Why your traffic ticket attorney's "money back guarantee" may be worthless
When it comes to hiring an attorney, there are many things to consider. For years, "traffic ticket attorneys," decided to encourage people to hire them by offering a "no points or your money back" guarantee. "Great!" you say, "What's wrong with that?" Unfortunately, for many, this guarantee isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Read on and I'll explain.
Back in 1995, when we started helping people fight their traffic tickets, the guarantees being offered were pretty straightforward. They simply stated, if you received points on your license for any reason, you would get your money back. And that's the way it stood until fairly recently when attorneys decided to play marketers and get sneaky. What happened since, would make a used car salesman blush.
Today, when you receive an advertisement in the mail from an attorney, take a good look at the guarantee being offered. It will usually have an asterisk next to it where, at the bottom of the brochure, in tiny print, will be the disclaimers of things not covered in the guarantee. It usually looks something like this:
*Guarantee applies only to non-moving, non-criminal, non-accident cases AND if no tickets within the last 2 years.
Whew! That's a mouthful. Where to begin. Well, it really begins and ends with the first caveat.
It is impossible to get points on a non-moving violation. I will say it another way, points can ONLY occur with moving violations.
Are you irritated yet? Imagine someone offering you a guarantee of something that can never happen. They may as well offer to buy you a new lexus as well. Are you getting the point? It doesn't matter what the guarantee is if they are guaranteeing something that can never take place. I think what they are trying to say is that it does not apply to non-moving violations, but they don't say that, and I am not sure that's by accident.
As for the other parts of the guarantee, the Florida Bar does not allow lawyers to guarantee anything for criminal cases and accident cases and people who have had a ticket within the last 2 years are highly likely to get points on their record, which is why they are excluded.
The last part you must be aware of is that if in fact, you did receive points and were expecting to get your money back, don't run to your mailbox so soon. Many clients have reported getting points from other traffic attorneys and expecting a check to come in the mail. Upon inquiring, they are told, like a manufacturer's warranty with a million hoops to jump through, that they must follow a very strict set of rules in order to qualify for the return of the attorney's fee.
Can you imagine? What Chutzpah!
So if you are thinking of hiring an attorney for a traffic matter, and I think that in many cases, that's a smart thing to do, just make sure you ask questions about who you're hiring, what they are guaranteeing they will do on your behalf, and exactly what you are paying for. Like everything else, the smarter you are, the easier it should be for you to make the right decision.
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