For me and my team, these considerations are a matter of instinct. That's true precisely because we limit our DUI practice in the local courts mentioned above. We know how to produce the very best results in your case - because we regularly practice in them.

In a very real way, the importance of location in a DUI case cannot be overstated. 

If you're facing a DUI charge anywhere in the Greater-Detroit area, do your homework and compare lawyers. Whether you call us first, or last, make sure you give our office a ring, as well.

We are very friendly people who will be glad to answer your questions, explain things, and even compare notes with anything some other lawyer has told you. All of our consultations are free, confidential, and done over the phone, right when you call.

We can be reached Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. at either 248-986-9700 or 586-465-1980.