HIRE A TRAFFIC TICKET LAWYER OR NOT?

Getting a traffic ticket can be a really unnerving and extremely frustrating. Citizens often feel they are not guilty and have been cheated by dishonest law enforcement. In most instances, at least in San Antonio and Bexar County, Texas, your traffic ticket can be resolved in three primary ways: pay your ticket outright, fight the ticket by setting it for a trial, or negotiate a deferred disposition / defensive driving plea bargain.

Citizens can seek to resolve speeding tickets themselves by writing or traveling to the court and speaking with the prosecutors and judges, personally. The other way to resolve a speeding ticket is to hire an attorney or traffic ticket lawyer to represent you. The key considerations to help you decide whether to represent yourself or hire a speeding ticket lawyer are Time, Money and the Seriousness of the offense.

TIME
Depending on which jurisdiction you are in, traffic ticket court can be extremely time consuming. As a traffic ticket attorney in San Antonio, Texas, my experience is that it takes between 2-1/2 and 4 hours to travel to any courthouse in Bexar County and get a ticket completely resolved; and this is the time it takes an experienced traffic ticket attorney. To me, this means that unless you have a job with fairly low hourly pay, then it will cost less at the end of the day to hire an attorney. If you are a person on a set salary, you just burned up half a vacation day if you take care of your own ticket. So, it boils down to how valuable your time is as to whether it is worth taking care of a ticket yourself versus hiring a traffic ticket attorney.

MONEY
Again, depending on which law enforcement agency stops you, and what citation you receive, the cost of paying a ticket can vary greatly. Some law enforcement officers issue multiple citations on each ticket. This means the cost can skyrocket. Some folks have very little money, so hiring a speeding ticket attorney is out of the question. However, sometimes hiring an attorney can end up costing less money than paying the ticket outright; this is because a speeding ticket lawyer can usually get your fine reduced and keep the ticket off your record. Most folks don't understand that paying a speeding ticket outright often means the cost of your insurance will go up as well. A speeding ticket attorney can also usually get one or more citations dismissed if multiples were given on the same ticket.

SERIOUSNESS OF OFFENSE
Of course, you should consider hiring a traffic ticket attorney if the offense for which you were cited was particularly egregious. Examples would be speeding in a school zone, texting in a school zone, speeding more than 25 miles an hour over the posted speed limit or if you are a habitual offender.