The Hearing

After your Request for Hearing and the accompanying documents have been filed, you will receive a notice for your hearing date. 

What do you do now?

Our first step will be to prepare for the actual hearing. 

We'll start by identifying which hearing officer assigned to your case. 

This is where my experience really counts. Each hearing officer has his or her own way of conducting a hearing, and each has his or her own areas of special interest. No 2 are alike. 

To be sure, they'll all ask some of same core questions, but each asks certain questions unique to themselves. 

To me, preparing for a hearing means preparing for a hearing before the actual hearing officer to whom your case has been assigned.

Add to that the fact that many of them ask very different questions by any hearing officer, depending on whether your recovery is based on current AA attendance, or not. 

If you are not in AA, you'll likely be asked different questions that someone who still goes.

The preparation process is critical. 

As I pointed out, there are certain "core" questions that will be asked no matter which hearing officer handle your case: 

• When is the last time you consumed any alcohol. 
• Are you currently on probation for any offense? 
• Do you have any pending traffic violations in any court? 
• If you are in AA, Do you have a sponsor? If not, Why not? 
• What was your heaviest period of drinking? 
• What did you usually drink and how much? 
• Aside from this current period, what was your longest period of sobriety, if any, in the past?

There's just too much to even begin to explain the many facets and issues involved in answering those questions. This is where my experience comes into play. I know exactly what to expect.

I represent clients from all over the state, as well as those who have moved out of Michigan, and even people who now live out of the country. 

I conduct all of my hearings at the Michigan Secretary of State's Administrative Hearing Section (AHS) Office of Hearings and Appeals in Livonia. I know all 5 of the hearing officers who preside there, and exactly what they look for when they decide a license appeal case.

As a Michigan driver's license restoration lawyer who handles over 200 license appeals per year, I know how nervous a person can be as they walk into that Hearing room. 

My job is to remind you how much preparation we have done up to that point, and that there is no reason to be nervous, because we are going in to tell the truth about your recovery, 

I'm there to remind you that we're going in to win. 

I will also remind you that everything we've done up to that point has been done correctly, and that this hearing is just the icing on the cake.

All you'll have to do is follow my lead and tell the truth. 

Finally, I'll reassure you that I will be right there, next to you, and if anything even starts to go off course, I'll be right on top of it. 

I'll be there to protect you.

The hearings are scheduled for one hour. Most are over in a less than a half hour.

Afterwards I usually step outside with you to review how things went.

The formal decision will arrive in the mail several weeks later. 

My favorite part of the whole process happens next, in 2 phases:

1. First, my staff calls me and says "You won another one!"

2. Then, depending on when the client gets home, either later that day or early the next, my staff calls me again and says "So-and-so called and wanted to thank you, and has a few questions."