Potential clients seeking information about the criminal justice process often ask if I specialize in the exact offense with which they are charged. Of course, no criminal defense attorney specializes in juvenile burglary cases, domestic violence between same sex partners cases, or grandparent child molestation cases. The reality is there is probably not enough business in any particular area of criminal law to justify additional specialization beyond criminal defense. I suspect this is true throughout the United States, with one exception: Driving Under the Influence (DUI).
Driving under the influence (aka driving while intoxicated) is the one area where a number of attorney, especially young attorneys (i.e. graduated from law school in the last four years) choose to specialize. I suspect there are a number of reasons for that: (1) there are a number of CLE (continuing legal education) classes that focus specifically on training attorneys to defend DUI classes; (2) attorneys that teach other attorneys how to defense DUI cases can justify fees charged for tuition by explaining the voluminous number of DUI arrests every month (DUI arrest numbers are monitored religiously, and that area of criminal defense is actively promoted); (3) DUIs represent the greatest number of police arrests every month, because in our culture “everything is better with alcohol;” (4) DUI clients come from every socio-economic group, and as such many can pay hefty fees for their DUI defense (unlike many criminal clients, DUI client have money to spend on their defense); and (5) unlike other clients, DUI clients are not folks who have had a great deal of contact with the justice system, so they are more anxious and frightened than the average criminal – a fact that the DUI attorney exploits to his advantage. Irrespective of the reasons why, it is important to note there are more attorneys specializing in DUIs than in any other area of criminal defense. Unfortunately, many of these DUI attorneys promote themselves as criminal defense attorneys, claiming that they can handle any type of misdemeanor, juvenile or felony case.
