Deciding on whether to hire an attorney for traffic court or not…

Deciding on whether or not to hire an attorney for an infraction in traffic court

Since hiring an attorney to handle your traffic citations typically costs more than paying the citation outright, sometimes it’s just not the best option.

For example, you certainly don’t need an attorney to appear in court on your behalf to show proof of correction on a “fix-it” ticket. Unless, that is, your time is considerably valuable and it makes sense to pay someone else $200-$400 per hour to appear as your representative.

However, any infraction that runs the risk of placing points on your driving record with the DMV and increasing your long-term rates on your automobile insurance is certainly worth considering retaining an attorney’s services. More often than not, an attorney will be able to research the charge and surrounding facts to be certain the citation was a validly issued charge against the CA Vehicle Code. If successful, your attorney will be able to keep your driving record clean and help you maintain low insurance rates.

You should consider retaining the services of an attorney for an infraction by using a cost-benefit analysis; Is your investment of hiring an attorney going to keep your long-term costs down if you win and what is the likelihood of success on this issue? This will help you decide.

But be careful that your citation is actually an infraction and not a misdemeanor. (NOTE: You will see either an “I” or “M” circled on your citation notifying you what type of citation you’ve been issued) Because a misdemeanor carries the extra risk of jail time and leaving a criminal conviction on your record that is publicly searchable, it is almost always a good idea to retain the services of an attorney.