Reader’s Question:

I want to know how many days do I have to pay my ticket and attend a traffic school for my DWI conviction in Florida?

Kylie

Lakeland, FL

In Florida State you have 30 days to pay the ticket and contact the Clerk of Courts in the county where you received your citation for a DWI offense. You must either pay the fees, request for an extension or inform them that you are going to court to fight your case. I recommend that you take the traffic school first before paying the fines that will permit you to pay your traffic ticket (less 18% discount) and provide a copy of your traffic school certificate of completion to the court as a completed package.

However, the State of Florida does permit you to pay the ticket first (less 18% discount) and then you will get an additional 30 to 60 days to go to a traffic school, depending on which county you received your citation. I strongly encourage you to check with the Clerk of Courts in that county to find out the time you are permitted after paying your ticket.

After you pay your ticket you have 60 days in some counties and 90 days in other counties to complete your course and submit your certificate of completion. For verification of compliance, check with the Clerks office in that county. After you receive your certificate of completion of the traffic school course, you must show proof of completion to the Clerk of Court’s office in the county in which you received your citation. Remember, if you choose to take a traffic school class and take the 18% fine reduction, you must attend a traffic school and complete the class before your due date.

Reader’s Question:

My brother resides in Tallahassee, Florida. He was arrested for a DWI offense and was required to attend a traffic school. How do I know if an online traffic school is approved and recognized by his court?

Stella

Tallahassee, FL

Thanks for asking Stella. In Florida State, traffic school courses are approved by Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles commonly referred to as DHSMV. You may receive paperwork from the court identifying recognized online traffic schools for your DWI arrest. If you would know, one of the first things the system will tell you when you begin to register in any online traffic school is whether it is approved or not by your court. If the internet traffic school is listed on the paperwork you received from your court, then you can proceed on your registration.

Because online traffic school is such a new experience, some traffic courts have not yet authorized or even recognized the online equivalent to the regular classroom course. However, most traffic courts allow internet courses, so the chances that your court will approve on-line courses are very good. Also, if your traffic court currently authorizes home study-Internet courses for traffic school attendance, there is a good chance they will authorize online attendance. So to make sure you have to ask them.

There are actually many traffic school online course providers that are offering DHSMV approved traffic ticket dismissal courses. You just have to be keen on searching online and make sure that they have been approved by your court.

When a person is charged with the offense of driving under the influence of alcohol, it’s important for them to understand that it is a very serious offense. It can cause you to lose your license, and it can affect your future job prospects. It can get in the way of many things, and worst of all, it will likely follow you for years, not only as part of your criminal record but in your insurance rates as well.

Therefore, it is necessary for you to come to terms with just how necessary getting a DUI attorney in Fort Lauderdale FL is. All of the books and websites with descriptions of DUI law will never add up to the experience and knowledge that you can take part in from just a half hour with a good DUI attorney. An attorney can bring your case and DUI law together, and show you how they interact.

A DUI attorney in Fort Lauderdale FL can do more than that, too. They can also take care of making calls, mailing paperwork, and little things like that. More than anything else, though, a lawyer can take a realistic look at your case and know what results are possible, and then accomplish those results in your defense in court.

Your Orlando FL DUI lawyer needs your cooperation when getting your case ready to present in a court of law, and so you have to relay all of the information you have to them. One of the most relevant pieces of information to your case is your behavior when you were pulled over and received your DUI charge. This comprises the amount of evidence they have proving that you were drunk, and sometimes it is weak and other times it is strong. Here are some forms this evidence comes in.

• Your speech changes, such as when you slur it or when you switch your words around and end up speaking nonsense.
• Your driving is wild, such as when you go in one lane and out the other, drive with your lights off, go over or under the speed limit, or just act weird in general.
• You appear as if you are drunk or have been drinking, such as if your clothes smell like alcohol, your eyes are red, and you are otherwise messed up looking.
• When the police officer asks you to perform a simple task, such as walk in a straight line or sing your alphabet, you don’t do it right.
• When asked how much you have had to drink, you answer with a number that doesn’t make you sound good.
• You are given a test for BAC, such as a blood test, and your level comes out over the legal limit.

Not everybody has the chance to get the services of a DUI lawyer in St Petersburg Florida for their case, but if you have even the slightest chance you should try. However, there are different levels of effort you can put, and while on one hand you may be in jail for a long time simply because you couldn’t get a lawyer to represent you, there are other times when you may come out of it just fine.

• You’re in trouble if you don’t hire a DUI lawyer in St Petersburg Florida if…

You were charged with a DUI after serious accident; it’s even more important to get a lawyer if the accident included someone being injured or dying. Severe fines and consequences come the more charges you get, so if this is your third DUI charge (or past that even), then you’re in this category. If being unable to drive means being unable to perform the duties of your job.

• You might be in trouble if you don’t hire a DUI lawyer in St Petersburg Florida if…

Second time to be convicted for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. 100% times the regular DUI BAC level. A minor involved.

• You might not be in trouble if…

Having a DUI on your record will make it harder for you to get a job or a degree or certification. You need bonding for your work. You need someone to explain this to you.

Perhaps you have heard of the fee agreement that you are supposed to receive from each Jacksonville Florida DWI attorney you consult with, but haven’t quite come to an understanding of what it is. Get accustomed with the information that follows so that when you go to your consultation, you will have the best understanding of your fee agreement.

First of all, let’s go over what your fee agreement should have in it: it needs to describe what kind of services your Jacksonville Florida DWI attorney will do for you, and also what you need to do yourself. You’ll also need details of variable charges, interest rates, and a broken down list of the charges which comprise your total fee.

Here are a couple of questions to put forward when you consult with a Jacksonville Forida DWI attorney:

• What is your method of billing? Do I pay you by the hour, or do you have a fixed rate? Will I be able to pay monthly? What amount will I pay each month?
• What kind of charges in here are subject to change? What would change them? How can I control this?
• What is the least I will have to pay for you to handle my case? What is the most?

We’ve gone ove pricing, fee agreements, and even considered the possibility that you may not be able to hire a Pembroke Pines Florida DUI lawyer at all. However, in the last case, it’s not quite so clear as I had previously made it out to be. Whether or not you can hire a lawyer to represent you is not always a case of having enough money or not having enough money. Sometimes, it varies.

If you don’t have the money to pay a lawyer, then in some instances, like if you are facing a felony or misdemeanor (occasionaly) charge, you might be given the option of having a public defender represent your case.

While it may be true that public defenders, being just another arm of the government, don’t have an excellent reputation, it’s a toss up of whether or not that is well deserved. The real truth is that public defenders are often former private lawyers or even lawyers who have a private practice on the side, and so they often have equal or even more experience than your average expensive private lawyer.

As you draw up your fee agreement with your Tallahassee FL DUI attorney, one of the most important features of this document will be the manner that your lawyer will be charging you in. Even when you look at all the little details and add everything up, the method of charging will have the biggest effect on your final number. Take a look at two of the most common methods that lawyers use to charge their clients and consider which one is best for you.

• Hourly rates.

Hourly rates work best for short and simple cases. If this is your first time getting charged with DUI, for example, and there is nothing serious to complicate your case which would cause your Tallahassee FL DUI attorney to have to gather research and witnesses and so on, then it’s possible that an hourly rate would be the best method for you to pay your lawyer. Throw one cog in the wheel, though, and the prices hear could rise by a lot.

• Fixed fee.

A fixed fee means one of two things: in many cases, a lawyer will split the fee into two, with one fixed fee for researching, interviewing, consulting, and so on, and another fixed fee for just the defense. Some lawyers, though, do it differently, in that they charge a single fixed fee across the board for all of their services.

With your Tampa FL DWI lawyer already hired, it is important not to lose your momentum so that you and your lawyer go into your case with the best knowledge and the best information. Keep involved and keep informed right from the beginning, and there will not be any surprises.

The key to all of this is to communicate well with your Tampa FL DWI lawyer and your lawyer’s office. The most important gateway into communication is to have a clear collection of goals set out before you, with a schedule and everything. You should talk about these goals as soon as you decide to hire your lawyer.

What kind of goals am I talking about? Well, the number one goal is, what exactly do you want to accomplish in your case? If, say, you are facing six months in jail, then you may want to reduce that to a fine and community service or something like that. If you’re facing a loss of license, you may want to ask for a temporary limited license so you can drive to and fro from work. It is important to include your lawyer in this conversation, because they can tell you what is possible and what is not.

After that, you should have goals for at what times things on your case should be accomplished. You should have all of your evidence prepared by this date, you should be done with everything by this date, and so on.

Reader’s Question:

Do I need an attorney in Florida for my DWI case or can I just represent myself?

Sean

Thank you for asking Sean.

Yes, you can actually represent yourself — although I don’t think its a good idea. It is like a doctor doing an appendectomy on himself.

Driving while Intoxicated (DWI) is a very complex field with increasingly severe consequences. There is a minefield of complicated constitutional, procedural, evidentiary, sentencing and administrative license issues.

A qualified and experienced DWI attorney, however, can review the case for defects, have the court suppress evidence, compel discovery of such things as calibration and maintenance records for the breath machine, negotiate for a lesser charge or reduced sentence, have blood samples independently analyzed, obtain expert witnesses for trial, contest the administrative license suspension, etc. It is possible that you end up pleading guilty on a case that might have been dismissed.

Goodluck!

MariCAR