Do I need to Appear in Court?
Most traffic offenses can be handled without the necessity of you appearing in court, even if the reverse side of your ticket says that you must appear. Your attorney can appear in your place. This saves you the time and inconvenience of taking a day off of work, arranging child care, traveling downtown, finding parking, waiting in a long line and sitting in a crowded courtroom next to some possibly unsavory characters.
In some counties the defendant must sign a waiver of appearance form if an attorney is to appear on his or her behalf. If our office advises you that such a form is necessary in your case, we will email, fax or mail the necessary form to you.
If you are charged with a serious charge such as DWI, then you will need to appear in court when the case is ultimately heard before a judge. However, you will probably not have to be present at earlier court dates if your case is to be postponed. We will advise you accordingly and will make every effort to minimize your inconvenience and time in court.
How do I pay?
Your attorney fee must be paid in full before the case is concluded. There are no exceptions to this rule. However, your case can usually be postponed a few months if finances are a problem. We don't do payment schedules per se. You just pay what you can, when you can, remembering that your case will not be concluded until your fee is paid in full. If your fee has not been paid and the case becomes so old that the court will not postpone it further, then you will have to appear in court and represent yourself. The Robbins Law Firm accepts cash, checks, and money orders. We will occasionally consider payment by barter. We do not accept credit cards because the accounting complications they cause with out client trust accounts.
In addition to your attorney fee, most cases require that you pay court costs, fines and sometimes other fees. We will give you an educated estimate as to what these expenses will be. However much of these court expenses ultimately are, it is your responsibility to pay them.
There are two ways that you can pay your court expenses. You can wait until your case is concluded, and we will advise you exactly what is owed to the court. In that case, you will have 20 days to pay the clerk of court what is owed before a $50.00 late fee is added. The other way to handle this is to deliver funds to us equal to our estimate. If your court expenses turn out to be more than our estimate, then you will be responsible for the difference. If the amount is less than our estimate, then we will refund the difference to you.
