Reccomendation on seeking legal counsel for speeding ticket?
Question by Rippin’: Reccomendation on seeking legal counsel for speeding ticket?
My parents pay my car insurance. And I DON’T want the rates to go up. (Because then I’ll owe my parents some serious cash…) Would it be worth it to privataly seek a lawyer to defend my case in court?
I’m a minor by the way.
what kind of costs would a lawyer charge?
Best answer:
Answer by Bad Santa
get the dream team holmes
if da glove don’t fit, you must acquit!
just go to court, get a plea bargain, have it reduced a little. don’t waste your money on legal counsel
Add your own answer in the comments!
no…were you actually speeding??? but you should go to the court date because when you go the judge usually lets you take traffic school to take the ticket off of your record
you may save yourself an increase in your parents premiums, but you will pay out the nose now for a lawyer.
if you MUST keep it off your record, i would definitely seek legal counsel.
An attorney’s hourly rate would vary, but would probably be around $ 200 an hour. Most people do not hire an attorney for a minor traffic ticket, but I would expect them to assess 2 or 3 hours for that.
You should also tell us about the circumstances of your citation. If you were speeding and the officer got you with good evidence the best attorney in the World won’t get you off. In my career I have written attorney’s tickets from speeding, reckless operation, and even DUI. Attorneys who defended themselves and were not able to beat the convictions. Not that some attorneys haven’t defended themselves successfully, but it’s not a sure thing, the majority ended up with a conviction.
You won’t be able to throw enough money at the problem and make it go away. it may be cheaper for you to take the money and pay the difference in insurance. If you are a minor your parents would technically have to hire the attorney, and would have to be on board with the whole idea.
Not for a speeding ticket. The costs would outweigh the benefits if you hired a defender to help you fight a traffic ticket. The less you want to spend, the harder it is to find a good lawyer. Lets say you don’t win your case. You’ll be out “x” amount of dollars anyway. If you loose you’ll still owe your parents money anyway.
I am going on the assumption that the speeding ticket that you received was erroneous.
I have always contested every ticket that I have ever received. I have found an attorney to be an excellent investment.
Generally when I have had to hire an attorney to contest a ticket it has cost me about $ 1,500.
My experience has been that police tend to overcharge for what you actually did.
That is why an experienced attorney is extremely important. The attorneys who specialize in this are much more familiar than you are with some of the things that the police do that you do not even know about that may result in a ticket for something that you did not do..
For example several years ago a police officer standing on a busy 4 lane street said that his radar gun clocked me at 54 miles per hour. The speed limit was 35.
He wrote a ticket that said that I was going 19 miles per hour over the speed limit.
This was completely untrue.
I knew very well that I was not going 54 miles an hour
Although I was not looking intently at my speedometer to know exactly how fast I was going. Generally I try to stay very close to the speed limit.
It is extremely unlikely that I was going over 40 miles per hour.
I knew the police officer was wrong but I did not know how to prove it.
I hired a very good attorney who specializes in fighting traffic tickets. It cost me $ 1,500.
That was the best $ 1,500 that I ever spent.
The attorney checked the officer’s training records, the accuracy and records of the radar gun that the officer used and a number of other items that I do not even remember.
Essentially it turned out that the officer was new and inexperienced and there was some question about whether he really had the radar beam on my car or on another car in the next lane that was behind me and catching up with me.
Personally I suspect that the car that was catching up to me in the next lane is the car that the radar gun was reading, not my car.
The judge agreed with my attorney and dismissed the ticket.
That was several years ago. There is a great deal of satisfaction that I receive in not pleading guilty to something that I did not do and winning in court, even if it cost me $ 1,500 in legal fees.
Even though the $ 1,500 is more than the fine that I would have paid and is even more than the increase that I would have received in my insurance rates I think that it is very important that you not plead guilty to something that you did not do, even if that costs you more money in legal fees than the fine and the increase in insurance rates.
I go with the philosophy “millions for defense, not a penny for tribute”.
I wish you a great deal of success in challenging your speeding ticket. Do not plead guilty to something that you did not do. Hire a good attorney to defend you. That is the best investment that you will ever make.
It will also be a good lesson for you later in life. When you are falsely accused, fight the accusation with the best professional ally that you can get, your attorney at your side.
No mater how much money it costs you in legal fees, that will be the best investment that you can make in your life.
You will win.