Eight Reasons to Hire the Maze Legal Group in Your Drunk Driving Case

1. Experience

William Maze has handled hundreds of drunk driving cases, and he has challenged almost every one of those cases. When you hire the Maze Legal Group, you are not hiring a law firm to simply plead you guilty! Mr. Maze has practiced before nearly every district court in the lower peninsula and before a handful of courts in the upper peninsula. Whether it's a large metropolitan city or a small town, the drunk driving litigation experience that Mr. Maze brings to the courtroom is unmatched and unparalleled by other lawyers in Michigan.

2. Exclusivity

Mr. Maze has almost 14 years of experience, and he has practiced in both civil and criminal law. For the first seven years of practice, he had taken on some of the larger firms in complex civil cases, and he won tough cases against those big firms.

For the last 7 years, Mr. Maze has limited his practice to defending DUI cases. There are many criminal defense attorneys in the state, and some are absolutely great lawyers. But there are few lawyers who practice exclusively in DUI defense. There are currently only two firms in Michigan that exclusively defend drunk driving cases, and the Maze Legal Group is one of them. We respectfully submit that we are the best DUI defense firm in Michigan, more aggressive, and consistently produce the results that make clients happy.

3. Integrity

The rules of professional conduct say that an attorney should aggressively represent a client. Mr. Maze has developed close, friendly relationships with judges, prosecutors and many police officers. How can an attorney aggressively represent a client when it forces judges and prosecutors to work harder, longer hours, calling police officers to task and challenging them on the witness stand?

Mr. Maze doesn't back down or yield because our system of justice demands that a defense lawyer challenge the system. In his own home court, he has filed several appeals against judges that he greatly admires, winning almost every single one. He has actively challenged the Wayne County Prosecutor's illegal seizure of vehicles in drunk driving cases, and after four years, it appears that he may have toppled that program. In yet another court where he frequently appears, Mr. Maze has personally sued the jurisdiction to help clients assert their legal rights.

Mr. Maze has the integrity to openly challenge cases that many attorneys might shy away from because of the repercussions. He has been sanctioned and ordered to pay money for aggressively representing clients. He has been held in contempt for pressing the client's theory of the case too hard. Mr. Maze has taken the hard, long road, when the easy path was clear.

4. Competence

If you refuse the breath test, how long is the suspension? When can you refuse a blood test? How about a breath test? How many points do you receive for an OWI versus impaired? What is the DI-177? How is it different from the DI-93? When does an OWI 2nd result in a revocation versus a suspension? How can someone challenge a breath test? How can someone challenge a blood test?

Believe it or not, many attorneys who routinely handle drunk driving cases cannot answer these questions.

Mr. Maze is competent in Michigan's drunk driving laws, and he frequently attends out-of-state seminars and lectures on DUI defense. Other criminal defense attorneys frequently consult with Mr. Maze for assistance in defending drunk driving cases, and some of the most reputable firms refer their clients to Mr. Maze.

5. Education

Mr. Maze heard about the National College for DUI Defense in 2004 and joined later that year. He attended his first seminar in New Orleans in February 2005, and quickly realized he needed to learn a lot more.

Since that first seminar, Mr. Maze has read volumes of books and journals, and he has personally attended many other seminars. He has become certified in the NHTSA/IACP Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (a police officer's training course). Mr. Maze has attended training on the BAC Datamaster in a course offered by National Patent Analytic Systems (NPAS), the manufacturer of Michigan's breath test machine. He has attended toxicology courses in breath, blood and urine testing for alcohol and drugs.

Mr. Maze's education in DUI defense has grown over the years. Nowadays, he provides lectures on the subject of drunk driving defense to other lawyers, and he helps teach the Standardized Field Sobriety training course.

6. Trial Practice Skills

Unsatisfied with merely trying to be a good defense attorney, Mr. Maze has striven to become a better defense attorney. Hearing Terry MacCarthy, a cutting-edge criminal litigator from Chicago, lecture on cross-examination, Mr. Maze experimented with new trial techniques. After reviewing materials on a similar vein from Larry Pozner and Roger Dodd, Mr. Maze decided it was time to develop trial advocacy skills.

In 2006, Mr. Maze received two trial advocacy certificates. The first, at the National Criminal Defense College (NCDC) in Macon, Georgia, was presented by some of the best criminal defense attorneys in the nation, including Mr. MacCarthy. The two week program is one of the most intense trial advocacy programs offered in the nation. The second, in Lansing, Michigan, was offered by the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan (CDAM). Although the CDAM program was shorter, it was equally intense, and Mr. Maze was able to network with some of the best Michigan criminal defense attorneys.

Advocacy skills are sorely underrated by many attorneys, and the trial skills offered by law schools are seriously lacking. Too often, attorneys have never been taught how to effectively argue to jurors, and many lawyers have never experienced a jury trial.

7. Tenacity

If winning DUI cases were easy, everyone would do it.

One of the biggest problems in defending drunk driving cases is knowing how to get the evidence you need to defend the charge. Once you have that information, your lawyer needs to know how to interpret the evidence. Police, prosecutors and even judges in certain jurisdictions routinely oppose disclosure of evidence.

Mr. Maze has developed a method of collecting evidence in both breath and blood cases that ensures the accused gets everything needed and everything is done. He regularly files motions to dismiss, brings show cause actions against police departments, and files lawsuits against city and state officials for failing to turn over evidence.

Once Mr. Maze is in possession of the necessary evidence, an educated, competent review of the case can be performed. By way of example, a recent case from Coldwater, Michigan, appeared hopeless on the surface, but a complete review of the file exposed several weaknesses and one critical error. The critical error, which was found on a single document amongst over a hundred pages received in the case, rendered the breath test inadmissible.

8. Thoroughness

Breath testing is very accurate but also very sensitive to tiny deviations from person to person. Everything must be reviewed about the accused's health, physiology, dental work, diet, and workplace chemical exposure. The drinking, eating and physical activities of the day can impact the breath device. The smallest error caused by a physical abnormality or a flaw in the BAC Datamaster can mean the difference between guilt and innocence.

In blood testing cases, the integrity of the forensic method and chain of custody is paramount. Closely reviewing how the blood was handled, how it was transported, who tested it, and how the testing was performed are critical. Independent testing of the blood sample will frequently reveal different blood alcohol measurements, a lack of preservative chemicals, or the presence of unexpected microbes. Mr. Maze subjects each blood test to several challenges and layers of independent testing by qualified laboratories.

Each case must be reviewed thoroughly. Every year, hundreds and possibly thousands of people accused of a DUI plead guilty because a lawyer inadequately reviewed the case, even though a thorough review would have revealed critical errors in the government's evidence. At the Maze Legal Group, nothing escapes review, and as a result, our firm produces consistent, reliable results for our clients.