Most consultations sound the same. You describe the stop, the lawyer nods, and somewhere around the ten-minute mark you hear that the case has issues worth fighting and that the office has handled hundreds of these. None of that distinguishes anyone, because every competent defense attorney can say it truthfully and so can several who aren't competent at all. The separation happens when you ask questions with checkable answers, the kind where a vague reply is itself the information you came for. Six of them do most of the work.
1. How many of these have you handled in this county in the last year?
Not statewide, not over a career, and not in general practice terms. Impaired-driving cases are governed by state statute but administered by a courthouse, and courthouses have habits: which prosecutor handles the diversion screening, whether the judge takes pleas on the first setting or pushes them to a second, how long the crime lab actually takes to return a blood result. A lawyer who was in that building four times last month knows those habits without thinking about them. One who wasn't will learn them on your case, at your expense, and the honest ones will tell you so when you ask the question that narrowly.
2. Which breath instrument does this jurisdiction use, and what have you found in its records?
Ask by name. Agencies standardize on a particular model, and each has its own calibration interval, maintenance log, operator certification requirements, and known failure modes. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is responsible for the measurement standards that sit underneath breath alcohol testing generally, and the practical version of that in a courtroom is a paper trail: simulator solution certificates, accuracy check records, whether the operator's permit was current on the night in question. A lawyer who has subpoenaed those records in your county recently will answer in specifics and will usually tell you what the local records have historically shown.
3. Who is going to stand up at each setting?
Firms are allowed to staff cases with associates, and a good associate is often better for a routine setting than a busy senior partner. The problem is discovering the arrangement on the morning of a hearing rather than in the consultation. Ask who appears at arraignment, who handles the license hearing if there is one, who negotiates with the prosecutor, and who tries the case if it goes that far. Ask what happens when that person has a conflict. Then check whether the fee agreement says the same thing the conversation did, because the document controls.
4. In cases like mine, how do these actually end?
Phrase it as a proportion. Most criminal matters resolve by plea, and there is nothing shameful in a lawyer saying that the great majority of their first-offense cases end in a negotiated disposition, because that is the realistic landscape. What you're listening for is whether the answer is thought through: which facts push a case toward trial, what a reduced charge in this county typically requires, whether the office has taken an impaired-driving case to verdict recently and what happened. Someone who promises dismissal in a first meeting, before reviewing the video and the calibration records, is selling.
5. What does the total number look like, including everything that isn't your fee?
Expert review of a blood sample, transcripts, investigator time, and filing costs sit outside most flat fees. Ask which of those your case is likely to need, what each typically runs, and whether a trial triggers an additional fee. A lawyer who has done this in your county can bracket the numbers.
6. Do I qualify for appointed counsel, and should I apply?
Public defender eligibility turns on financial screening, usually a household income threshold tied to the federal poverty guidelines with adjustments for household size, assets, and sometimes the cost of the private representation you'd otherwise need. Thresholds vary by state and the application is made to the court, often with pay stubs or a sworn financial affidavit. Applying costs nothing and does not commit you. Public defenders in impaired-driving cases are frequently the most experienced attorneys in the building on exactly these facts, because they appear on them constantly, and for many people appointed counsel is not the fallback but the better option.
Write the six down before you go in, and write the answers down after. Two consultations compared side by side on the same questions will tell you more than a dozen conversations that wander.