Attorney find holes in the charges

Santa Barbara DUI Attorney Article

Los Angeles Times Article

Under cross-examination, Santa Barbara attorney Darryl W. Genis, 36, grudgingly confesses that his 800-number ads are a tad misleading. Take the client testimonials: “I was charged with a DUI, .21% breath and priors. My priors and DUI were thrown out. I pleaded guilty to speeding,” reads one. “It’s true,” Genis says, “but we had to condense facts to fit the ad space. That caused some misunderstandings.

Still Genis testifies unswervingly that there is a compelling reason for running his ads. “Drunk-driving enforcement is the witch hunt of the ‘90s,” he says.

It’s a decidedly unpopular point of view, and Genis has taken plenty of brickbats since he began running his ads (“I Get Results!”) in L.A. newspapers two years ago.

“MADD compared me to a lawyer for Lee Harvey Oswald or Charles Manson,” he says. Everyone’s entitled to a defense, and I work within the law.” Faulty tests, negligent procedure, police report errors — Genis finds the holes in the charges and uses them to make deals, or to get the case thrown out, with an 87% success rate.

After 13 years of DUI defense work, Genis has concluded there are some less-than-noble motives fueling California’s crusade against drunk driving, which resulted 265,882 convictions in 1990.

“I don’t have a problem with arrests made in good faith,” he says. “But I do have a problem with a law that encourages people to take risks, that says it’s OK to drink and drive up to a point.”

If the state were genuinely concerned with public safety, he says, it would criminalize driving within 12 hours of drinking, and use blood tests, which are the most reliable. “It’s radical,” he says. “But it would work a lot better than the present law.”

So why hasn’t such a law been passed? Simple, says Genis: “For all the rhetoric, DUI enforcement is a terrific revenue generator.” Which, he maintains, has led to test abuse. “You have cops who have no training in optometry giving [eye] tests that supposedly give evidence of alcohol intoxication.”

But the guiltiest parties, he claims, are auto insurance companies. “As long as the ‘problem’ continues,” he says, “insurance companies can keep charging outrageous amounts for special coverage.”

Of course, he’s not making out too badly himself. Genis works on three to 10 DUI cases a day; fees range from $4,500 to $12,000 for misdemeanor arrests. But, he adds, “I’d be glad to see that law change. I could always make a good living some other way.”

--Ed Dwyer

A guide to picking an attorney

by: Gerard Simington

In our modern society, legal issues arise practically every day. Given this fact, you need to know how to pick an attorney for your situation.

A Guide to Picking An Attorney

If you live in America, you are going to run into some type of a legal issue that must be addressed. Hopefully, the issue is something minor such as dealing with home purchase, but there will be many situations in which it is wise to retain an attorney. The question for most people, however, is how to pick an attorney from the thousands available? There are a number of important issues to consider when picking an attorney. Two, however, are the most important.

The first thing to focus on is finding an attorney that practices in the area you are having an issue. This may sound obvious, but many people make this mistake. If you have an issue involving problems with the sale of your home, you want to pick an attorney that focuses his or her practice entirely on real estate. Picking a business attorney or general practice attorney is a poor choice because they do not know the ins and outs of the area of law. Each area of law is complex. New case rulings are issued daily, so keeping up on breaking developments requires an attorney to really just focus on one area of law.

The second issue is experience. You want an attorney with plenty of it. Why? An attorney with a lot of experience in a particular field has a reputation. In handling a legal matter, attorneys always evaluate the lawyer on the other side. If you have an experienced attorney, your opponent knows it is going to be a rough case and will be more likely to give you the result you want. This reputation and experience issue also extends to the court room where judges give more experienced lawyers the benefit of the doubt.

When it comes time to picking an attorney, you want to speak with at least three. The initial consultation should always be free. During the consultation, ask the attorney how long they have been practicing, if they have ever had a complaint registered with the bar association [regulates attorney licensing] against them, and if they have ever handled a case such as yours and the result.

On the practical side, ask them who in the office will work on your case. Many people are surprised to learn that the attorney they retain will actually have paralegals, law clerks and associates doing much of the grunt work on legal issues. This leads to problems when a client wants to talk to the senior attorney, but primarily receives communications from the associate [junior attorney] or paralegal. In short, ask the attorney how the case will be handled within the office and make sure you are comfortable with the answer. If you are not, move on.

The issue of how to pick an attorney is a common one. When in doubt, look for expertise, experience and a comfortable communication situation.

Attorney at law

An attorney at law (also known simply as an attorney or lawyer) in the United States is a person licensed to practice law by the highest court of a state or other jurisdiction. Alternate terms include attorney-at-law and attorney and counselor (or counsellor) at law.

The American legal systems has a united (or fused) legal profession, and does not draw a distinction between lawyers who plead in court and those who do not. Many other common law jurisdictions, as well as some civil law jurisdictions, have a separation, such as the solicitor and barrister/advocate split in the United Kingdom and the advocate/civil law notary split in France. There is also no delegation of routine work to notaries public or their civil law equivalent.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org