How To Stop
The DOT

from suspending your license after a DUI arrest.

How to Stop the DOT from Suspending Your License After a DUI Arrest.

It may be possible to stop the DOT from suspending your license after you have been arrested for a DUI. If you have filed the Department of Transportation (DOT) form requesting an “administrative suspension review hearing” before the 10 day deadline, you or your lawyer will have a chance to cross examine the officer who arrested you at an informal hearing held at the DOT. If, after the hearing, the DOT decides to suspend your license, your lawyer may be able to get a court order preventing that suspension?

... This is a common misinterpretation, by lawyers and judges alike. The confusion lies in a subtle distinction in the wording of the statute.

About a week or so after the hearing, you should receive a notice from the DOT with their decision and a form to request a judicial review of their decision. Some judges believe that the statute governing this procedure prevents them from reviewing the DOT decision before the day of the trial. This is a common misinterpretation, by lawyers and judges alike. The confusion lies in a subtle distinction in the wording of the statute.

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Wisconsin Statutes § 343.305(8)(c) does indeed provide that the review shall be heard at the time of the trial. The “review” described in subsection (8)(c), however, pertains to a judicial hearing held for the purposes of determining whether to rescind or sustain the administrative suspension. A “stay,” on the other hand, is a separate determination, made available to the court by subsection (8)(c)2, pending or in advance of the court’s decision to rescind or sustain the administrative suspension. Subsection (8)(c)2 provides, in relevant part:

... The department shall vacate the administrative suspension under sub. (7) unless, within 60 days of the date of the request for judicial review of the administrative hearing decision, the department has been notified of the result of the judicial review or of an order of the court entering a stay of the hearing examiner’s order continuing the suspension.

Who Would You Choose?

A courtroom is a place where one’s fate is decided; maybe not today, but at some point. For attorneys to sit around and chit-chat with other attorneys in a disrespectful manner, or to ignore the one person whose rights they are there to defend, is belittling and insulting to clients.

If given the choice between two attorneys who both have winning reputations, who would you choose? The one who ignores you, or the one who keeps you well informed and guides you through the process … And fights like hell for you — every step of the way?