>> ryan: were with adam feldman. adam is acriminal attorney in phoenix arizona. he's here to answer our online questions forus related, from online questions posted in the internet, if you have direct questionsfor adam, all you have to do is post in comments section below, with that said adam lets goto the first question posted. my son has been charged and i'm on the process of lookingfor an attorney, what questions should i be asking the attorneys in the interview. >> adam: thanks ryan, it's a great questionbecause the truth is most people when they have a loves one who's charged with criminaloffense, this is the first time they've ever had to get an attorney and other thanhopping online they don't know what else
to do and really want to ask questions youasked and answers you get before you hire the attorney are the probably the most importantyou need to do. the first question you need to ask is theattorney is a criminal defense attorney that i'm hiring a former prosecutor and hopefullythe answer is yes the reason that is so important is because, just think about it , anythingyou do ,you always want somebody who has fought from the other side, who knows the other sideand when your former prosecutor like i am, i worked with a lot of these prosecutors before,i know them very well and i know how their systems works, so how better to defend the case thanto already have prosecuted this type of case and to know how it goes and in addition tothat, it's great to have good relationships
with the prosecutors who are prosecutors yourclient, it doesn't mean that you're gonna get something under the table or like somesweetheart deal just because you're a former prosecutor, but what it does it gives youcredibility that a lot of other attorneys don't have to start with because i haveworked with these people before because they know my reputation because they know my workethic, they have a certain level of respect for me from the get-go and that's only goingto help the client ,so that's one of the biggest questions to ask.the next question ,they always wanna ask your attorney is how can i get in touch with you,one of the most frustrating things for clients or for family members is when you call yourlawyer and who do you get? you get a receptionist
receptionist and the receptionist transfers you to the paralegaland the paralegal tells you that the attorney is in court or is somewhere else, youknow but the truth is you have such a difficult time getting in touch with your attorney whenyou hire this big firms so the best question is how do i get in touch with my attorney?and if the answer is call the office you have a problem, the answer to that question shouldbe oh, here his cellphone number every one of my clients gets my cellphone number whenthey call me and i'm in court i'll literally text them and say "hey i'm in court but i'llgonna call you in five minutes" and if i'm not in court i'll pick up the phone and theyget me. they won't get my receptionist ,they won't get my paralegal, they won't getsome interns, they get me, that's really
an important question, another important questionis, who is the attorney that's going to represent me, often times you go to this lawfirms and you know maybe there's a guy in the billboard or the name of a firm but thetruth is you're never gonna meet that attorney certainly not going to be represented by himin any capacity so the best question is who is my attorney, the answer should be the guywho you sit down with, the guy who's doing the intake and with me that's exactly whathappens. so who's my attorney? is it going to be the same attorney every court appearanceor they're going to be swapped attorneys and is my file going to be shuffled through abunch of different attorneyit's a huge question to ask, very important answer to me come fromthat attorney.
>>ryan: ok, great answer, the next questionwas, when i know how much, will i know how much the total cost will be if i choose yourfirm? >> adam: absolutely. there are no hidden orsurprise costs associated with representation ,the ways i do it is a flat fee , and everybodyalways hears then says flat fee and then what if we go to multiple court hearings, one ofmy case last year what if we go to trial ,i will negotiate one flat fee from start tothe finish so doesn't matter how many court hearings i have to go to ,doesn't matterhow many motions have to be filed, it doesn't matter if we go to trial, any of that youwill know what the total bill is from day one and it's not going to change.
>>ryan: ok, this next question probably, imay need some information from you but it says will i be required to testify? >> adam: every case is different and here'show it goes, you have a right not to testify ,so that will be ultimately be a questionfor you to answer on your own but with my help i'd says the majority of the cases,don't require a defendant to testify and the reason is because lot of times those clientshave information that would be incriminating for example a standard dui case , we can wina dui trial base on the state's inability to prove their case against you without evenyou testifying ,we will be attacking the blood drawn or breathe or what the officer did ,itreally have nothing to do with you whether
you were drinking and driving ,it's reallyjust attacking the states case against you, so in that case we attacked them you don'ttestify ,not guilty, and that's great , and the other example is that let say you havea self-defense case and a homicide trial well that is a case where you are going to haveto testify because in order to push forward that self-defense , aspect you're goingto be the person who's telling the jury that you were in fear for your life and youhave no other option but to defend yourself the way that it happened ,so will you haveto testify? well, that depends on the charges, it depends on the evidence ,and depends onwhat we decide but no matter what if you do testify you will be very well prepared inwhat to expect and how to do it.
>>ryan: alright, our next question ,i wascharged with assault ,i'm on video at a bar so i'm not sure if i can fight thischarge, do i have any possible defenses. >> adam: absolutely. videos are great evidencefor the state but its not everything often times the videos are great often times thevideos are separated into almost like several still shots where it goes every second thereis a still shot and it's not a continuous video that you would see watching advd at home. most importantly, just because there's a video it doesn't mean that thestates going to be able to use that against you they have to fill a tremendous amount ofrequirements enable to, in order to allow them to use this video against you. a lotof times the state doesn't have the ability
to overcome that burden so that they don'teven able to use that video ,so where my client might initially think ,"i'm sunk" they'vegot a video ,there's no real reason to hire an attorney" is the opposite of that becauseyou need that attorney to try to keep those videos out and now on top of that video maybeyou know it's you on the video but is there anybody else say that is you there's isa true way to try to identify that the person in that video as being you, a lot of timesanswer is no, so video doesn't necessarily mean you're done for ,there's a lot thatcan be done there. >>ryan: ok, and the final question we haveis that i have two felonies when i was younger, i have no run-ins with the law in many manyyears, is it possible to clear that convictions
for my record? >> adam: the answer is, kind of, most peoplecoming to the office, excuse me, most people coming to the office and they ask about expungingtheir record, the bad news is in arizona there is no expungement process, there's somethingsimilar and i'll on touch on that in a few seconds, you don't getto expunge things ,to make matters worse, in this day in age of internet and publicrecords ,truth is that even if we can ,clear your record, is somebody search hard enough,through the internet through sophisticated search engine, they're probably going to beable to find at least something existed at one point and here's what does happened inarizona ,we can and often do file motions
to vacate judgment of guilt so you've beenfound guilty one way or the other and you went to trial your convicted or you pleadguilty to something ,time goes by and there is still that conviction on your record and anytime you'refilling an application form for a loan or a job or housing out comes the question youhave been convicted and unfortunately checkbox yes well this is where we can help ,when youvacate the judgment of guilt you're basically asking the court "hey look, other person wasonce legally convicted of a crime ,we want the record to reflect that now there are notrue convictions on his or her record and often times that's granted so next timequestions come up having convicted of an offense ,the true legal answer is no, i have no convictionson my record like i said were gonna go back
full circle ,well what if someone searcheshard enough , i'm saying no i don't have convictions because the court truly vacatedit ,they still find something on the record then when i heard my clients do is to oftentimes attach a form letter that i provide that that really describes that really describeswhat happens back in 2007 or whenever this happened several years ago i was convictedfor dui, i have no run-ins with the law since and as a result that conviction was vacatedso in the eyes of the court i no longer have any convictions on my record and what i foundis that legal letter when is attached to application for home loans or really anything like employmentit helps the employer or the lender understand your situation and often times it gets youwhat you want.
>>ryan: ok, excellent! well if you have additionalquestions for adam all you need is just post them to the comment section below and alsoobviously so you can call us directly if you have more pressing issue and thank you foryour time adam. >> adam: thanks so much ryan, i appreciatethe questions.
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