All of my initial guidance for people calling for my advice is always completely cost free. With that said, I have recently had an uptick in questions from callers in regard to the differing “free” advice they have heard from other lawyers as to owi law.

Understandably these people had a right to expect that the legal advice they were receiving from the attorneys contacted was both accurate and informative. Unfortunately from what I had been told it was neither.

It can be extremely difficult for people to trust what they are hearing as to legal advice when they are receiving mixed messages as to laws and potential options available to them. While I cannot speak to each situation, I unfortunately can speak to potential causes and motivations behind misinformation too often being relayed to people viewed as potential clients of a given attorney.

More often than not when I learn of such a situation, a profit motive inevitably plays a role as to inaccurate information being communicated to a vulnerable person seeking help for a dui arrest.

Unscrupulous lawyers know that people who have been recently arrested for a crime are both afraid and confused. Too frequently reasonable people will reach out to the lawyer who will tell someone the words that the person facing an owi prosecution wants to hear regardless of the truth of the dialogue communicated.

Optimistic projections as to a case outcome can never and should never be communicated to anyone prior to any work and investigation conducted on that person’s specific case defense. It is simply amazing to me to learn of the amount of attorneys who have communicated their ability to foretell the future as to what specifically will happen to a client’s case without any more than an initial phone call.

Faith in an attorney and in turn a case outcome must always be based upon the skill of a defense attorney’s rigorous and often time consuming investigation of a client’s case. Good people are owed more than false promises based upon the profit motive of an attorney who may very well have little to no experience in the discipline of owi defense or within the county court of a pending prosecution.

In my experience people appreciate the truth and straight talk as to any and all risks and benefits of each legal course of action presented throughout the pendency of a criminal prosecution. Attorneys operating on a flat fee basis also are most prone to develop a needed level of trust with one they represent. This is so because the represented client can take comfort with the knowledge that a billing clock is not dictating the course of legal representation.

Many lawyers tout the offering of free legal advice. I urge you to get a feel for whether the attorney’s advice is to be trusted and based upon experienced legal training or whether the free offering is no more than a means by which to get your retainer fee by providing you with no more than the words you may be wanting to hear.