Guide to Finding Texas Defense Lawyer

If you have been charged with a crime in the state of Texas, you may be scared, confused, and worried about what is to come. Finding out your options for getting legal representation by a Texas defense lawyer can help to put your mind at ease. Your TX defense lawyer can explain your legal issues in language you can understand, and help you to represent yourself to prosecutors and judges. The United States of America considers it so important that you have a lawyer to help you represent yourself that it is considered a Constitutional right.

What TX Defense Lawyers Can Do

Understanding your legal rights can be extremely complicated. You have a right to have a TX defense lawyer present at all questioning or interrogation you are subjected to. Texas defense lawyers can advise you about whether to speak or exercise your right to remain silent during an interrogation, and having a Texas defense lawyer to help defend you from unethical police interrogation tactics can help ensure that you don't say anything to police that you may later regret.

Making sure that you have contacted TX defense lawyers to represent you will give you the best chance of beating any charges you are facing. If you plan to plead guilty, your TX defense lawyer can present mitigating circumstances to prosecutors and judges, and possibly get your sentence reduced so you can avoid fines or jail time.

Your Texas defense lawyer can also give you legal advice regarding any plea bargains that have been negotiated, and Texas defense lawyers can speak from their own experience regarding your likelihood of winning at trial. These pieces of advice from TX defense lawyers can help you reach an informed legal decision on your own.

What TX Defense Lawyers Can't Do

Your TX defense lawyer's role is advisory, not supervisory. While TX defense lawyers can make you aware of your legal options, the role of your Texas defense lawyer is not to make your choices for you. The objective of legal representation is to give you the information and expertise you need to make legal decisions yourself.

Because of this, even though your TX defense lawyer can advise you to take a plea bargain, you can still insist on going to trial if you wish. Similarly, if your TX defense lawyer advises you not to take the stand at trial, but you are convinced that you need to, Texas defense lawyers will be obligated to honor your wishes.

While Texas defense lawyers often have years of experience defending clients, no one's advice is perfect. It is important to remember that your final decisions rest in your own hands, not the hands of your TX defense lawyer.

Fee Structures for Texas Defense Lawyers

Legal services have an often-deserved reputation of being exorbitantly expensive. Fortunately for Texas criminal defendants, TX defense lawyers don't have to cost an arm and a leg. For most charges, your TX defense lawyer will probably prefer to give you a flat fee structure, rather than the more unpredictable hourly billing fee structure.

Once you pay a TX defense lawyer this flat fee, you will be entitled to representation throughout your trial process. Typically, your money will be put into escrow initially and paid to your Texas defense lawyer as billing cycles occur. Many TX defense lawyers allow you to have a free initial consultation (others charge a nominal amount, usually around $25 for half an hour) so that you can understand their fee structure.

If you are unable to afford a Texas defense lawyer, you have a Constitutional right to a state-appointed public defender. A pool of Texas defense lawyers exists to defend people whose income and assets are too low to afford private TX defense lawyers.

Finding Texas Defense Lawyers

If you require a public TX defense lawyer, you will be unable to choose your own attorney. Instead, an attorney will be selected for you from the pool of TX defense lawyers who have signed up to represent low-income people. This is one disadvantage of using public Texas defense lawyers.

Assuming you are able to pay for a private Texas defense lawyer, you can search using the State Bar of Texas's Lawyer Information and Referral Service, which allows you to search for Texas defense lawyers according to their area of practice and location. Once you have found several TX defense lawyers in close proximity to you, you can begin the process of investigating and narrowing down your choices for a consultation.

Investigating Texas Defense Lawyers

Before you enter into a lawyer-client relationship, you may want to make sure that your Texas defense lawyer has never been in trouble for ethics violations. The vast majority of TX defense lawyers have spotless ethics records, but investigating your Texas defense lawyer before you consult with him or her can give you peace of mind. You can search for your prospective Texas defense lawyer's name on the state bar's website in order to find out if he or she has ever been disciplined by the bar.

After examining your potential Texas defense lawyers for ethics issues, another useful step can be looking through their websites. Can you find information on the website of your TX defense lawyer that is relevant to your case? Does it seem like the firm's Texas defense lawyers have proven experience in handling similar cases? If not, you may want to confine your search to TX defense lawyers who demonstrate a clear grasp of your legal issues.

What to Bring to Your First Consultation

Don't be intimidated by your first consultation with any Texas defense lawyers you decide to see. TX defense lawyers understand that you may have a lot of questions, and it can help if you write them down ahead of time to bring to the consultation. Remember, the TX defense lawyer you consult with is still bound by confidentiality rules.

You should also bring along a pen and paper, so that you can write down answers to your questions as well as details about the fee structures imposed by your Texas defense lawyer. After you have consulted and compared Texas defense lawyers, you can decide on the representation that's best for you.