Word: drunken
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When Donald Nichols began his law practice in Minneapolis in 1971, he did what a lot of struggling young attorneys do: he took on cases that nobody else wanted, including the defense of drunken drivers. "At that time it was the garbage of the law business," Nichols recalls. His intention was to spend a couple of years at this beginner's work and then move on to more respectable projects. But today Nichols is still defending drunk drivers, a specialty that has become a thriving subdivision of the legal profession...
...proliferation of lawyers who take on drunken-driving cases is the predictable result of a national crusade to break the connection between alcohol and death on the highways. That movement has been gathering momentum since 1980, when the first branch of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) was formed in California. MADD and its many allies have just had their best year. In 1983, 40 states toughened their drunken-driving statutes. At least nine passed laws mandating jail terms for second offenders; 39 states now have such laws. Eight states, most recently Wisconsin, passed laws raising their drinking ages...
...reports, 28,000 people were killed in accidents involving alcohol; in 1982 the total was 25,600. Although experts agree that there are also other factors, Safety Council Spokesman Charles Hurley credits much of the improvement to "the increased perception by the public of the risk of arrest from drunken driving...
That anxiety has sent accused drunken drivers flocking to their local law offices. "There's a tremendous boom going on in the field," says Nichols, who publishes the Drinking/Driving Law Letter. "You're seeing it nationally, even in states without stiff penalties. The fear level is up all over." Attorney Reese Joye of Charleston, S.C., notes that a decade ago there were only about 30 lawyers in the entire country who had regular trial experience in drunken-driving cases. Today, he estimates, there are at least 100 in every state...
Many are doing very well, in their bank accounts if not in the esteem of all of their colleagues. One Illinois defense attorney wears a heavy gold bracelet emblazoned in diamonds with "ll-501(a)," the legislative designation of the state's drunken-driving law. Unlike many defendants in other kinds of criminal cases, a large number of drunken drivers are middle class and thus able to pay for a competent defense. Even a simple case now costs a client $500 to $1,500 in most parts of the country. As cases get more complicated, fees inevitably rise. Francis...