DUI Lawyer in Destin, Florida

DUI Lawyer in Destin, Florida

By Stephen G. Cobb, Board Certified Criminal Trial Law Specialist


While there are many DUI lawyers in Destin, Florida, here are some considerations from the vantage point of a DUI lawyer who just happens to be a Florida Bar Board Certified Specialist.

Local DUI lawyers tend to practice differently and charge varying DUI legal fees between $2,500 to $15,000 for the pretrial phase of the case. Let's examine the various differences.

Differences in DUI lawyer practices: qualifications

First, you don't know what you don't know about DUI law, DUI lawyers, DUI defenses, DUI sentencing and many other things related to Florida's DUI laws.

Next, the Internet does a poor job of educating you about any of these things. This includes DUI lawyer websites and other promotional material. 5 star reviews are essentially worthless when it comes to advising you about how to select a DUI lawyer. Answer this for yourself with a single question: did you look at a review before deciding to visit this website or did you ask about qualifications, experience, number of trials and most importantly of all, whether any DUI lawyer on this legal team is certified by the Florida Bar?

Here is the #1 question to ask any DUI lawyer about their qualifications and experience:

Are you certified as a criminal trial Specialist by the Florida Bar?

There are two answers: yes, or the long story of how they have 5 star reviews and other stuff the Florida Bar completely ignores when it comes to actual credentials.

Thus the first difference between DUI lawyers is that some are certified by the official regulator of Florida lawyers and some have a driver's licenses and other non-certified plaques and papers in frames. Since certification is extremely hard, only a fraction of 1% of DUI lawyers are certified criminal trial law specialists. There is no specialization certification recognized for DUI law as a separate area simply because it is not. A common bogus "distinction" is Super Lawyers.

Differences in DUI lawyer practices: legal fees

Legal fees in DUI cases are determined by a lot of factors that often seem opaque to most clients. There are over thirty factors to consider in any criminal case, ranging from the time limits imposed, the severity of the DUI charge, number of counts, outcome the client wants, the difficulty of the legal issues, hidden aggravating factors specific to a local jurisdiction, judge or prosecutor, the uniqueness of the issues presented, the amount of scientific evidence related to vehicle black boxes, blood, breath or urine testing, medical conditions involved, the skill of the lawyers involved, and so much more. This is only a partial list.

Regardless of DUI lawyer, an airline pilot with a first offense DUI and a career on the line should expect to pay more than someone just trying to avoid jail.

There are also factors that should never influence a legal yet they do crop up: the need for law firm revenue despite skill, experience or practice area. This is where "too good to be true" legal fees are found. This is also where clients are seriously at risk.

Fee shopping your DUI lawyer is dangerous. The discount you receive may or may not be a dangerous reduction in legal services. Reducing cost by reducing legal services can be done safely in some cases but not in others. Indiscriminate reduction in legal services may result in jail time or other consequences that should have never happened.

We are mindful that money does not grow on trees but the reality is that retention of high quality DUI counsel is going to cost thousands of dollars and the cost per client includes at least $1,000 of marketing costs due the Google monopoly. Most DUI lawyers will want their fee in full, up front. If you are calling around and DUI lawyers seem to be impatient, remember that 4 out of 5 people will not pay the DUI legal fee quoted yet cost the DUI law firm hundreds of dollars. If the cost of legal fees upsets you, remember this anger when you read about the legal case against the illegal Google monopoly.

If you have a question about the affordability of a DUI lawyer, you need to recognize that most DUI lawyers charge up front legal fees thus your first task is to raise money. If you do not wish to pay the fees quoted, then you will need to apply for the appointment of the Public Defender.

In our last segment about the differences in DUI lawyers, we covered fees and qualifications. Now, we are going to talk about something completely different. This is so different, none of my colleagues talk about this subject yet it is the most important thing in the world for your life and future.

Differences in DUI lawyer practices: You are not your case number - stress

No one wakes up in the morning saying to themselves, "I hope I get arrested for a DUI while on vacation or partying in Destin and have to hire a DUI lawyer!" After 33 years of experience, this is not a theory.

You have concerns about work, getting around without a driver's license, going to jail, spending thousands of dollars, how you will face family, friends and colleagues and the sheer terror of going to court. This is pretty overwhelming stuff you are going through. And this includes if you are a family member. For this reason, every single client gets a free electronic book to download into your phone. The title is Reawaken the Giant Within, by Anthony Robbins. You can also download my book, Florida Criminal Law from this website, but my book will not help you deal with the stress of a DUI.

None of my colleagues are giving their clients any advice or assistance with the stress of prosecution and I believe this is a mistake. When people are under stress, they often feel a terrible pressure to do something, anything and this something is usually related to emotion, not logic. Here is a common example of how stress can distort priorities: many worry about the impact on their job to the point of driving without a license, getting arrested for a second criminal charge for doing so and then finding out the hard way that they will not get a bail bond. The State prosecutor will also ask for more jail time at any sentencing hearing or doing settlement negotiations.

You must also be aware of the fact that the prosecutor will use your stress against you in order to encourage you to damage your case and suffer a harsher consequence. The easiest way to do this is to use the fact of delay. Delay upsets people when they go to court - usually a pretrial - and find out their case is being continued. It seems as if they have wasted a work day without anything really happening to bring the case to a conclusion. And this is precisely why we excuse your appearance from pretrial unless there is a good reason for you to be there.

Differences in DUI lawyer practices: You are not your case number - health, wealth and success

Here is something I have heard for over 30 years that tells me someone does not get it:

I'll feel better when the case is over.

This is the most common failure path to self destruction known. You cannot afford to wait for several months to get ahold of your emotions and thus feel better. Think of your emotions on a scale of 1 to 10. Now imagine your DUI lawyer in court about to argue on your behalf:

What answer do you want to hear from your DUI lawyer?

"I'll feel better when the case is over for my client" would be a deadly trap threatening every aspect of your case and thus your life. DUI lawyers cannot get lost in emotional over confidence nor defeatism. When we speak in court, we must be a 10. You have to be just as sharp and just as cool, calm and collected. After all, if you have to give testimony in a driver's license hearing, a motion to suppress hearing or even a trial, what number do you need to be at in order to testify at your most effective mental state? How dangerous is it if you testify for any reason yet you are emotionally say, a 6 instead of a 10?

The wrong outfit in court, the wrong facial expression, vocal tone, and/or body posture it can mean the difference between being winning and losing. Your health, wealth and future success is on the line. You have not one but two sets of danger with a DUI charge: the impact a DUI arrest and/or conviction can have on your life externally and how the case impacts you internally.

Two actual anonymized DUI cases will demonstrate this.

In the first, the client won his case yet it destroyed him inside. When I ran into him many years later, he had lost his family, his business and his self esteem despite winning the case. What happened? He failed to take care of his mental and physical health because he did not think it was important to read self development books and listen to audio programs as recommended. He literally won his case, yet the case beat him inside and thus destroyed his life.

In the second, my client took a serious and loser of a felony DUI case to trial against advice. The reason for taking such a dangerous case to trial? "That's too much time." This person spent months repeating this too themself and close to tripled the amount of prison time by losing a bad case against their DUI lawyer's legal advice.

Your future health, wealth and success in every aspect of life are on the line when you have a serious criminal case like a DUI charge. To be blunt about it, if you are not going to follow both life and legal advice then you should contact another criminal defense law firm which handles DUI cases.