DUI Law Blog : DUI Lawyer & Attorney : Drunk Driving Defense & DWI News : Dan Jaffe of DUIAttorney.com LLC

I bet you have found hundreds of articles telling you how to beat a DUI. They give you magical tips. They promise you freedom, harmony and bliss, or at least make a thinly veiled attempt to convince you that the author is writing for you, rather than for the search engines.

At the risk of calling Simon and Garfunkel narrow-minded, there are an infinite number of ways to leave your lover, and there are just as many ways to get a drunk driving conviction on your record and go to jail.

It does not take an incompetent DUI attorney to ruin your case. You can do that for yourself. So the first failsafe way to lose your case is to not hire or seek the advice of an attorney. When you are charged with a crime as serious as this, there is simply no excuse for not consulting with an expert.

You are in a vulnerable state. You are stressed. And you should be, because if you don't make the right moves, you could go to jail and get branded as a criminal. And that would totally suck. Because of your vulnerability, the second surefire way to unsuccessfully defend your case is to present yourself to an attorney, the court or the prosecutor in a vulnerable state. Wait a second. Hold on. I can hear you now. There are many types of vulnerability. The type I advise against in this situation is ignorance. You see, the less you know the more likely you are to get a bad lawyer, accept bad advice, get a bad plea bargain or a bad verdict. The cure for this vulnerability is to do your homework. Get your head out of the sand. Right now. And start reading about the laws and procedures when your case will be heard (if you are illiterate and somebody is reading this to you, I don't know what to tell you... because the quality of educational videos on the subject is worse than the conditions of the nastiest cell block in San Quentin... sorry).

Getting a DUI sucks. Cops suck. Prosecutors suck. Lawyers suck. Judges suck. Jailers are thugs. Alcohol counselors are pussies. If you agree with any or all of the (totally general and typically false) assertions directly above, they congratulations, you're a natural at the third way to make sure you get incarceration enervation (not a spa treatment). All you have to do is stick with that attitude and be a terrible actor. Your feelings will show and you will get screwed.

Lawyers are lying, cheating, blood-sucking douche-bags, and there's no reason to tell my lawyer, who I resent for too many reasons to articulate (yeah, that's it), the truth. If you identify with that statement, just stick with it. Hire a lawyer, but withhold information about your case or your past. Make the lawyer earn her fees. Make her think on her feet. No reason to tell her you are wanted for sodomy in South Dakota, or that you have 5 other drunk driving charges pending in three other jurisdictions. The best thing about withholding this sort of information from your attorney is that you will get screwed in court. Probably hugely. Probably painfully. And the best thing is, while you are sitting in jail or having trouble getting a job, you have your very own personal scapegoat. What use is an attorney who doesn't have enough information to help you? That's it. An excuse to postpone self-reflection.

There are so many ways that you and your lawyer can f-up your case it's crazy. If you need a conviction in your life to help you work through some issues, any of the above will typically work.

For the astute reader who noticed that there are only four items listed, we need your help. Please let us know your favorite ways to ensure failure in defending a DUI case by commenting below. We will pick the best one and add it to this post (and give you full credit).

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