If you have been arrested for a DUI in Seattle or really anywhere in Washington State. Then probably the first thing you will want to do after you hire a DUI Lawyer is schedule your alcohol and drug evaluation. Here is how I recommend you go about doing that.
First speak with your DUI lawyer. Most DUI Attorneys including myself have a specific alcohol and drug evaluator we exclusively deal with. If your DUI Lawyer doesn’t have a specific evaluator then you probably hired the wrong person. But if they defend enough DUI cases and has the appropriate amount of experience in this area of law they will be able to point you in the right direction. For example the treatment agency I work with for my alcohol and drug evaluations are honest and I know they are not going to screw over my clients. Additionally I speak personally with the evaluator and we often times come up with a plan that makes sense for my client.
Secondly you probably want to find a place that only does the alcohol and drug evaluation not the treatment portion as well. Why? Well in my years of experience as a DUI Lawyer in Seattle many of the treatment places take advantage of individuals looking for an evaluation especially if they also do the treatment portion of the program. If you think about it this area is ripe to be taken advantage of financially. Let’s say you get a DUI. You decide to go to an alcohol and treatment agency for the DUI evaluation. The counselor says you have a problem and by they way you’re going to have to do 1 year worth of treatment and that will cost you $2500. And by the way you can do it here. I have seen this happen many times in my career and that is why I only work with specific places that do not do the treatment portion.
Lastly you will want to consider doing the evaluation in the County where your DUI case is, sometimes even the City. For example let’s say you get a DUI in King County or Seattle. The treatment agency I recommend does most of their evaluations in King County and specifically Seattle. So pretty much every Judge has heard of this place, they respect their work and will not question it. Why is this important? I have been in Court before and seen other defendants (not my clients) hand forward an evaluation for their DUI and the Judge has never heard of the place and they don’t accept it. Now not only is the defendant going to have to find a new place but they are out of the money they spent on the evaluation that got turned down. And they run the risk of going to a different treatment agency that makes a different finding in terms of treatment and they are stuck with it.
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About the author: Matthew Leyba is a DUI Lawyer in Seattle. He has been named a Super Lawyer Rising Star by the Seattle Met Magazine the area of DUI Defense, only 2.5% of all Lawyers in Washington State receive this honor. Additionally he is rated as a 10/10 and listed as a Superb DUI Lawyer by Avvo.com a national lawyer rating service.
