Is it worth it to hire an attorney to fight a NY speeding ticket?

Tom_R said:

If the alleged offender is not willing to make the trip to court, why are you concerned about the matter? Remove the alleged offender from your policy, don't allow them the use of your vehicles, and let them fend for themselves.

There's one small hitch: I'm married to him, and currently he's the only employed person in our household. ; - )

Tom_R said:

Driving 15 to 19 mph over the limit on a County road in a small Catskill town makes it sound as though any money spent on driving lessons, was not well spent. County speed limits throughout most of New York are 50 mph.

Well, that would have been on his parents, who are long since gone, with nary a care about traffic tickets. Anyway, he said he was trying to pass a passive aggressive driver, hence the temporary high speed. I imagine the cop told him to tell that to the judge.

jerseyjack said:

I have taken care of many tickets for my employer, both in Ulster and Rockland counties. Call the court office. No court starts at 6:00 a.m. You are lucky if anything gets started before 10:a.m.

First appearance, you meet with the prosecutor. You get offered a reduced fine or whatever. If you take it, you get before the judge about 1/2 hour later, then pay the fine and go home.

If, as referenced in an earlier post, the ticket was for 15+ over the speed limit, you get reduced to 14 over and pay the lesser fine. This is because the court, being an ATM machine for the government, doesn't want to waste time hearing your sob story. They just want the money and for you to quietly fade away.

In any case, YOU DON"T NEED AN ATTORNEY!

Thanks, jersey. I'm going to see if he's willing to spend the day driving slowly to court. For that matter, since I'm not working, maybe I'll go with him (and do the driving) and we can make a day of it.

problem is if the offender and OP live in the same house, offender has to be listed on OPs insurance.

I called the court. Too bad the woman answering the phone isn't the judge - she was very nice. Traffic court is in the evenings starting at 6pm, and we won't get our court date until they receive the plea. She said to arrive early to get in and out quickly. Plea: Not Guilty

The one thing she wasn't clear on was whether I could go to represent my husband instead of him. She seemed to think that he has to be present, but if that's the case, how come hiring a lawyer does not require the defendant's presence?

No. you cannot represent your husband.

jasper said:

I called the court. Too bad the woman answering the phone isn't the judge - she was very nice. Traffic court is in the evenings starting at 6pm, and we won't get our court date until they receive the plea. She said to arrive early to get in and out quickly. Plea: Not Guilty

The one thing she wasn't clear on was whether I could go to represent my husband instead of him. She seemed to think that he has to be present, but if that's the case, how come hiring a lawyer does not require the defendant's presence?

jerseyjack said:

No. you cannot represent your husband.

jasper said:

I called the court. Too bad the woman answering the phone isn't the judge - she was very nice. Traffic court is in the evenings starting at 6pm, and we won't get our court date until they receive the plea. She said to arrive early to get in and out quickly. Plea: Not Guilty

The one thing she wasn't clear on was whether I could go to represent my husband instead of him. She seemed to think that he has to be present, but if that's the case, how come hiring a lawyer does not require the defendant's presence?

My mother always said I should have gone to law school.

Well, I'm going along as the driver, and I hope this turns out to be worth our time and effort. I'll report back.

We (I, with someone as my passenger) drove all the way up to Hurley, NY this afternoon, got the offense reduced from 4 points to 2, and the fee reduced from $300 to $107 plus the $93 court surcharge plus the 3% credit card fee, for a total of $206 and 2 points.

It's still not clear to me whether/how these points get transferred over to the NJ driver's record and whether there will be (or would have been) any insurance ramifications. We had to order the driver's NJ abstract (another $15) to show the driving history for the prosecutor's consideration, and it didn't reflect anything that ever happened outside of NJ.

Was it worth it? I guess we saved about $170 in direct penalties when you take into account gas and tolls, at the expense of 4 hours of our time (plus another hour to eat mediocre pub food at the Hurley Mountain Inn, whose moderate expense I'm not considering here), and hopefully averted any additional insurance penalties. Time will tell.

And would it have paid to hire an attorney? I'm fairly certain the attorney would have gotten the same results, so it would have cost us the same $206 plus 2 points, plus the attorney fee of $550 (the cheapest one I found). So I'd say that for us, it made sense to take care of it ourselves.

Wise words. I think lawyers are worth it for DUI's or at fault accidents. Or persons 3 points from suspension. Otherwise traffic abiding citizens fare ok on their own.

jasper said:

And would it have paid to hire an attorney? I'm fairly certain the attorney would have gotten the same results, so it would have cost us the same $206 plus 2 points, plus the attorney fee of $550 (the cheapest one I found). So I'd say that for us, it made sense to take care of it ourselves.

jasper said:

And would it have paid to hire an attorney? I'm fairly certain the attorney would have gotten the same results, so it would have cost us the same $206 plus 2 points, plus the attorney fee of $550 (the cheapest one I found). So I'd say that for us, it made sense to take care of it ourselves.

Yes, I have been enough NY state and City traffic courts to tell you the lawyer would have gotten the same results. The only advantage would have been, you would have gotten your hearing and your matter disposed of about an hour sooner.

BY THE WAY, if the driver is in danger of losing license, then it is a good idea to hire an attorney.

Actually, we were the first ones to arrive at the court, so we were heard first and out of there within a total of 30 minutes max, including waiting for the judge to get started. The attorney simply would have saved us the time and trouble of driving all the way there and back. It's a bit of a joke, really, that they don't allow you to submit your abstract online along with any explanation, and dispense with the case that way.

for traffic issues, a lawyer is good when you aren't guilty..but when you are..typically they can't do anything for you that you can't do yourself.

The real question is, are you guilty if you go over the speed limit in order to safely pass someone who is driving at a discontinuous speed that is under the speed limit? But it's a moot point, because they know it's too much time, effort, and risk to argue the case, and in the end, they would probably just go by what was on the radar gun and call you guilty. So you take your reduced lumps and call it a waste of gas and human productivity.

All I can say is that this is a nice revenue stream for every municipality and state.