“All I Do Is DUI Defense” And That Inspires Some Reaction
“All I do is DUI defense.”
There is always that time at a party when someone will ask me what I do for a living. I proudly respond, “All I do is DUI defense.” When I tell people what I do, it inspires some mixed responses. Some folks are perplexed that anyone would provide a defense to “those people.” Others attack my integrity and the integrity of the criminal justice system by stating that I am “just in it for the cash” A more extreme reaction is to get so angry that you wish harm upon me and my family, “I hope that a drunk driver…
I have learned that often, the hate and vitriol comes from a place of great pain. Losing a loved one to drunk driving is a tragedy that is too awful for most of us to imagine. Those who find themselves in that place have every right to seek the end of drunk driving and to be validated in their grief. Like Candy Lightener, founder of MADD, they also have the right to turn that pain into a social movement. And, if it helps, they have the right to be angry with me, a DUI attorney, for defending those accused of the crime that took their loved one.
The focus of my practice and my life is preserving the rights enshrined in the Constitution and making the criminal justice system better. I have had two decades of experience in standing up for those principles. All I do is DUI defense because it is on the cutting edge of defending the Fourth Amendment, fighting against the War on Drugs, standing against petty police stops, curbing civil asset forfeiture and standing between the public and a very aggressive police force. Being a DUI attorney allows me to represent those who need it most.
Fighting for these principles is what made me want to be an attorney. I take great pride and find nobility in my efforts. I have taken solace in a quote from the great Clarence Darrow,
“To be an effective criminal defense counsel, an attorney must be prepared to be demanding, outrageous, irreverent, blasphemous, a rogue, a renegade, and a hated, isolated, and lonely person – few love a spokesman for the despised and the damned.”
“All I do is DUI defense.”
