Last week I drove from Savan­nah to Atlanta to go to this DUI sem­i­nar.  The man on the left is Dr. A.W. Jones., the fore­most lead­ing alco­hol expert in the world.  He’s from Swe­den.  He works for the Swedish gov­ern­ment.  Talk about the per­fect expert wit­ness for a DUI case.  The man in the red tie on the right is Bubba Head, the best DUI lawyer in Geor­gia. My inspi­ra­tion for this post comes from these guys and that seminar.

Atti­tude

I know I will win. My client feels that, and the jury, and the judge, and the pros­e­cu­tor. The dif­fer­ence between a lawyer who wins DUI cases and one who loses is atti­tude. Henry Ford said it best, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”   My atti­tude is that I am a good DUI lawyer.  I’m pre­pared.  I know my stuff.  I’ve read the cases.  I’ve read the file.  I’ve inter­viewed the wit­nesses.  I’m on top of this case.  I know it bet­ter than the pros­e­cu­tor.  I have con­fi­dence.  The most impor­tant thing: Stick to the goal — I want to win the case.

Never plead guilty to DUI.

Recently, I met a lawyer who pleads about 50 cases a year, and he’s method­i­cal about them. He maybe tries one of twenty. I am not pleased with lawyers who take a case to plead it, regard­less of what kind of chance they’ve got to win the case.

Never plead guilty to DUI. Ever. If that’s what you want, you can get another attor­ney to do it for a lot less money than you’re going to pay me. I will not take on a DUI case unless I believe I’m try­ing it down the road. I hold strong to my phi­los­o­phy and I’m not tak­ing a case know­ing that I will not try it. I am not about to ruin my rep­u­ta­tion by hav­ing some­body come in and after a month of fight­ing decide “Oh I want to plead guilty.” That does me no good. Peo­ple will hear I’m plead­ing guilty to things. I’d rather do qual­ity work. An Amer­i­can deserves his day in court.

Prepa­ra­tion

Prepa­ra­tion makes the dif­fer­ence. I come pre­pared. I am thor­ough. I file many motions, study lab reg­u­la­tions, chal­lenge field sobri­ety and BAC tests, bring an expert, and even appeal when my client’s rights have been shot.   I must be bet­ter pre­pared.  I go to court with knowl­edge of the file, knowl­edge of the law, knowl­edge of the facts, and knowl­edge of the defenses.  If I’m not bet­ter pre­pared than my oppo­nent, I could lose.  The odds in a DUI case are stacked against you by the leg­is­la­tion.  This is one rea­son I will not over­load myself with DUI cases, because I know what it takes for me to do a good job.   I turn down far many more cases than I take.  Far many more.  I could make a lot more money if I wanted a vol­ume DUI prac­tice.  But, I’d rather hold to my rule that I’m not tak­ing a DUI case know­ing that I’ll never try it.  And, I only take a cer­tain num­ber of cases a year, because it’s phys­i­cally impos­si­ble to be on trial that much.

A lot of cases look unwinnable at first. Most cases look this way. But the num­ber of cases that are unwinnable is lit­tle. I step back. I stay away from it a few days. I come back. I get cre­ative. I ask myself, “What thing have I missed?” I ask my col­leagues. I look hard.  When­ever you take a chem­i­cal test, breath, blood, etc., bring in an expert to chal­lenge the result. If you’re headed to trial, I almost always go for a jury trial.  Most DUI cases are not dis­missed before trial. But, I spend a lot of time try­ing to do so. The first thing I look for in a file is “Is there some way I can avoid trial?” Maybe you can talk about sloppy police pro­ce­dure and get the case dis­missed. But, this is not easy to do.  The State of Geor­gia has many oppor­tu­ni­ties to mess up. But, I’ll only catch it when I explore every one. This takes time and commitment.

Knowl­edge

I keep my knowl­edge of DUI law and sci­ence up-to-the-minute. I know my sub­ject cold. This gives me the win­ning con­fi­dence. DUI’s are winnable.  But, they are hard.  DUI is a polit­i­cal crime. Jurors have a much dif­fer­ent mind set toward DUI. I am a lot dif­fer­ent than just a crim­i­nal lawyer. I read just about every DUI pub­li­ca­tion in the coun­try, and attend about every DUI sem­i­nar.  I am try­ing to get a rep­u­ta­tion with the pros­e­cu­tors and with the courts and with other lawyers as being a good, sound, pre­pared, and pro­fes­sional DUI lawyer.

Three hour ini­tial interview

I block off three hours for the ini­tial inter­view.  I want no inter­rup­tions, no phone calls, or any­thing.  I want the client to know that while he or she is here, this is extremely seri­ous.  I take the time to really go through an in-depth inter­view.  Most peo­ple come in with a neg­a­tive atti­tude.  They think they can’t win.  Then I begin telling them how can the case may be approached and what kinds of defenses are there. No DUI case is an open and shut loser. This way you can come in for an inter­view and then decide if the fee is some­thing you can come up with.

I lis­ten.  I try and pick up on how you present your story.  What kind of a wit­ness will you make?  I’m siz­ing you up.  Are we going to get along?  Am I com­fort­able with you?  Are you com­fort­able with me?  Are you telling the truth?  These are the ini­tial impres­sions I’m feel­ing out. Do you feel good about your­self?  Want to fight the case?  Do you feel you’ve been wronged?  Do you think you have a defense? And if you do believe these things, how seri­ous are you?  Because once we get going here, I’m com­mit­ted to win­ning.  If you think this is not some­thing that you want to make an invest­ment in, it’s best you go to another DUI lawyer.

Writ­ten by Jason Cerbone

What’s up. I’m Jason Cer­bone. Am try­ing to be the expert DUI attor­ney cham­pion of the world. Hope this doesn’t sound over-confident but you have to have con­fi­dence to be a cham­pion and that is the only thing I ever wished to be.

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