First-Offense DUI: Do I Need A Lawyer?

When someone
has been arrested for a second-offense, third-offense, or fourth-offense DUI, there is no question that they need to get an Orange County DUI defense Lawyer. There very liberty is at stake and
any misstep could cause irreparable damage. But what about a first-offense DUI?
Does someone really need to spend thousands of dollars on an Orange County DUI defense attorney for that? After all, the standard
sentence for a first-offense DUI in Orange County does NOT include jail time.
Not any! Rather, the defendant is put on three years of informal, unsupervised probation
with six months of time in the Orange County jail hanging over their head. The
sentence also includes over two grand in fines and the requirement that the defendant
complete an alcohol program. (The same alcohol program that the DMV requires
anyway)

The problem
with taking the court’s deal without the help of a DUI attorney in Orange County is that you’ll never know how weak
the DA’s case against you really is. There may be issues in your case that an
untrained eye could never spot—issues that a trained DUI defense attorney could turn into a reduced charge of a wet reckless or even a complete dismissal.  So, for this reason, I would NEVER recommend
pleading guilty to a first-offense DUI without the HELP of an experienced DUI Lawyer in Orange County.

Now this doesn’t
mean that you should necessarily retain a DUI lawyer to handle your case from
start to finish. In fact, in most cases the full services of a DUI attorney are
not really needed in the case of a first-offense, non-injury, non-enhanced DUI.
But you should never plead guilty without having a DUI defense attorney review
the facts of your case first. The best way to do this is to provide the DUI
lawyer with the police report. This can be obtained through the DMV by
requesting a DMV hearing in your case and also requesting “discovery”. Some DUI dui defense attorneys in Orange County will review the report on an hourly
basis. Another, far less effective way to have a DUI lawyer review the facts of
your case is to orally tell the DUI defense attorney what happened. A skilled
DUI lawyer will know what questions to ask to get as much pertinent information
from the client. These telephonic consultations usually don’t cost a thing.

So, I guess
the answer to the question: “do I need a DUI defense Lawyer?” is YES. You DO need the help of an experienced Orange County
DUI defense attorney. But you don’t necessarily need to pay full price for
complete representation. At a minimum you need a consultation with a DUI
attorney. If that DUI attorney can point to concrete reasons why you need
representation, such as a suppression of evidence issue or a viable trial
defense, then you should consider retaining a DUI lawyer to handle your DUI
case with both the Orange County Superior Court and the  DMV hearing.

If you would
like to discuss your case with an experienced Orange County DUI Attorney, call
The Law Offices of EJ Stopyro at (949) 559-5500. The telephonic consultation is
free and confidential. You can also visit us online at www.ejesquire.com. We have offices at 32072
Camino Capistrano, 2^nd floor, San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675 and at
1901 Newport Blvd., Suite 350, Costa Mesa, CA 92627.