The Blanch Law Firm provides top-notch legal defense for anyone in New York City, New York State, and the tri-state area facing charges of:
- DUI (Driving Under the Influence);
- DWI (Driving While Intoxicated); and
- DWAI (Driving While Ability Impaired)
Our DUI defense strategy involves assigning multiple members of our DUI attorney team to every case we handle. Our New York DUI attorneys have spent years in District Attorneys’ Offices, giving them a unique insight into how the state prosecutes DUI charges.
The Blanch Law Firm defends against misdemeanor charges and high profile felony DUI charges. Our DUI attorney team possesses an unparalleled knowledge of DUI cases, having prosecuted them in New York and elsewhere.
A felony DUI charge in New York can (and will) lead to jail time, heavy fines, restricted driving privileges, or have a locking device attached to your vehicle. In fact, a felony DUI conviction will result in a minimum 1-year jail sentence. This will affect your career, your home life, and more. You need a skilled DUI attorney who will aggressively defend you against any felony DUI charge.
Felony DUI charges include any instance in which an impaired driver injures another driver and/or passenger. This includes Vehicular Manslaughter. A major felony DUI could lead to years in prison and a revoking of driving privileges. A person may also be charged with a felony DUI if he/she has had prior DUI convictions within a certain period of time.
A misdemeanor DUI charged may not seem like a big deal, but in some instances, you won’t even be given a court-appointed DUI lawyer. Without a qualified, experienced DUI lawyer assisting you in your DUI case, you may be unaware of the potential consequences of a Misdemeanor DUI Conviction. Pleading guilty to any charge could be the wrong way to go, and having an experienced misdemeanor DUI lawyer representing you could make all the difference.
Our founder and senior attorney, Ryan Blanch, and managing partner, Elena Fast, have each spent significant amounts of time in District Attorney’s Offices. Few firms, if any, can offer a DUI lawyer team with such a unique experience.
What is the Average Cost of a Criminal Defense Attorney?
The average cost of a criminal attorney, if we could even calculate that, is not going to be a very helpful answer. The reason I say that is because the answer, like with most questions, is “it depends.”
As you already may have guessed, criminal lawyers handle a variety of cases. So, in order to answer this question affectively you really need to rephrase the question altogether. The real question that you’re asking or should be asking is what is the average cost of a criminal attorney for a certain kind of case?
That is because different cases require different amounts of time to handle them. The starting point for determining how much a certain case should cost to defend properly is the hourly component.
Different lawyers in different cities and with different levels of experience might have varying hourly rates depending on:
- their geographic location;
- the economics of that area;
- their years in practice; and
- the kinds of cases they typically handle.
Let’s take New York City, for example, where the hourly rate of a criminal defense attorney might hover around $400 to $600 per hour, depending.
What is the Average Cost of an Attorney for a DUI case?
Typically, DUI’s on a flat fee run anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000. A typical middle ground flat fee for a DUI might be $5,000 and that number is not changed in over a decade.
For state misdemeanors, a person might expect to pay between $2.000 and $5,000
For state felonies, a client should expect to pay anywhere from $10,000 to $200,000 and, in some cases, much, much more. As an example, you can imagine that Harvey Weinstein is paying his attorneys much, much more for his defense than someone who has a state felony DUI.
Ultimately, the cost will depend on whether or not it is the client’s first offense, whether it’s a misdemeanor or a felony, and, quite frankly, whether the attorney is valuing his or her time enough to set the rate at what it should be to ensure that all of the work gets done.
In the federal system, representation tends to be a lot more expensive. And that’s, in part, because the feds rarely charge someone with a misdemeanor.
If you are caught trespassing on federal lands you might be charged with misdemeanor trespassing but that is relatively rare. Normally, when we talk about federal cases, we’re talking about serious felony charges such as wire fraud, mail fraud, health care fraud, money laundering, and RICO.
If you or someone you love has been charged with a felony DUI or misdemeanor DUI, Contact the Blanch Law Firm’s DUI attorneys today for your free consultation, (212) 736-3900.
